Camping in the Catskills

The Catskills are a little south of Albany and after I got back from France we spent the weekend around Kaaterskill Falls in the northern part of the Catskills. Matt had been there a few weeks before with his family and wanted to go back to camp so we did.

Words of caution: If you want to camp in Catskill park at one of the state campgrounds during summer then reserve a site in advance! The campground was huge and they didn't even have room for us with our little tent. We ended up at a private campground just outside the park, which was fine and we had a lot more space and privacy!

Anyway, we walked up the trail to the Falls kind of early so we didn't see too many people and there weren't many people at the Falls themselves (just a group of people getting a guided tour) and the water levels were low. This meant we were able to hang out at the bottom of the lower falls, take lots of pictures and get right into the water.

Me at the Falls

Matt at the Falls

We also got to scramble up a non trail to get to the upper basin/bottom of the upper Falls. It was a giant horseshoe basin (with hardly any water due to the lack of rain). Some people were at the top and had a rope set up for abseiling (or repelling in American) but we never got to see any of them actually do it. I wanted to go up and do it!! You can see the scale a little in this picture as Matt went adventuring in the basin.

The upper basin (with Matt in red)

After a late-ish lunch at a little pub in town and trying to find a campsite we chilled out in the campsite pool and played games (bananagrams, trivial pursuit, cards) by our tent. After building the best fire ever, we had a delicious dinner of swordfish, red beans and rice cooked on the campfire. It was so good! The next day we went for another little hike and looked out over the Hudson Valley. A nice relaxing weekend in the Catskills.

Us at the bottom of the Falls