A Hudson Valley Almanac day-trip guide
Fifteen public lands and outfitters across nine counties, anchored by the 700,000-acre Catskill Park — one of the largest parks in the Eastern United States — plus the rivers, rail trails, and wildlife management areas around it. The Almanac maps the region's sixteen fire towers on its own dedicated page; this guide covers everything else in the outdoors.
Catskill Park spans Delaware, Greene, Sullivan, and Ulster counties with over 300 miles of marked trails, 35 DEC campgrounds, and Kaaterskill Falls — the highest two-stage waterfall in New York State. North-South Lake Campground & Beach is the Park's most popular destination, at the historic site of the old Catskill Mountain House, with a swimming beach and the escarpment trail to Kaaterskill Falls and Artist Rock. Mountain Top Arboretum in Tannersville runs a full calendar of foraging, natural-dye, and forest-bathing workshops at 2,400 feet elevation.
The Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River is a National Wild and Scenic River with Class I–III rapids at Skinner's Falls; Lander's River Trips has outfitted it since 1955. The Battenkill River Corridor is regarded as one of the finest wild trout streams in the eastern U.S., and Battenkill Valley Outdoors has run canoe and kayak trips there since 2003. For fly fishing specifically, the Catskill Fly Fishing Center & Museum in Livingston Manor sits at the birthplace of American dry fly fishing, and the DEC Catskill Hatchery nearby rears brown trout between the legendary Beaverkill and Willowemoc.
Catskill Scenic Trail runs 26 miles on the old Ulster and Delaware Railroad bed, and Delaware & Ulster Railroad revived scenic excursion train service along the same corridor in 2025. Schoharie Valley Rail Trail connects Middleburgh through farmland with Helderberg Escarpment views. For wildlife, Bashakill Wildlife Management Area is New York's largest freshwater wetland south of the Adirondacks and a premier birding destination, Albany Pine Bush Preserve protects a rare 3,000-acre inland pine barrens ecosystem and the endangered Karner blue butterfly, and Partridge Run Wildlife Management Area covers 4,500 remote acres in the Albany County hilltowns.
Most of these are free, DEC-managed, or nonprofit-run public lands — no admission beyond the Fly Fishing Center's $12 ticket. Partridge Run is genuinely remote and largely unmarked; bring a GPS. For the region's fire towers specifically, see the Almanac's dedicated Fire Towers page.
Explore more of the region's theme guides on Explore by Theme.
Kaaterskill Falls, wild trout, a rescued rail line — the Catskills' outdoors beyond the summit.