Kaaterskill Falls

Kaaterskill Falls forms where a mountain stream reaches the edge of the Catskill escarpment, the abrupt eastern wall of the Catskill plateau that drops steeply toward the Hudson Valley. The water plunges over a hard rim of ancient sandstone, then falls again over a lower step, carving a deep, rounded amphitheater out of the softer rock beneath.

The two tiers together make the falls unusually tall, and the wooded, cliff-ringed bowl at their base gives the scene its dramatic, cathedral-like feel. This land lay long within the reach of the Lenape and Mohican peoples, living nations whose ancestors knew these cloves and streams. The Catskills' steep, stream-cut edges made the region a wall of forest and waterfall above the settled valley below.

In the early 19th century, as Americans began to see their wild landscapes as a source of national pride, Kaaterskill Falls became a magnet for artists. The painter Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School, painted the falls and the surrounding mountains, and a whole generation of landscape painters followed him into the Catskills to work.

Their glowing, dramatic canvases of the falls, the clove, and the escarpment views helped create the country's first great school of landscape painting and taught Americans to prize their wild scenery. The falls also appeared in the era's literature, including tales that used the Catskills as a setting for a vanishing wilderness. Through art and story, Kaaterskill became one of the most famous natural landmarks in the young nation.

The fame of the falls helped spark a tourism boom in the Catskills. By the middle of the 1800s, grand mountain hotels rose on the plateau above, most famously the Catskill Mountain House perched on the escarpment with its sweeping view over the Hudson Valley. Wealthy visitors came by steamboat and stage to take the mountain air and to visit scenic wonders like Kaaterskill Falls.

For decades this was one of America's most fashionable resort regions, and paths and stairways were built to guide sightseers to the falls. The grand hotels eventually declined and vanished, but their sites and viewpoints remain, and the falls that helped draw those crowds still tumble down the same cliffs. Today's trails follow in the footsteps of those early tourists.

Reaching the falls means hiking steep, rocky, often wet trails, and viewing platforms now let visitors see the cascade safely from below and from the rim above. The rocks near the water are notoriously slippery and have caused serious accidents over the years, so staying on the marked trails and behind the barriers matters greatly.

Spring is when the falls run fullest, swollen with snowmelt and rain and thundering down both tiers. Summer is greenest and busiest, though the flow can thin in a dry spell. Fall brings the famous Catskill foliage framing the water, and winter can transform the falls into a spectacular column of ice, drawing climbers, though the trails then turn treacherous and demand real care.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.