Hike · Palenville · 25 min drive
Kaaterskill Falls, properly
The tallest waterfall in New York is twenty-five minutes from the house, and there's now an easy, beautiful way to see it. Park at the right lot, come early, and stay behind the rails — we mean it.
Kaaterskill Falls drops 260 feet in two stages — taller than Niagara, and one of the oldest tourist attractions in America. Thomas Cole painted it in 1825, and the whole Hudson River School followed him up the clove. When people picture “the Catskills,” a fair number of them are picturing this exact waterfall without knowing it.
It’s twenty-five minutes from our door.
The easy way (do this one)
Set your GPS for the Laurel House Road parking area and take the gravel path from the lot — a third of a mile, gentle enough for a stroller, ending at a viewing platform that hangs over the falls and the whole clove beyond. Half an hour round trip if you don’t linger. You will linger.
A fun thing to know while you stand there: the Laurel House hotel once stood at the very lip of the falls, and its owners dammed the creek above so they could charge tourists to “turn on” the waterfall. The nineteenth century had no shame.
The longer way
From the platform, stone staircases descend to the pool between the upper and lower falls. It’s a real climb back up — many, many stairs — but standing in the amphitheater behind the mist is worth every one of them. Sturdy shoes; the stone stays slick.
What we tell everyone
- Park only in the marked lots — Laurel House Road, Scutt Road, or South Lake. The town tickets and tows from the road shoulders on 23A, and they are not kidding.
- Come early. The lots fill by mid-morning on summer and foliage weekends.
- Stay behind the rails. This is the serious part: people die here — nine since the early nineties, most recently in June 2025, and rangers say the recent ones were all chasing photos. The platform view is the best view anyway.
- After rain is the show; deep winter turns the whole thing into a frozen amphitheater. In shoulder season, bring traction — ice hides up there well into spring.
Pair it with North-South Lake five minutes up the road (the escarpment views that made the Hudson River School famous, $10 a car in season) and you’ve built one of the best half-days the Catskills offer.
Where: Laurel House Rd, Palenville