Hell's Hole Falls

Take Interstate 87 to Saugerties and exit to west Route 212. After 2 1/4 miles bear right onto Blue Mountain Road and continue for 3.4 miles (after 1.5 miles the road bears hard left and becomes West Saugerties Road) to the bridge spanning Plattekill Creek in West Saugerties, encountered immediately before Manorkill Road bears right, and a large sign is seen warning about winter closures of Platte Clove Road. At this point the Platte Clove Road experiences seasonal closures, but when open continue up the significantly narrower and much steeper road for 2.3 miles to the top of the Clove and turn into a parking area on the left just before crossing the stone bridge over Hell's Hole Brook.Hell's Hole is a small gulf which sends a tributary stream into Plattekill Clove at the most precipitous and impressive point in the valley. Heading on the east side of High Peak, Hell's Hole Brook tumbles through an area called Devil's Kitchen - so called because of the huge mass of boulders and jagged rocks which have fallen into the gully in the vicinity of the falls - where it has cut a narrow sluice through the bedrock and produced a small set of falls with a total drop of about 30 feet. Two small drops occur immediately upstream of where Platte Clove Road crosses the creek, with the main part of the falls found immediately downstream of the bridge where the creek plunges into a narrow canyon cut into the bedrock. As the creek tumbles down to meet Plattekill Creek at the bottom of the valley there may be additional falls as well given the 300-foot change in elevation between the road and the floor of the valley, however access deeper into this part of the Clove is very dangerous and strongly discouraged, so what additional falls there may be along Hell's Hole Creek may not be easy to determine.