Slide Mountain and the Catskill Park

The Catskill Park is not a single fenced park but a great mapped boundary, the Blue Line, within which the state has assembled a preserve of forest, mountains, and streams alongside towns and private land. Much of the public land is constitutionally protected as Forever Wild, meaning it must be kept as wilderness and cannot be logged or developed, a landmark protection New York adopted in the late 1800s to save its watersheds and forests.

This is old, storied country. The Catskills lie within lands long known to the Lenape and other Native peoples, and later became the setting for Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle and the sublime landscapes of the Hudson River School painters, who helped make these mountains famous. Slide Mountain, as the high point of the range, sits at the center of that natural and cultural landscape.

The most popular route up Slide is a steady, rewarding hike that gains significant elevation over several miles, climbing through northern hardwood forest of maple, beech, and birch. As you rise, the trees change, and the trail enters a band of balsam fir and red spruce, a fragrant, dim, cool forest that thrives only at these higher, colder elevations and gives the upper mountain a distinctly northern character.

The summit is wooded, but a rock ledge near the top opens a fine view over the surrounding Catskill peaks and valleys. It is here that hikers find the John Burroughs plaque, mounted on the rock, honoring the naturalist who camped and rambled on this mountain and wrote lovingly of it. Reaching the top of Slide is a genuine accomplishment, and the mix of the boreal forest, the view, and the sense of history at the summit makes it one of the finest hikes in the state.

John Burroughs was one of America's most popular nature writers, a Catskills native who wrote gentle, closely observed essays about birds, streams, and mountains that shaped how generations of Americans thought about the outdoors. He had a deep affection for Slide Mountain, and the plaque near its summit, with his words about the view, ties the peak forever to his legacy.

The high boreal forest supports wildlife found nowhere else in the Catskills at such concentration, including the Bicknell's thrush, a rare, shy songbird that breeds only in the high mountaintop spruce-fir forests of the Northeast and is a prize for birders. Black bears range the whole range, and the woods hold deer, bobcat, porcupine, and a wealth of woodland birds, all part of the wild character that Forever Wild protection preserves.

Spring comes late to the high peaks, with snow lingering on the upper mountain, so the trails can be muddy and icy well into the season; give the ground time to firm up. Summer is the prime hiking season, when the balsam forest is fragrant and cool and the summit is a fine goal, though afternoon thunderstorms can build, so start early.

Autumn is spectacular, with the hardwoods below the summit turning brilliant while the evergreen crown stays dark green, a glorious time to climb. Winter transforms Slide into a serious mountaineering objective, deep in snow and cold, beautiful but demanding, best left to those equipped and experienced for winter conditions.

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