Best Hikes
The Best Catskills Hiking Trails & Hikes
This hand-curated selection of the most rewarding hikes you can do in the Catskill Park combines the best of the High Peaks, the best of the Lower Peaks, the best hiking trails, the best bushwhacks, and the best views.
Below, you’ll find a mix of hiking trails and routes that cross a variety of terrain. Most of the hikes are fully trailed, a few are bushwhacks. Some you can tackle solo. Others should definitely be undertaken with a partner or as part of a group hike.
However you plan to hike the Catskills, this list guarantees an awesome time, every time.
Hike Blackhead & Black Dome via Batavia Kill
This route crosses some of the most beautiful hiking trails in the Catskill Mountains. I think this is the best route for hiking Blackhead.
Hike Twin from Roaring Kill
This is one of the most entertaining hiking trails in the Catskill Park, leading up to one of its grandest panoramic views — but it also contains what is maybe the Park’s most challenging, technical and potentially dangerous trail sections. The Devil’s Path is famous for being one of the most difficult hiking trails in the US.
Hike Balsam From Rider Hollow
A truly delightful Catskills hike. Climb Balsam Mountain by hiking up Mine Hollow and down Rider Hollow. One of the most picturesque hikes in the Catskills.
Sloan Gorge Preserve
You don’t have to climb a mountain to experience the Catskills. The lowlands have so much to offer. Sloan Gorge Preserve is a great example: an absolutely delightful, short, and family-friendly nature walk.
Hike Windham High Peak from Peck Road
This is the hike I recommend to anyone who’s never hiked in the Catskills before, or is wondering if they’d even be able to handle a mountain hike. (Yes, you can.) It’s a short and easy hike — but it’s also very beautiful and so rewarding.
New Hiking Trail: Ashokan Quarry Trail
The Ashokan Quarry Trail is a brand new, short, but 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, I suspect it will be a hit with younger hikers, too.
Kelly Hollow Loop: An Easy & Exceptionally Beautiful Hike
Short, easy and thoroughly absorbing, Kelly Hollow Loop is one of the most beautiful trails in the Catskills. It came highly-recommended to me from several friends and it really delivered.
Hike Plateau via Daley Ridge
This is one of the most outstanding and exceptionally well-designed trails in the Catskills. It offers multiple scenic viewpoints, some of which are the best in the Park. The rocky terrain and rolling woods on Daley Ridge are epic the whole way up.
Best Hike in the Catskills: Wittenberg, Cornell, Slide
This hike does not disappoint. It’s long and difficult, with some hairy sections, but the rewards are enormous and regular, pouring generously into your day, one after another. I’ve decided it’s the best hike in the Catskills. This hike has a lot of elevation gain.
Hike Indian Head
Indian Head is the smallest mountain on the infamous Devil’s Path trail. But it’s also the most delightful. The other five peaks are wonderful too, of course, each in their own way — the scale! the drama! the views! — but hiking Indian Head is a very special, intimate, and rewarding experience.
Hike Balsam Lake Mountain
This route combines the easiest ascent to any summit in the Catskill Park with a much more interesting (and far less trafficked) descent down the south side of the mountain. I also tried to find the scenic view, and visited a lean-to. It’s quite easy to drive past the parking area for Balsam Lake because it’s directly after a curve on Millbrook Rd.
Hike Sugarloaf & Twin from Roaring Kill
Any hike that includes Twin Mountain is a great hike. From either side, Twin offers some the funnest ascents in the Catskill Park. The eastern side is tough, with wonderful giant boulders to climb over and classic Devil’s Path terrain that leads up to one of the great ledge views in the Park.
Hike Friday, Balsam Cap & B25 Crash Site from Moonhaw
If you want a long, rewarding untrailed hike, this is it: some of the toughest miles you can do in the Catskills. This track shows my preferred route up Friday Mountain. Take a minute to review the main Friday Mountain page which describes the two main approaches: straight up the ridge-line or via the woods roads route.
Hike Kaaterskill High Peak & 2 Plane Wrecks
KHP’s summit is a Catskills classic with a spectacular view from Hurricane Ledge. This route takes in two eerie plane wrecks, and there is much to see on the long trek in and out. This a tough, muddy, rewarding hike.
Hike Table & Peekamoose from Denning
I was not prepared for how much I would fall in love with this hike. I’d heard both summits were low on scenic views so my plan was to just check both peaks off my 3500 list and move on. Wrong. So wrong. 100% dead-ass wrong.
Hike Blackhead & Black Dome from Big Hollow via Lockwood Gap
An outstanding double-bill that combines an epic view of Black Dome from Blackhead with an epic view of Blackhead from Black Dome. This is one of my favorite hikes in the Catskills.
