Recreation
A medium-sized parking lot sits next to Notch Pond just below the notch, right where the popular Devil's Path hiking trail crosses the road (the only road crossing in its entire 24.2-mile (39 km) length). Most are bound for one of the three High Peaks in the area: Plateau, Hunter and Southwest Hunter. Potable water is available for hikers and people using the day-use facilities from several pumps next to the parking lot.
The climb up Plateau offers the best chance to appreciate just how stark the notch is. After crossing the old railbed, the trail begins a steady ascent of 1,400 vertical feet (427 m) to the popular Orchard Point lookout, which offers a view across the notch to all the nearby peaks plus West Kill Mountain beyond Southwest Hunter. From there it is two miles (3.2 km) across the aptly named Plateau to the mountain's actual summit.
To the west, the ascent is not so severe, although there are some steep sections, most famously near a ledge lower down on the trail called the Devil's Portal. There are no views, although there is a nice level section traversing along the back of Hunter to the Devil's Acre Lean-to, where the Hunter Mountain Trail leads to the top of the Catskills' second-highest peak. The Acre is also the beginning of the sometimes-difficult bushwhack to Southwest Hunter.
Currently, the Long Path long-distance trail joins the Devil's Path here for the trip up Plateau after a two-mile (3 km) roadwalk. Future plans will relocate it into the deep forest, far from the highway.
In winter, ice climbers can also be found here seeking thrills on the cliffs on the Plateau side via a short hike; climbing is not otherwise done much in the Catskills due to the loose sedimentary rock of the region. Snowboarders have also found the slope offers challenging wilderness runs.
Hunters have also come in-season, although the topography can make the area fatally dangerous. In fall 2000 a local high school teacher was found dead after having fallen off one of the cliffs on the Hunter side during a hunt.
Read more about this topic: Stony Clove Notch
Famous quotes containing the word recreation:
“Playing snooker gives you firm hands and helps to build up character. It is the ideal recreation for dedicated nuns.”
—Archbishop Luigi Barito (b. 1922)
“Media mystifications should not obfuscate a simple, perceivable fact; Black teenage girls do not create poverty by having babies. Quite the contrary, they have babies at such a young age precisely because they are poor—because they do not have the opportunity to acquire an education, because meaningful, well-paying jobs and creative forms of recreation are not accessible to them ... because safe, effective forms of contraception are not available to them.”
—Angela Davis (b. 1944)