Palenville Overlook and Indian Head Ledge
When most people start hiking in the Catskills, their goal is to hike the list of the 3500's. Not me. I wanted to explore everything that the Catskills has to offer. There's so much more to the Catskills than the 3500's and a lot of people don't realize that. Oh well, more for me and the people who truly love the Catskills!!
My next destination was located on the eastern escarpment of the Catskills called Palenville Overlook and Indian Head Ledge. The escarpment trail is one of the most scenic hikes in the Catskills. View after view, plus it has a great amount of history behind it. Three incredibly massive and wealthiest hotels were built here in the early and late 1800's, some of the most skilled artists painted, wrote poems and novels here and it was one of the first places that could be deemed America's first wilderness.
Anywhere you hike on the escarpment trail is amazing. There are several parts to the escarpment and I decided to start at Scutt Road, a place I am very familiar with. I could of parked up near the top of South Lake and taken the easier, shorter way, but the south eastern part of the escarpment is an amazing hike that I couldn't pass by.
Not even a mile off the trail is the famous Kaaterskill Falls. This waterfall is 230 feet tall and one of the biggest waterfalls in New York State. I had the option to go there, but the water flow was low and I decided to continue on the trail. My first stop was at a ledge that shows you a great view of the Kaaterskill Clove and all the massive ravines inside of it.
The photo below shows the Santa Cruz Ravine and Round Top Mountain peaking above the ravine. This ravine has several waterfalls in it. Some over 60 feet tall.
When hiking along the escarpment, you'll get views all throughout the hike. Most of them are of the Kaaterskill Ravine. Below is a photo of the Hillyer and Wildcat Ravines. Both of these ravines have massive waterfalls inside of them.
Below is a photo of the Buttermilk Ravine.
As you can see, it was a sunny, beautiful day. All these ravines have massive waterfalls in them. Most, if not all, of them are extremely difficult to reach. Someday I will be visiting all these ravines.
As you keep moving along the trail, you keep getting different angles of the ravines and of the mountains across from you, Kaaterskill High Peak and Roundtop Mountain(pictured above). Kaaterskill High Peak is an awesome, fun mountain to climb. KHP's and Roundtops unique shape makes it an resemble a series of waves or maybe even shark fins!
Below is a picture from one of the numerous ledges along the trail. This is looking down into the town of Palenville and the Hudson Valley. If you look closely, in the middle of the left ridge, you can see a ledge sticking out of the mountain. That's Indian Head Ledge and that's where I'm heading to next!
Below is a panoramic photo of one of the ledges along the escarpment. Look at the massive ravines in the middle. Those ravines support 60-300 foot cascading waterfalls inside them!!
The trail is relatively flat and doesn't have that much difficultly involved in it. It was very slippery from the sun melting the small amount of snow left behind and in the shaded areas, ice was present. But nothing to make me turn around and ditch the hike. I continued around the rim of the escarpment and finally got to the ridge of South Mountain. On the other side of the hike, a trail leads to the overlook. Since I was on the opposite end, I didn't have a trail and I decided to just descend right down the mountain instead of add on another mile or so to the hike. It was steep, but nothing that I haven't handled before.
After bushwhacking for a little bit, I ended up right in between the Palenville Overlook and Indian Head Ledge. I decided to hit up Indian Head Ledge first.
The view from Indian Head Ledge was spectacular. It showed me up the Kaaterskill Ravine and down into the Hudson Valley. The picture below is looking up through the ravine with Kaaterskill High Peak and Round Top Mountain above it:
A panoramic view of the view from Indian Head Ledge:
Below is the view looking out into the Hudson valley:
Another view looking down into the valley. Palenville Overlook is the ledge in the distance to the left.
Look at how steep the mountain is leading up to the overlook!!
Looking up the Kaaterskill Ravine again.
After taking a ton of pictures, I headed on over to Palenville Overlook. The photo below is the view from the overlook looking into the Hudson Valley. You can see the reflection of the sun hitting the Hudson River in the middle of the picture
Below is a panoramic photo from the Palenville Overlook. It was a stunning site to see the Hudson Valley, the Kaaterskill Mountain Range and the Kaaterskill Ravine at just one place.
A view of Indian Head ledge from the overlook. Hmmmm, I wonder why they called it Indian Head Ledge!
A look down the ledge from the overlook. A straight drop of around 50-70 feet!
For some reason, I didn't take pictures of 'The Chairs'. At the overlook, there are chairs made up of loose stone. These chairs kind of look like thrones made up of rock. They were probably made a really long time ago and have been enhanced by people with the growing popularity of hiking in the area. I did get a snap shot of them off of my video I posted on facebook though!
I soaked in the views for a good amount of time and had my lunch. I even got a little sun burnt from being out on the ledge for to long! Never underestimate the power of the sun. Even in February!!
After lunch and the view, I followed a faded trail that lead me to a hiking/horse trail to the north. What I should of done was just bushwhacked back up the mountain and got back on the escarpment trail. I followed the trail and it added an extra mile or so to my hike. Oh well. I finally was back on the escarpment and headed north west to get around South Mountain and back to the parking area.
On this 8 mile, 4 hour hike, I didn't see a single person until I got near the parking area. Total solidarity. Just me and mother nature. What an awesome hike!!