Plateau: Peak Fall
- Peaks: Plateau
- Type: Out & Back
- Time: 3 h
- Distance: 3.2 mi
- Elevation Gain: 1637 ft
- Hikers: Dan, Alex
- Tracks: eBird
Quick afternoon hike prompted by Alex reading that the Catskills were hitting peak fall colors. The color were, indeed, magnificent! If anything they were slightly on the early side of peak—still lots of green mixed in with yellow and orange. There was a clear transition from mixed Maple / Birch at lower elevations to just Birch at higher elevations. You could see this in the change from a yellow/orange/red mix to just yellow starting around 3000 ft.
This hike was short but very steep, gaining something like 1500 ft over the course of a mile.
There was one viewpoint just before the summit. I would have liked to continue on to Orchard Point (as described by the AllTrails route) but we didn’t have the daylight.
We drove past Kaaterskill High Peak and Plattekill Falls on the drive. The falls looked particularly popular today: there was a policeman writing dozens of tickets for illegally parked cars!