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Devil's Path (Catskills)

Catskill ParkMountains of Greene County, New YorkMountains of New York (state)Use American English from June 2025Use mdy dates from January 2025
Devil's Path from south
Devil's Path from south

The Devil's Path is a mountain range and hiking trail in the Greene County portion of New York's Catskill Mountains. The mountains commonly considered to be part of the Devil's Path are, from west to east, West Kill, Hunter, Plateau, Sugarloaf, Twin, and Indian Head. The name comes from early settlers of the region, who believed the range's craggy cliffs were specially built by the devil so that he alone could climb them and occasionally retreat from the world of men. Today, they are famous for the deep gaps between them, which get lower in elevation as the mountains between them get higher when proceeding westward on the hiking trail. The mountains and the land around them were acquired by the state as Forest Preserve and made part of the Catskill Park in the 1920s and 1930s. Today the area is managed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation as the Indian Head Wilderness Area.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Devil's Path (Catskills) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Devil's Path (Catskills)
Devil's Path,

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Wikipedia: Devil's Path (Catskills)Continue reading on Wikipedia

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N 42.1339 ° E -74.1044 °
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Devil's Path

Devil's Path
12427
New York, United States
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Devil's Path from south
Devil's Path from south
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Devil's Path (hiking trail)
Devil's Path (hiking trail)

The Devil's Path is a hiking trail in the Greene County section of the Catskill Mountains of New York, sometimes described as one of the more challenging trails in the New York Tri-state area. It goes across the eponymous mountain range and then three other peaks to the west, offering hikers and peakbaggers a chance to reach the summits of five of the 35 Catskill High Peaks (two more are reachable by detours). It draws hikers from not just the region but far outside, due to the challenging climbs straight up and down the steep gaps between the four peaks of the range, which often require hikers to use hands as well as feet to pull themselves almost straight up cliffs and through rocky chutes. These climbs, however, lead to views across the Catskill range. Most hikers use the trail for day trips to one or two summits along the range, via the trails that go up into the cols. But backpackers have done weekend trips due to the easy availability of a state-owned campground at Devil's Tombstone, near the single road crossing at Stony Clove Notch. It is also possible for determined hikers to complete the entire trail in a single, long day. The portion of the trail from Plateau Mountain to just east of Indian Head Mountain is currently part of the Long Path. Most of it is on state-owned Forest Preserve land in New York's Catskill Park. Most of it lies within two New York State Department of Environmental Conservation management units, the Indian Head Wilderness Area east of Stony Clove Notch and (currently) the Hunter Mountain Wild Forest from there to Diamond Notch, then the West Kill Wilderness Area.