Hiking Trail Description

The Ashokan Quarry Trail is a new, short and highly entertaining hike most people will be able to do in under an hour. It’s so varied in terms of terrain, flora, views and ruins, it’s a hit with younger hikers, too.

This trail was built by the Catskill Mountain Club and the NYC DEP, with support from the Ashokan Watershed Stream Management Program. More info on the Catskill Mountain Club’s page.

Ashokan Quarry Trailhead

The trailhead for the Ashokan Quarry Trail is on the south side of the Ashokan Reservoir. It’s just a minute or two west of the Lemon Squeeze on 28A.

The entrance to the trailhead is in the south side of the road — if you’re driving west, away from the Lemon Squeeze, it’ll be on your left.

You can see the exact topographic location of the lot at the bottom of this page.

Hiking Trail

Enter the trail past the iron gate and begin hiking uphill. No single section of this trail is very long before the terrain and the flora around you change dramatically.

The first notable thing you pass is a small ruin on your left.

Not long after the ruin, you’ll come to the first intersection.

Turn left and head uphill, following the blue blazes.

After another 1000’ the trail turns abruptly to the right and leads you quickly to this spectacular view, which looks west to Ashokan High Point and Little Ashokan…

To the right of Ashokan High Point, you can see most the Burroughs Range (Friday, Cornell and Wittenberg) and Samuels Point (the large hump in the middle of the photo above).

Catskills 3500’ Mountain Club members and aspirants will be delighted to see, on the far right, North Dome.

Ashokan Quarry Trail: Quarry Top

Not far after this panorama you come to the top of the main quarry, where there’s another great view of Ashokan High Point.

The Ashokan Quarry Trail winds around the top of the cliff, before heading downhill to the right. The blazing here is not always perfectly clear. When you get to the flat trail at the bottom of this section, just turn right and follow it past some dramatic rock bands.

My GPS track shows the exploring I did around here. I went off-trail to follow the old flat rail bed as far as I could (to Samsonville Road) before turning around. Luckily, I decided to take a slightly different route back to the blue trail and discovered the ruins you’ll read about below.

That is, you can ignore the way my GPS track deviates here and just stick to the blue-blazed trail.

Ashokan Quarry Trail: Quarry Bottom

Back on the blue trail, right after the exposed/quarried rock band, you’ll come to the main quarry. It’s just off-trail, on the right.

From here, the trail leads straight back to the first intersection and, from there, back to the parking lot.

However, if you want to explore a little more before you go…

Old Railway Ruins

At the quarry shown above, turn around and look directly across the trail. If you head in a straight line into the woods, about 300’ downhill, you’ll come to this fantastic set of old railway yard ruins.

I’d love to know how these old buildings and mechanisms were used…

A little farther down, two long, imposing stone walls stand facing each other — between them, I imagine, railroad cars were once parked and loaded with quarried stone from above…

Head back up to the blue trail, and turn left to return to your car.

There are no tricky or steep sections on this hike — tough, obviously, care should be taken near any cliff faces. Very young children should be reigned in near the top of the quarry. Otherwise, this is a super fun and very family-friendly hike.

Similar Hikes

This easy hike is also beautiful and scenic.

And it’s so fun, I’ve added it to the list of best Catskills hikes.

It’s also short and without much elevation gain — so it’s a fantastic Nature Walk.

I really can’t recommend this hiking trail enough.

The parent mountain for this hike is Ashokan High Point.

If you do this hike, let me know how it went in the comments below. Your feedback makes this site better.