This was my third hike up a Catskills 3500. As before, I was joined by Maggie's boy. We started at the Devil's Path trailhead off Stony Clove Road. I was worried we might not get a parking spot here due to it being the Labor Day weekend. In fact, while it was a bit crowded, there was still plenty of parking left! Good. We started off around 9 AM, and finished about 2 PM.
It could be that I've forgotten the difficulty of the previous Catskill 3500s we've done. But this one seemed the toughest so far, probably because it took a couple hours longer than previous hikes. According to Catskill Hiker, the elevation gain is 2270 ft and the length of the route is 6.6 miles. According to AllTrails, the length was 6.3 miles and the elevation gain was 2020 ft. Which one should I believe? I'll stick with Catskill Hiker's numbers, since I've used those before.
Here's a short comparison of the current route and our previous ones:
Plateau Mountain Sep 5 2026 | 6.6 mi | 2270 ft elev gain | 5.08 h
Blackhead Nov 5 2025 | 4.4 mi | 1740 ft elev gain | 3.4 h
Slide Mountain Oct 29 2025 | 5.6 mi | 1760 ft elev gain | 3.4 h
So that's about an extra 500 feet up, this time, combined with an extra 500 feet down for a total of 1000 extra feet of elevation change, which is not trivial. Also, there was an extra mile or so of hiking. We didn't exactly get up off the couch to do this hike, but we haven't been training for it either. So we were both feeling beat up by the time we got back to the car.
Despite the aches, this is a fun, straighforward hike. It starts on nicely constructed stone stairs. After a short distance, you enter the now familiar Catskill zone of choss and pebbles. It wasn't bad; going uphill over this was not a problem for us. Warning: we found a broken piece of a trekking pole in here! Those things are not all they're cracked up to be (pun intended).
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| Here we are at about 30 minutes of hiking uphill |
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| About 30 minutes in |
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| There were loads of mushrooms to be found after recent rains. These were right on the trail. |
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| After about an hour of hiking, we came to this brief talus field. |
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| Nearing the plateau. |
On the way up, we met exactly one trekker. He told us that most people don't take the trail in the direction that we were going. I don't know why. This approach seemed the quickest and shortest to get to the summit.
There are two ways to approach the summit. There's a short boulder problem that was easy enough. There's also a set of constructed stairs that bypass that. Of course, I took the boulder problem. YMMV. I forgot to take a pic, sorry!
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| Squashberries near the overlook. |
After hiking up and up, across a couple of switchbacks, perhaps 1.5 hours, we eventually reached the beautiful overlook. We were lucky to have a nice view and some sunshine! We took a short break here. There was a second outlook a bit further on, but it was taken by others, so we didn't dawdle there, but kept moving.
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| The first overlook! This is the best place to take in the view. |
From then on out it was mostly flat hiking over a pleasant trail through evergreens.
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| Crossing the top of Plateau Mountain |
About half way between the overlook and the summit, we found a small pile of personal items to the left of the trail. This was ... disturbing. It would be annoying if it were just a pile of garbage. But someone had left a headlamp, a hat, a deodorant stick, and a kit of fly fishing lures. This would be merely a head-scratcher, but it made us concerned that it might a sign of criminal activity of some sort. We hope whoever lost this is okay.
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| Strange pile of personal items at the top of Plateau Mountain |
As we hiked along the top of Plateau, we passed perhaps 5 groups of hikers. They were all going in the opposite direction from us. We wondered if they had cars parked at both ends of the trail. Anyway, this experience supported the words of the first hiker that we met - most people follow this trail in the opposite direction. We are contrarians.
Near the summit, we noticed lots of moss. Actually there's moss all over the place at the top of Plateau. Shamrocks grow straight up out of it, together with toadstools. It looks like a fairy wonderland! Nice time to be there.
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| Fairy wonderland with moss, shamrocks, and toadstools |
The summit of Plateau is boring. Not even a cairn, just a sad little blaze marked with the name, like an afterthought. Better than nothing!
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| The peak of Plateau Mountain |
When we finally reached the summit, it was a surprise. It didn't seem like a summit - there was no steep uphill climb to get to it. Well, there's a reason this mountain is named "Plateau." But AllTrails and the small blaze agreed on this point. We hiked down a bit further, to be sure. The trail does descend from here. Then, we turned around and retraced our steps.
The trip back was a slog but otherwise not notable. Again, we passed the small disturbing pile of personal items. And this time around, the second overlook was available. We stopped briefly. There's a large boulder here, covered in stone graffiti. It was hard to read.
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| There's a second outlook close to the first one. This one is capped by a graffitied block. |
Going down the steep descent was a chore! We had to pick our way downhill over scrabble, which slowed us down.
We were relieved to get back to the car. Even so, can't wait for our next hike!
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