A recent trip to the Catskill Mountains, located 100 miles north-northwest of New York City, turned out to be a delightful discovery of idyllic parks, forests, rivers and streams, and, of course, mountains.
While towns like Woodstock get most of the attention, a little more probing and you'll be rewarded with 35 mountain peaks over 3,500 feet tall, farms and distilleries, plus the massive 700,000-acre Ashokan Reservoir, which quenches the thirst of millions of metropolitan New Yorkers.
The Catskills (“kill” is Dutch for “creek”) are also a world-famous fly fishing destination, particularly due to the 65-mile Esopus Creek and its pure water, which gives aquatic insects—rainbow trout’s favourite food—a perfect place to hatch. These waters have been fished by the likes of Mark Twain, Babe Ruth, Herbert Hoover, and Jimmy Carter.
The Catskills have long been a haven for artists, musicians, and writers, especially in and around the towns of Phoenicia and Woodstock. The Hudson River School, the first native school of painting in the United States, was established here in the mid-19th century. The scenic landscapes, dotted with rustic towns and villages, was a paradise for Romantic landscape painters like Thomas Cole, a Brit who settled in the Catskills and helped establish the region as a world-class destination for nature lovers.
A great way to get acquainted with the Catskills is to stay at the recently renovated Emerson Resort & Spa in Mt. Tremper with its nostalgic appreciation for the Boston-born American poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson was so inspired by the serene beauty of the area that he penned his essay “Nature” in 1836. The hotel is tastefully decorated and accented with quotes by Emerson, which are hand-written on many of the walls in the public spaces.
