Popular Catskills Hikes
The Most Popular Catskills Hiking Trails
These Catskills mountain hikes are beloved and often busy to the point of being beleaguered, especially at weekends. But they’re popular for a reason: most offer stunning scenic views from ledges or fire towers.
High Use Areas
Use this list to plan your visit — either to avoid known popular locations during busy times, or to visit them during off-peak hours, or on off-peak days.
On busy weekends, several high-use areas — e.g. Peekamoose Blue Hole, Kaaterskill Falls, Plattekill Clove — are staffed with specially trained Catskill Stewards. You may also come across forest rangers. Their collective job is to help preserve our wild lands, though we can all be stewards through our sensitive use of the outdoors.
Timing is Everything
If you’re desperate to get away from people, these are definitely not the hikes for you — at least not at peak hours on peak days. Friday / Saturday / Sunday will see many of their trailheads overflowing by 9am.
Tip 1: Choose well. I prefer to do these hikes mid-week, when most people are at work. Or I will hike them in the very early hours, in the dark, on my way to a summit sunrise.
Tip 2: Have an alternate hike in mind in case you need to switch to Plan B. Especially in 2020, during COVID times, trailheads seem twice as busy as they’ve ever been.
Tip 3: Leave No Trace. Carry out every single item you carry in. Leave zero trash, not even a single scrap of orange peel — it takes six months to decompose!
Hike Overlook Mountain Fire Tower for Sunrise
One of the most popular hikes in the Catskills can be completed in 2-3 hours. Overlook’s fire tower is 60 ft tall and is placed for one of the best views in the Catskills. An excellent view from a large ledge near the summit trail caps this insanely scenic hike.
Hike to Mount Tremper Fire Tower
This short, moderate hike to one of the most popular fire towers in the Catskills ends with an incredible 360° view of dozens of classic Catskill mountains.
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 Giant Ledge & Panther Mountain
This classic route to Giant Ledge is a short moderate hike with a huge pay-off: a series of ledge views which are spectacular in all seasons. This is one of the most popular hiking trails in the Catskills.
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.
Hike Rochester Hollow
An easy hike through beautiful woods leads to a series of magnificent stone fences, ruins, and a memorial to John Burroughs. This is an underutilized and under-appreciated trail. Especially suited to skiers, trail-runners and animal track lovers.
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.
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 Vly & Bearpen
Personal opinion: these are the only two boring Catskill 3500 hikes. Vly has a few small ledges to keep things interesting, barely, but I swear the trailed route up Bearpen has almost nothing to recommend it. Luckily, you can bag both of these hills together on a single, easy out-and-back.
The Absolute Best Route for Hiking Slide Mountain
This route features an easy ascent, great views before and after the summit, and a slightly different descent route that passes through more varied woods and terrain.
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.
Hike Wittenberg & Cornell from Woodland Valley
This is a long and tiring but incredibly rewarding hike. This hike was also memorable because my buddy and I met two hikers from New Jersey who got into serious trouble the same day, kicking off a massive rescue response.
