firetower

The Red Hill Firetower is on a relatively small in-holding of land by the state of New York that’s part of the larger Sundown Wild Forest. This was the forth Catskill firetower I have visited in recent weeks. I hiked on a beautiful Monday, which I had decided to take a vacation day on.

Red Hill is the easiest firetower to hike up to in the Catskills, even if it’s one of the most difficult to drive from the Albany-area. It is located outside of Grahamsville, about 10 miles North-West of Rondout Reservoir. There is only local dirt roads and windy county roads that run from NY Route 55, which itself is certainly not an expressway.

Here is a sign telling you it’s not a tough walk.

This is typical, relatively flat trail which you walk on for the first 9/10 of a mile.

The last 1/2th of a mile is relatively steep compared to the first part, maybe gaining 400 feet in elevation, and you’ll have to stop and breath a few times as you go up towards there.

When you reach the top, there is an Ranger Station (open weekends) and several picnic tables. There are big signs saying fires are prohibited due to the fire danger, when the grass is dry. That should be a no brainier, but in the summer and winter, it seems a bit absurd. Must be a bad experience from years ago. There is no outhouse, you’ll have to walk off into the woods to find a place to squat and do your business.

This is the tower, directly across from the Ranger Station. It is staffed on the weekends.

The views aren’t anything to write home about, unless you want to see mountains that are less then remarkable in the distance. This is to the north.

Red Hill is the southern edge of the Catskills, and as you can see looking to the south, the landscape is quite flat.

Most of the area around the tower is heavily wooded and owned by either the State or New York City DEP Water. There are a few farms around, especially looking west.

On the weekends, you can go into the tower’s cabin. Weekdays it is closed, supposedly because of vandalism. It’s bullshit if you ask me, because who drives 125 miles into the sticks and hikes 1.4 miles to vandalize an old tower? Mount Tremper is open.

Despite the lousy views (it’s a relative term), the fire tower must be popular, or so the many signs that warn people the tower can only support six people.

When I was leaving the fire tower I happened to hear an SUV coming up with the former Ranger (now a private individual). They where planning to paint the tower steps on Monday. He offered to unlock the tower, but I was inpatient, and he wouldn’t let me do it with the keys myself. I don’t know if I or him was being more of a dick.

After I left, he closed off the tower, because he was painting the steps.

Here’s a map of the route to the fire tower.

This gives you an idea of what you see from the tower. Most notably, Doubletop Mountain and Rondout Reservoir. Nothing really super impressive though, just mountains and very little civilization in this rural part of Sullivan County.