Wednesday, June 4, 3008
Since I was already planning to drive to Palenville for tonight's 2nd race in the Catskill Mountain Series, the 2.25 mile High Rock trail run, and since Kaaterskill Falls, one of the highest in New York State, is only a few miles past Palenville into the Catskill State Forest, it was a no-brainer to go down early and hike in to take some pictures of the falls. Especially since the path is much less crowded on a typical weekday. (As it was, even with somewhat crappy weather and in the middle of the week, I still ran into 4 groups of hikers making the short trek to see the falls.)
The road between Palenville and the Falls parking area twists and winds its way up through the mountains - it's always both fun and a bit nerve-wracking to drive, since typically one side of the road is hillside or cliff and the other is a long drop. Which just means I take my time and not to enjoy the scenery, as gorgeous as it is! Arrived at the parking lot surprised to see several other cars there... so much for my epxectations of solitude. Pulled my gear together, and hiked the quarter mile down the side of the road to the trailhead, which is right next to a smaller but very nice waterfall, Bastion Falls. As I approached the trailhead a car pulled up and out piled a family of 5. As the wife and kids headed off on the trail, I recommended the upper lot to the husband, implying that he might find his car towed if he left it at the trailhead (hey, I walked from the parking area.) Then I wandered around Bastion Falls for a while, taking pictures and letting them get well ahead of me. I was pleased to see a decent amount of water in the creek - further down the mountain the water had looked very low and I had been worried I'd find a trickle of water at the falls.
Hiked the half mile trail in... while this is an "easy" trail to hike, there's still a lot of short ups and downs, and lots of rocks and roots to scramble around, and the wet ground made things a little bit slick. For the first part of the walk, the path follows fairly closely along the stream, and I detoured down to it at several points to snap photos. Took my time and enjoyed the walk... the family that had headed in before me passed me on their way back, and a short time later I came out at the end of the trail, below the lower half of Kaaterskill Falls.
Kaaterskill Falls has two drops - the first is about 165 feet and drops down into a bowl, before flowing over the 2nd drop of about 65 feet, below which the water flows over a multitude of boulders as it makes its way downstream. Water level can cary considerably... the first time I saw the falls in the 1980's water there was more water than I've seen since (though my memory may be embellishing that... I also remember doing a lot of the hike along the streambed) and around a week later when I went back to take pictures it was barely a trickle - today was a happy medium, plenty of water to show off the falls.
After spending a little time admiring the water from down below, I scrambled up the hillside to the upper level... unfortunately, while the scramble up wasn't too difficult, the soil was wet enough and loose enough that I didn't think I'd be able to make it back down the way I'd come up. The route down on the far side looked like it might be a little easier, and I vaguely remembered going down that way years ago, so I made my way along the path at the upper edge of the bowl, which actually runs under an overhang and goes behind the upper part of the falls. For a little while there were some noisy hikers down in the bowl, but thankfully they disappeared fairly quickly, and I had the area to myself.
Since time was getting short I didn't hike down into the bowl, just headed over to the other side, where I discovered that the trip down would not be a picnic. I ended up really wishing I'd worn shoes with a more aggressive tread; I also ended up sliding down parts of the path on my backside, since that was the only way I could be sure I wouldn't go down the hillside head first. Had a few mildly scary moments, but eventually made it to the bottom in one piece.
Time was really getting short by then, so I hustled back down the trail, glad I'd taken a lot of pictures on the way in. Made it back out to the road in record time (OK, a lot faster than the hike in) and hustled up the hill to the car for the drive back down into Palenville and the High Rock run...
One thing this hike showed me was the limitations of my Garmin Forerunner... the wrist unit showed a fairly believable mileage for the hike, but when I transferred the data to the computer it became clear both that the unit had lost the signal on several occasions, and the distance estimate was way off (the computer claimed I'd hiked 4 miles!) A handy reminder that while my GPS is good... it's not perfect!
JMH
