Kaaterskill Falls

Follow Route 23A west from its junction with Route 32A in the town of Palenville and up Kaaterskill Clove. After 3.3 miles the road crosses Lake Creek immediately below Bastion Falls, with the trailhead to Kaaterskill Falls beginning just south of the bridge. There is no parking here, so continue up the hill along 23A for another quarter of a mile to the designated parking lot and walk back down the road - being mindful of traffic - to the bridge and trail. The trail, rocky and rooty for much of the way, climbs modestly for half of a mile to reach the base of Kaaterskill Falls. Boot paths can be found to climb to the basin between the two leaps of the falls.Kaaterskill Falls is one of the most famous waterfalls in the eastern half of New York and has been frequently thought of as being the tallest waterfall in the state. Lake Creek produces the falls where it chutes over the edge of Kaaterskill Clove and plummets 231 feet in two lofty steps, the upper falling 167 feet and the lower 64 feet. The falls are often cited as standing a total of 260 feet in height, but after visiting the falls twice we doubted this figure, and Russell Dunn's "Catskill Region Waterfall Guide" is very specific in mentioning the height figures described above. When we surveyed the falls in 2008 our measurement came out to 219 feet in total, which falls within an acceptable margin of error of the aforementioned measurement, so we'll assume 231 feet to be a more accurate figure. So how does this stack up against New York's tallest waterfalls? Well it's certainly among the tallest, but it isn't the tallest - that designation belongs to several ephemeral waterfalls in Letchworth State Park, and the tallest year-round waterfall would be Roaring Brook Falls in Keene. Like most of the rest of the waterfalls in Kaaterskill Clove, the drainage area above Kaaterskill Falls is fairly limited and while the falls do flow year round there is a significant reduction in the volume of water present in Lake Creek during the dry season. The falls are quite impressive during the spring and autumn months (as well as during the summer should the remnants of a hurricane or tropical storm pass through) but without sustained rainfall the volume of Lake Creek drops considerably to the point where the falls may be just a trickle during the late summer.