Up to the hills and back in time

If you are a Westerner, you may never have been to the Catskills, but you’ve been there countless times through fiction, movies, folklore, and in America’s relationship with wilderness that was forged in its hills and kills (that means creeks). You’ve imagined Rip Van Winkle waking groggily from a twenty-year sleep. You’ve inherited a romantic idea of man’s relationship with nature that saw its full blossoming here. You’ve thrilled to read about a boy striking out on his own in the woods in My Side of the Mountain. And you’ve seen the Catskills’ pop culture incarnations in “Dirty Dancing” (filmed in North Carolina, but set here), in the comic style of Borscht Belt comedians, and in movies about New York City kids going to summer camp.

I didn’t realize any of this until I decided on a whim last weekend that we should get away, and that the Catskills seemed like a nature-y area within driving distance. Over a 48-hour period I ingested all the information and history I could about this gorgeous and fascinating region. Will I bore you with all of that here? No! Wait until I corner you in conversation at a bar. But there are pictures!

Note: There are no pictures of Day 1 of our trip, because my camera batteries died. That day we visited the heart of the northern Catskills, hiking several miles up a trail (in occasional thunderous downpours) that used to be a carriage road to utterly majestic 19th-century hotels. Neither the Hotel Kaaterskill nor the Catskills Mountain House remains. Left only are a few foundations and the views across the Hudson Valley that drew artists, writers, socialites, presidents, and royalty from around the world for more than a hundred years.

Along the way also was dramatic geology in huge boulders that showed the signs of glaciation as well as elaborate inscriptions by visitors dating to the 1850s. The glades along the trail were enchanting and I couldn’t stop envisioning fairies dancing among mushrooms, or the idea of what it must have been like to traverse this terrain in carriages or on foot in Civil War or Victorian times. (Shut up, I’m an imaginative girl!)

Day 2 (Isn’t this a lot of words for a two-day trip? Tip of the iceberg.) Kaaterskill Falls is another marquee attraction in the area, and always has been. It’s the highest waterfall in New York State and has been painted innumerable times, beginning with the Hudson School painters and leading up to the several people we saw along the trail with easel and palette.

Thomas Cole was there.

Asher B. Durand was there, and painted Thomas Cole and William Cullen Bryant into a composite.

And then we were there!

Notice little tiny me lying down to better appreciate the wondrousness.

This is actually Bastion Falls, on the way down the trail. And as close as I'll get to the edge.

Um, this is in the town of Phoenicia. Yay, Hurleys!

Then, it was down to the Woodstock area (terrible town—never go there—taken over by tie-dye and drum circles), for one last hike that turned out to be straight up the side of a not-very-interesting mountain. The payoff for nearly giving ourselves heart attacks on the climb? Actual standing ruins of another of the grand old hotels, the Overlook Mountain House. This one is a cheat because two earlier versions (built in 1871 and 1878) burned down, and this poured-concrete building only dates back to the 1920s.

Also, just before yet another rainstorm arrived, we climbed a very tall and precarious-feeling fire lookout tower to the tippy-top.

Then, home again home again through a purple twilight along the east banks of the Hudson River. More exploring to come in the future.