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| Looking out across the Hudson River Valley from the Catskills |
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| View from North Point Trail |
Located in the fabled Catskills mountain
range, the Catskill Park in New York with 98 peaks over 3,000 feet and hundreds
of miles of hiking trails was a little over a day’s drive north for us. So, off we went to New York! On the way we camped for two nights at a
commercial campground near Binghamton, NY to get re-supplied and ready to spend
several nights out in the state campgrounds, or as they are known here, the New
York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) campgrounds.
One of the many waterfalls in Mary's Glen
In 1894, New York State began setting aside
land in the Catskills as wild forest.
Ten years later a boundary was established around 705,500 mountainous
acres and the Catskill Park was born. Today
the park is still a mixture of public and private land. Many people think the Catskill Park and the
Catskill Forest Preserve are the same thing, but they are not. The preserve’s 300,000 acres are state-owned
and protected as “forever wild,” within the larger park boundary.
Mary's Glen Trail
New York City owns about 40,000 acres in the
Catskill Park around several reservoirs where the city gets nearly 90% of its
drinking water. So besides being
beautiful and a much loved recreational area, the Catskills provide water and
other precious resources such as timber, minerals and farm crops.
Fern Forest
Lady Fern
We spent our first two nights at Little
Pond Campground in the southeastern part of the park. Of course it rained, but it was much
cooler and we enjoyed hiking around Little Pond and exploring the trails around
Touchmenot Mountain.
Mountain Laurel was in full bloom along the trails in the Catskills
Next we moved to
the northeastern part of the park to North-South Lake Campground. We absolutely loved our hike through the
waterfalls at Mary’s Glen, the climb up to North Point and then on the
Escarpment Trail to Sunset Rock and lastly Artist’s Rock with amazing views of
the Hudson River Valley.
Mary's Glen
The east is such a contrast to the dry west
in summertime. And this year is a wet
one even by eastern standards. We can’t
get over how lush the vegetation is. Many of the trails were little rivers and the rocks we scrambled over were little waterfalls.
We weren’t sure if we were on the trails or in the streams about half
the time. David joked that we built our trails beside streams in the west, not in them.
On the trail or in the stream?
I was so excited to harvest and eat my
first wild blueberries of the season while we were having lunch near North
Point. It is still not peak season but
many of the berries growing on the rocky terrain were beginning to ripen. I only ate a few, saving most for the bears
and other wildlife. Speaking of bears,
we saw fresh tracks in the mud on the trail, but no actual bear sightings. Bears were definitely around though. Our camping neighbors, Jeff and Wendy, saw a
bear while they were hiking.
Blueberries and lichen
Jeff and
Wendy live in the Albany area and gave us great tips on where to go and things
to do in nature while we were visiting New York.
They recommended several hikes and places to visit in the Adirondack
Mountains, our next destination. We
will definitely be checking out their suggestions in just a few days as we are
off to visit the Adirondacks very shortly.
Bear Track!
View from the Escarpment Trail looking north
David's Stats:
Days Hiked 2
Total Miles Hiked 14.62
Ave. Miles per Day 6.40
Total Elevation Gain 2,085
Ave. Elevation Gain per day 972
Days Hiked 2
Total Miles Hiked 14.62
Ave. Miles per Day 6.40
Total Elevation Gain 2,085
Ave. Elevation Gain per day 972
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