Return to Hunter Mountain

Several weeks back, Jahnsy and I tried unsuccessfully to make a circuit hike of Hunter Mountain, to take in the sights and see the Fire Tower.  It was our first time in the area.  Most unfortunately, the trail went missing, map skills notwithstanding.  It might be that we confused a dry stream bed for the actual thing, or it might be that we were having too good a time swapping stories.  Whatever the case, the trail moved from beneath our feet, the blazes blazed by, and we found ourselves more than a little turned about.  Using some old school orienteering, and later looking at other maps, it would seem that we were within a hundred yards or so of the summit, but so hemmed in with trees that bushwacking back to the car was our only escape.  We vowed to come back.  Join us on the return expedition; clearly we can’t promise success, or even stunning vistas - - only the glory of another fool’s errand and a few more laughs along the way.

Hunter Mountain is in the towns of Hunter and Lexington, just south of the village of Hunter, in Greene County, New York. At approximately 4,040 feet (1,234 m) in elevation, it is the highest peak in the county and the second-highest peak in the Catskill Mountains.

While the mountain is closely associated with the highly popular eponymous ski area built around the Colonel's Chair ridge at the mountain's northwest corner, that takes up only a small portion of the mountain. The actual summit, some distance from the ski area, is graced with a fire lookout tower, the highest in the state and second-highest in the Northeast. The former road to it is open to hikers, horses (and possibly mountain bikers in the future). It is the most popular route to the mountain's summit.  We, however, will be taking the road less traveled, if we can find it, past Notch Lake, up and away from Devil’s Tombstone campground.   

The red-blazed trail begins steeply, switching back past shale cliffs known as the Devil's Portal, then following an old barkpeeler's road. It returns to a more standard trail at the upper limit of the hemlocks and levels out just under 3,500 feet (1,100 m), an ascent of about 1,500 vertical feet (457 m) in its first mile. The next 1.15 mile (1.9 km) is a pleasant, level stroll through the heavily logged areas now dominated by paper birch and red spruce. Just before the Devil's Acre Lean-to, the yellow-blazed Hunter Mountain Trail departs to the north. It reaches the trail junction at the site of the old fire tower after 1.35 miles (2.2 km). From there it is 0.2 miles (400 m) to the summit on a level but often wet extension of the Spruceton Trail.

Devil's Tombstone is located in a rugged mountain pass in the Catskill Mountains called Stony Clove. The word "clove" comes from the old Dutch work "Kloove", which means "gash or cut in the body of mother earth". It is rumored that Stony Clove was a favorite haunt of the Devil during the early days in settlement of the Catskills. One object closely associated with the Devil still survives in the campground, it is the Devil's Tombstone. The tombstone is a large boulder, approximately seven feet by five, which was probably carried down the mountain many centuries ago by a landslide or glacier.