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Like Giant Ledge, Huckleberry Point is a reliable hike that’s a comparatively shorter distance than other Catskills hikes, but offers equally stunning views and a beautiful summit. You can also find people doing this hike in sandals and a tiny handbag on a Friday afternoon, so it’s that kind of go-to hike – the kind people decide to do regularly and on a whim. Unlike Giant Ledge, there’s no climbing involved, this trail is easy to moderate with one or two rock piles to climb over, but nothing anywhere near to the rock climbing you’ll endure on Giant Ledge. The Huckleberry Point trail is also different in that you’re climbing up and over the summit of a mountain and down the other side to the lookout, so you’ll be getting some aerobic exercise in both directions instead of only getting it on the ascent.
At Huckleberry Point, you’re on the eastern edge of the Catskill Mountains and you get magnificent views into the Hudson Valley and beyond to the Berkshires and Connecticut to the left.
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To the right, you can see south towards Indian Head Wilderness and the Devil’s Path.
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Huckleberry Point is only 2.4 miles from the parking area on Platte Clove Road. Not only are the views spectacular, but autumn seems to happening up here in the way that it’s not happening closer to sea level. The summit is thickly covered in a blanket of pine and mountain laurel and the other foliage that surrounds the lookout ledges is all fiery orange, copper and brassy, burnished hues. A real treat for the leaf-peepers because it’s been a rather dull fall this year.
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Find the parking area on Platte Clove Road which is Route 16 in Greene County where you can pick up the Long Path. The parking area is just east of the Platte Clove Community on Route 16 when it turns into a seasonal road that’s closed in winter.
You’ll find Huckleberry Point on May 141 of the NYNJ Trail Conference map. Take the blue-blazed Long Path north (it’s also a snow mobile trail) for one mile and then take the yellow-blazed Huckleberry Point trail all the way to the lookout. Stay on the trail. There are many places just off-trail that are steep and dangerous. The south side of this mountain, around which the trail winds, is extremely sheer. There are many ledges at the lookout and there is a real danger of falling off the ledge.
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The beginning of the trail also goes over private land and the Huckleberry Trail is part of the Platte Clove Preserve that is owned by The Catskill Center. This 208-acre wilderness was donated to the Catskill Center by the Griswold Family in 1975 for the “permanent protection of the flora, fauna and geologic and historic features present on the property. Early settlers cleared timber and bluestone from the mountains. The cloves were immortalized by the great “Hudson River School” of American landscape artists. Visitors journeyed from afar to enjoy the wilderness and the grand Catskill Mountain hotels. The Platte Clove, and its mountainous flanks, has been reclaimed by nature, painted by artists, lauded by poets, protected by conservationists, and revered by all who seek its serenity”.