Kaaterskill Rail Trail — Attraction in Town of Hunter

The Kaaterskill Rail Trail offers a beautiful wooded walk through Haines Falls in eastern New York, nestled in the northern Catskills. It begins at the historical Ulster & Delaware Train Station, built in 1913, that serves as headquarters for the Mountain Top Historical Society (parking available) and offers a small museum and information center. The rail-trail continues along the former U&D Railroad, which once took tourists through the area, into the Kaaterskill Wild Forest to end at the top of Kaaterskill Falls, one of the highest waterfalls in the state.

A new footbridge built by New York State DEC crosses Spruce Creek (Lake Creek) above Kaaterskill Falls and now links the rail-trail to the Escarpment Trail, which offers a rugged and scenic hiking experience, and the popular North-South Lake State Campground.

At the north end of the trail there is an easy connection to walking-only trails leading to a scenic overlook of Kaaterskill Falls as well as a trail to the bottom of the falls. The trailhead parking lot at that end off of Laurel House Road has...

Parking is hard to come by around the falls. The historical society will charge you $20 per car to park in their large lot at this trailhead. There’s also the original train station here that is open for visitors to explore. First 1.5 miles is the rail trail, which takes you to the trail for the falls. Total round trip if you do all three levels of the falls and back is 5.2 miles and took us 2.5 hours with multiple stops to take in the beautiful views. Wear tennis or hiking shoes; flip flops or slip ons will not cut it if you want to hike all the way to the bottom of the falls. Bottom 1/3 of falls hike is very steep steps with many loose stones. Outhouses only and bring...

I received a recommendation to go to a place like this, I was there a couple of months ago and the recommendation definitely paid off. The walk is about an hour at an easy pace, a little tougher on the way back because it's uphill, but overall it was amazing. The view is crazy. It was a little busy and on the way back we had to walk very slowly because there were a crazy amount of people, but it was still worth it in a crazy beautiful place suitable for young people, families, couples, really for all types of people. I personally highly recommend going if you are...