Palenville Overlook - Harding Road

[ssjamk65]

Well, here's my first ever trail report.

After driving over 700 miles to reach North South Lake campgrounds on Monday, Sept. 10, my brother (Jim) and I were ready to hit the trails on Tuesday. We parked a vehicle down on White's Road in Palenville and drove back up to our campsite. We packed lunches and started walking down to the trail head behind North Lake beach. The morning started a little chilly but soon warmed up nicely. We took the Catskill Mountain House carriage trail down to the start of the Palenville Overlook trail. I never realized until this hike how flat that section of the mountain side was. It made for a really nice walk over to PO with a quick trip down to Moses Rock along the way. At PO we came across another hiker and his dog, ( The only other hiker we saw all day. ) After spending some time checking out the views and old foundations at PO we took the unmarked trail over to Indian Head. ( The various maps I have seen call this Point of Rocks, Profile Rock, or High Rocks. Not sure which is correct . ) The unmarked trail was easy to follow, once we found it. We enjoyed the views and watched about a half dozen turkey vultures circle around. Our goal was to bushwack up to Boulder Rock area from here. Well we made it to the horse trail and had enough of the bushwacking. We took the horse trail west over to the Harding Road and headed down the mountain. Very nice walk except both of us were experiencing some knee pain with the downhill part of the hike. Enjoyed seeing the massive amount of work it must have taken to build that road. Overall it was a very enjoyable hike. If I ever try to find the old trail between Boulder and PO it will definately be from Boulder on down as Mike suggested in an earlier post. I'm not sure of the total miles for this hike. (?)

On a side note. I hiked to PO with my dad back in the early 80's. While there an older gentleman(70's) and his grandson came walking up to us. They had come up the old quarry road. He said his grandfather used to live on PO, ( the Dodd House), and that he had to walk down the mountain to school. I would have loved to have talked with him longer. Oh well.

More reports from the week to follow.

Scott

[mike]

Real nice trip report. Great pictures. The route you took is a real nice route. Easy hiking with great views along the way. In the Spring you can sometimes hear or see Barred Owls from the Catskill Mtn Road to PO. The views from PO and Indian Head are always excellent. I see from your route, you took the old trail from Indian Head up to the trail. This is the part of the trail that used to run up to Boulder Rock. The climb from Indian Head up to the trail is a steep climb, but it cuts out a mile of hiking. But, it is difficult climbing up the rocky bank. The Harding Road is quite nice. I like it better in the Winter months when the leaves are not on the trees. It was originally built for the Kaaterskill Hotel. Look forward to your next trail report.