Blackhead Mountian

Yesterday I took a day off from work to hike with my friend Brendan. He had the whole week off for vacation and Monday’s weather was looking fantastic, so I suggested we go down to the Catskills. I found three mountains we could hike, but ultimately decided just do one to make it a short day: Blackhead Mountain, the fifth highest Catskill peak, part of the 35 over 3,500 ft.

We parked at the Big Hollow parking lot in Maplecrest and started our hike at 11:00AM. Late for me! The first mile or so of trail was relatively easy and flat, a nice little walk in the woods with a few stream crossings. Then we started climbing, up up up along a very rocky trail! Thankfully it was only about 1 mile of climbing to the first view point on Blackhead.

The first and only real view we got.

A short walk ontop of the mountain lead us to the true summit, a flat rock to sit and rest and eat a snack, but no view. Boo!

Just a few signs, but no summit marker, at least none that we found.

We were a little worried about running into a bear but we saw none. We did see about five snakes, though. Eek. One last stop at the view point, where we heard talking. Turns out there were people on the neighboring Black Dome Mountain, which we could see from our mountain. There was nobody else on Blackhead.

This made for a nice quick hike, as it took us under three hours to hike the whole thing.  It is rated as difficult for Catskill standards, but I found it enjoyable.  I’ll probably go back soon and hike the neighboring Black Dome and Thomas Cole since I’m now familiar with the area!

Blackhead Mountain
4.8 mi RT from Big Hollow
1,922′ Ascent
3,942′ Elevation
Catskill 3500 Rank: 5 of 35