Trip to NY

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This was my first real hike. I decided to take up hiking as a way to get into better shape, and the trails I had been walking in the parks and reserves around my area in NJ did nothing to prepare me for my hike up Overlook Mountain. The hike is up an old carriage road they used to cart people up to the Overlook Mountain House. The trail is wide and well-maintained. The ascent is about 1500 feet in 2½ miles, 2 miles to the ruins of the Mountain House, and another ½ mile to the summit. I had brought what I thought were enough supplies but halfway up realized should have brought more water and Gatorade because the hot midday sun made the trek slightly more exhausting than I anticipated. Luckily, there are many places to stop, rest, and catch your breath. The Mountain House ruins are 2 miles up the trail and serves as an imposing marker to the near end of the journey. Built and rebuilt three times, the Mountain House stands as a reminder of the Guilded Age vacationers who came to the Catskills before the advent of the automobile.

The summit is another ½ mile up the trail and the trek is definitely worth it as the views are spectacular. There is a fire tower that seems safe enough until halfway up and the boards feel a little loose and the wind buffets the structure causing it to move ever so slightly. The scenic overlook down the trail a little bit is gorgeous. You can see the Hudson River Valley and other peaks of the Catskill Mountain Range. The trip back down the mountain wasn't nearly as strenuous as the ascent, but the extreme angle makes it a little rough on the knees. If you go, go prepared, buy comfortable hiking shoes, a good hiking stick, and bring plenty of water and Gatorade. Take your time, it's not a race, when you finish you finish. The hike is very popular, you will encounter many people as I did, and is rated as moderate in the guide book I bought before my trip.

I wanted to kill time on my way up to Cooperstown and found a short hike along the way. If you follow 23A you will come to Kaaterskill Falls somewhere near Hunter, NY. The parking is after a bend in the road and you have to walk the shoulder of the road, trying not to get hit by trucks and such. The trailhead is at the extreme of a hairpin turn. To the falls is ½ miles. You climb up rocks and tree roots and placed logs to get to the ultimate destination, all the time Kaaterskill Creek flows and rolls passed you to the left. Many glacial erratics sit imposingly to the sides, a testament to the power of the great ice sheets that once covered the land. The trail is relatively easy, with few tough spots; it ends with the actual falls which ascend 260 feet. The main falls are basically three tiered and you can scramble across some precarious rocks to get to the second tier, but having hiked some 5 or 6 miles the day before, I just didn't feel like it.

The scene is very serene and you can see why people have been coming here for a good century and a half as this has been a popular destination since the time of Thoreau and Emerson. You can reach the top of the falls by driving down the road a bit, I got directions from a Tourist Kiosk by the motel I stayed at. The trail to the top of the falls is easy, only about a ¼ mile downhill. The top gives you some great views, but it is unadvisable to try to get to the creek itself as the angle is wet, slippery and steep. There are several trails which lead to and from the top of the falls, but as a thunderstorm was rolling in, and I was at the top of a mountain, holding an aluminum hiking stick I decided to go back to my car and continue to Cooperstown. The falls were great, just be careful on the road, as they are doing construction and there really isn't a shoulder for most of the walk to and from the trailhead.