Hiking Slide Mountain

Hiking Slide Mountain | Catskills, New York | May 2025

As we contemplated how we would spend our time in the Catskills, I knew that I wanted to take the opportunity to get a few more peaks tallied towards my peakbagging goals. In making a list of the peaks I ‘most desired’, I naturally included two of the three most prominent peaks in the range: Slide Mountain and Black Dome (we had hiked Hunter Mountain, the #2 highest and #2 most prominent peak, back during our Fire Tower Challenge days). After that, any other ‘peaks of convenience’ that we could find time for would naturally be appreciated.

After our lazy day decompressing from a month of work, we looked to the forecast and the availability of campsites and saw that neither would be especially conducive to hiking. Turns out that our lazy day was going to be one of the best days of the week, if not our entire time in New York. Rain was coming in that afternoon, and likely staying off and on for the remainder of the week. And since we were somewhat stretching the rules of what’s allowed for primitive camping as it was, we figured it would be best to bounce around.

And so, after a slow morning and a couple meetings for work, we rolled on down the road to the trailhead for Slide Mountain off Oliverea Valley Road – I figured I might as well start with the highest peak first!

I was pleasantly surprised at the ease of the trail for the tallest peak in the Catskills. I figured, since I was taking the shortest route up, I would naturally have to endure the steeper trail. But, unlike so many North-Eastern trail builders, this trail was steady and gradual. No steep stone staircases, or rooted scrambles up slopes. Just a pleasant walk through the woods.

I ran into a couple people leaving the trail right at the beginning, but otherwise had the trail to myself all the way up. As I reached the summit, a fine mist settled in, but the cloud canopy was still above the peak, and so I still was rewarded with my (limited) views to the North of Hunter Mountain and its associated ridges.

And after a short snack, I returned back the way I had come, passing only one other group on the ridgeline. I ended up making very good time, especially considering that I had done no substantial hiking since January.

Back at the trailhead, we decided to just spend the night right there. It was quiet, comfortable, no one else was there, and no signs to the contrary – and we had a good night despite the rain. Though the next day, we did some more reading and found that this is more on the illegal side of the grey ‘is boondocking camping’ discussion. The official rules in the Catskill Mountain Park say no camping within 150 feet of the road, trail, and any water source, and digging deeper we found that sleeping in vehicles does count as camping. Supposedly it was easier to get away with it pre-pandemic, but when everyone became outdoorsy in 2020 they really pushed the rules and trashed trailheads, making the rules more enforced now. We were lucky to get away with it tonight, but that was probably due to the fact that it was still off season, not great weather, and no one else around. We decided after this though to stick with what we knew was legal, which is staying at already established dispersed sites in nearby state forests.