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Hunter Mountain Fire Tower

1917 establishments in New York (state)Buildings and structures in Greene County, New YorkFire lookout towers in Catskill ParkFire lookout towers on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)Government buildings completed in 1917
Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)National Register of Historic Places in Greene County, New YorkTourist attractions in Greene County, New YorkTowers completed in 1917
Hunter Mountain Fire Tower 2018
Hunter Mountain Fire Tower 2018

The Hunter Mountain Fire Tower is located on the summit of the eponymous mountain, second highest of the Catskill Mountains in the U.S. state of New York. It was the first of 23 fire lookout towers built by the state in the region, and the next-to-last of the five still standing to be abandoned. Today it remains a popular attraction for hikers climbing the mountain. After it fell into disrepair in the 1990s and was recommended for removal by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which had operated the tower, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. Local enthusiasts were able to raise money, matched by DEC, to restore the tower and adjacent observer's cabin to serve as a museum, with volunteers in the cab on some weekends. Panoramic views of not only the mountains but the adjacent Hudson Valley, Massachusetts, Connecticut and sometimes southwestern Vermont are available from it. Likewise, it can be seen from many of the surrounding mountains, the village of Hunter and the upper slopes of the ski area. It is the highest fire tower still standing in the state and the second-highest in the entire Northeast.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Hunter Mountain Fire Tower (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Hunter Mountain Fire Tower
Hunter Mountain Trail,

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Wikipedia: Hunter Mountain Fire TowerContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 42.177777777778 ° E -74.230277777778 °
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Hunter Mountain Trail

Hunter Mountain Trail
12450
New York, United States
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Hunter Mountain Fire Tower 2018
Hunter Mountain Fire Tower 2018
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Southwest Hunter Mountain
Southwest Hunter Mountain

Southwest Hunter Mountain (Leavitt Peak) is a subpeak of Hunter Mountain, located in Greene County, New York. It is considered one of the Catskills' High Peaks in its own right, because of its separation from the main summit, and its topographic prominence. Hunter Mountain is named after John Hunter, who also gave his name to the town of Hunter. Southwest Hunter is part of the Devil's Path range of the Catskill Mountains. SW Hunter is flanked to the northeast by the main summit of Hunter, and to the west faces West Kill Mountain across 800-foot-deep (240 m) Diamond Notch. It is considered a bushwhack, as there are no official trails leading to its summit, in the midst of a dense montane boreal forest of red spruce and balsam fir. Attempts to climb from Diamond Notch, the closest approach of a maintained trail, have led to the creation of a maze of herd paths on the level area west of the mountain's summit, none of which leads to it and many of which dead-end. Hikers have instead been following the bed of a rail line used by a 19th century logging company that begins just off the Devil's Path, 0.1 miles (160 m) west of the Devil's Acre Lean-to, at a small rock cairn. It traverses the ridge at roughly 3,500 ft (1,100 m) for three-quarters of a mile (1.21 km) where another herd path turns uphill to the peak (This upward turn is easy to miss, there are several other junctions prior to it. It is only marked by an arrow scratched onto a nearby rock; it has in the past been marked by another cairn). The summit canister is in a small clearing. Southwest Hunter stands within the watershed of the Hudson River, which drains into New York Bay. The north side of SW Hunter drains into the headwaters of the West Kill, thence into Schoharie Creek, the Mohawk River, and the Hudson River. The southeast slopes of SW Hunter drain into Myrtle Brook, thence into Stony Clove Creek, Esopus Creek, and the Hudson River. The southwest side of SW Hunter drains into Hollow Brook, thence into Stony Clove Creek. Southwest Hunter is within the Hunter Mountain Wild Forest of the Catskill Park of New York's Forest Preserve. Southwest Hunter is unnamed in the GNIS database; there is an effort underway to get the peak named Leavitt Peak in memory of Bill & Elinore Leavitt, two of the founders of the Catskill 3500 club.