The Devil's Path Catskills is a perfect hiking destination for hikers and peak baggers located in Greene County section of Catskill Mountains near to the New York City. It is considered as the toughest hiking trail in the Eastern United states. The trail is well spread across the eponymous mountain range and three other peaks to the west.
Due to straight up and down structure of the climbs and steep gaps between the four peaks of the range, it offers a lot of adventure sports to passionate hikers. They use both hand and feet to climb and pull through the vertical cliffs and rocky chutes. These climbs creates lot of dynamic and jaw dropping views of the Catskill range and adds feather to the attraction for Devil's Path Catskills
The total number of peaks in the Catskill Range is thirty five and Devil's Path Catskills offers hikers to reach five of them. Many hikers plan day trips to trail one to two peaks and professionals complete the entire trail in a single day. The easy availability of a Government owned playground near the single road crossing at Stony Clove Notch.allows for weekend trips also.
The modern Devil’s Path Catskills was first carved from the Old Overlook Road to Mink Hollow in 1929 after property acquaintance by the state government. The information was provided by the famous Catskill forest historian Michael Kudish.According to him, the plateau was shaped in 1934 and in the next year one of the route was opened for trailling.In 1973, new routes were opened up down to the falls and over West Kill. Currently, proposals and ideas are being drawn for the remaining two routes on North Dome Mountain and Mount Sherrill.
Coming back to the Devil's Path Catskills, it has a single road crossing at the Steve Clove Notch and the crossing divides the trail into two equal halves Eastern and Western. The former is more challenging then the later.
The Eastern section features four peaks with the structure of the trail going straight up and down the line in the gaps with rugged terrain. The first peak is the Schoharie headwaters which come just after the start as an unnamed tributary for Schoharie Creek. The trail turns south from here onwards and crosses the state boundary after a short distance. After a mile, the blue colored Jimmy Dolan Notch Trail crosses over the Schoharie. Other peaks in the Eastern section are Indian Head, Twin southern peak, Sugarloaf and another steep and rock climbing Plateau Montain.The view of some of the peaks is just amazing and they are stuffed with greenery all round making it a pleasant, relaxing trailing exercise and making this section extremely popular
Western section offers trailing peak of one of the mountain and offers attractions like Hunter and West Kill and the later was the newest addition in the peaks.
In a nutshell, we can conclude that the 27 mile trail is a joy ride and Car drivers and people seeking to do it from end to end will require 2 cars to complete the trail.
By Mohnish Bohra
Author Can be contacted at mohnish.bohra1982@gmail.com
