High Falls

The next day - Sunday - gave us absolutely perfect weather.  No hyperbole here: of all the beautiful July days here in the center of the Catskill Mountains, I cannot remember another day quite as perfect as this one. A few high clouds, puffy. Warm but not hot - maybe mid-70s. Always a breeze. I felt totally at ease walking around outside. We donned our boots and hiking shorts again and walked across the field next to High Falls Brook from the county road to the old house once called "Old John's" and now called "the Orchard House." Behind the house the wide path (jeep trail, really) goes up as the brook goes up. To the right: what was once an open field is now filled with blackberry bushes and pine trees. But the path to the left, following the brook but above it, is quite clear. We pass what used to be "Lower High Falls" campsite, no longer set up as such. Then the trail forks. Down to the falls, to the left. Up above the falls to the proper "High Falls" or "Upper High Falls" campsite, which now - hallelujah! - features a really nice lean-to. That site is perfection. Only downside is that it's not much of a hike, but otherwise - ideal. A nice open field for sleeping, a good fire-ring, and that new lean-to. We check it out and then continue up the trail. Our plan is to follow the trail above the falls, and then bushwhack just a few feet to the left (west) and scramble down to the brook above the falls. That part of the brook is gorgeous and rarely visited. There's no real trail to it. But if I admire High Falls itself, I totally adore High Falls Brook as it descends from a ridge of Doubletop Mountain. Doubletop, really? Yes, the ridge of Doubletop comes down well toward the western edge of Frost Valley's property. Indeed, most of the camp's buildings can be said to lie on the slope coming down from this ridge of the mountain.

Again the rain from the past three weeks is making High Falls Brook flowing faster and more loudly than usual at this time of the summer. By August, as I recall over the years, the brook can sometimes be not much more than a trickle.

As you walk from the trail above the falls to the brook, you cross through or over the old Forstmann deer fence. At some points the fence is still standing - nearly 7 feet tall. And other points it has fall or been trampled down.

Click on the image for a larger view and see if you can see the fence.

See the deer fence?

High Falls Brook above the falls.

This is a little feeder stream that runs into the brook above the falls. This thing is usually a trickle, but see how it flows now.

And there is our High Falls, in full flow.

Here is High Falls itself.


 
Here is a look at High Falls Brook above the falls.