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The Catskill Park is the designation for a large area of eastern New York centered on the Catskill Mountains. Like Adirondack Park to the north, the area is unusual in the United States because, while the entire area is considered "parkland", as of 2005 about 54 percent of the land within the boundary consists of privately owned . Another 5 percent is owned by New York City to protect four of the city's reservoirs that either lie partially within the park or have Drainage basin encompassing parts of the park. The remaining 41 percent, or , is publicly owned by the state as part of the Forest Preserve.
Like Adirondack Park, the total acreage is defined by a Blue Line which encompasses all or part of four counties: Delaware, Greene, Sullivan, and Ulster, amounting to about .
There are , and fishers in the preserve, and are often heard. There are some 400 black bears living in the region. The state operates numerous campgrounds and there are over of multi-use trails. Hunting is permitted, in season, in much of the park. It has approximately 50,000 permanent residents, bolstered somewhat by second-home ownership on weekends and in the summer, and attracts about half a million visitors every year.
The park is governed by Article 14 of the state constitution, which stipulates that all land owned or acquired by the state within cannot be sold or otherwise transferred (absent amending the constitution, which has been done on several occasions), may not be used for logging and must remain "forever wild."
In contrast to the Adirondack Park, the Catskill Park does not include all the land generally considered to be part of the Catskill Range. However, all but two of the 35 Catskill High Peaks are inside the Blue Line.
Inhabitants of the region often tell visitors the Park was created to protect New York City's water resources. However, the park itself was created 30 years before the first reservoir (Ashokan) was built, before the city had started looking north to fulfill its growing water needs.
In 1885, as the state legislature was considering the bill that created the Adirondack Park, Ulster County was trying to get out of paying delinquent that, under the law passed over its objections six years earlier, it owed the state. The lands, mostly around Slide Mountain had come into the county's possession when loggers looking to extract tannin for use in tanning leather from the bark of the many Tsuga growing there at the time, took the trees, made their money and then left the region without paying taxes.
The lands left behind were, if still good quality, often snapped up for use as private hunting and fishing clubs for wealthy businessmen from outside the region, whose determined enforcement of trespassing and poaching laws stirred resentment among the local populace long accustomed to the food provided by those lands; the lesser quality lands were wasted, producing nothing except destructive fires.
A team of forest experts, led by Harvard professor Charles Sprague Sargent, had visited the region when the original Forest Preserve bill was being studied and recommended against including the Catskills in its protections, as its forests "guard only streams of local influence," unlike the Adirondacks, whose preservation was motivated by a desire on the part of the state's businessmen to prevent the Erie Canal from silting up and thus becoming unnavigable.
At the same time Ulster had lost a lawsuit against the state and had been ordered to pay the back taxes. Two Assemblymen from the county (one of whom, Cornelius Hardenbergh, was a descendant of Johannes Hardenbergh, the original crown grantee of much of the Catskills in 1708) who had been elected because of their firm stands against paying the taxes, lobbied their fellow legislators heavily to pass a second version of the Forest Preserve Act, one that not only forgave the county's tax debt in exchange for the lands at issue, but required that the state would henceforth pay whatever local property taxes were required on the land as if they were intended for commercial use (i.e., logging). That provision was later applied to the Adirondacks as well; it remains in force today and makes the difference between survival and insolvency for many towns and other local governmental entities in both parks.
As the timber industry kept making determined efforts to undermine the bill, its original sponsors took the occasion of New York adopting a new constitution in 1894 to enshrine it in that document, with language that plugged all the loopholes that loggers and officials on the state's Forest Preserve Advisory Board had been using. Article 14 has survived several other major constitutional revisions.
It also changed the way the region was seen by visitors. An era dominated by hotels such as the Catskill Mountain House at North-South Lake which catered to the well-to-do and socially prominent was passing its prime, and in its place outdoor recreationists were becoming interested in fly fishing the trout streams, hunting and hiking the mountains.
In 1892, the state spent $250 to build a trail up Slide Mountain, which had only recently been proven by Arnold Henry Guyot to be the range's highest peak and was thus attracting a great deal of tourist interest. It would be the first hiking trail built at public expense in New York's Forest Preserve, and is still the most heavily used route up the mountain today.
That year had also seen the delineation of the Adirondack Park to the north, as the state sought to focus its land-acquisition efforts, by designating particular towns for inclusion, drawing a line in blue ink around them, a custom that continues on all official state maps today.
Twelve years later, in 1904, it was decided to do the same with the Catskills. But this Blue Line used not existing municipal boundaries but the old Hardenbergh Patent survey Land lot, watercourses and railroad rights-of-way, creating a finer, more focused park that gave some of the towns on its periphery areas where they could be assured land would not be subject to Article 14. A similar revision would follow suit in the Adirondacks, and future expansions of both parks would follow this model.
In 1912 the law was again amended to say that the Catskill Park consisted of all lands within the Blue Line, not just those owned by the state.
In 1905 the state approved the creation of water supply commissions at various local governmental levels, as well as one at the state level to resolve disputes, like the one rapidly brewing between the city and the Catskill communities over its plan to eminent domain for the construction of two reservoirs, Ashokan and what is now Schoharie Reservoir, plus the Shandaken Tunnel to connect the two.
The city prevailed, and construction of Ashokan began the next year, requiring the removal of several small hamlets and many residents in the process (some, such as Shokan, West Shokan and Olive Bridge, survive on its banks). The Esopus was in 1913 and started sending water to the city two years later. Land claims continued to be resolved in area courts until 1940. It was the first of several city reservoirs in and around the park.
Bond issues approved by voters in 1916 and 1924 for a total of $12.5 million led ultimately to the addition of to the state's holdings. The Great Depression of the late 1920s and 1930s made a lot of desirable land available at low prices, and with the notably aggressive Robert Moses in charge of the state parks, valuable properties like the Devil's Path Range, the summit of Slide Mountain and Windham High Peak became part of the Forest Preserve.
From 1926 to 1931 the state opened its first four public campsite within the park. New Deal programs during the Great Depression such as the Civilian Conservation Corps made labor available to build trails and replant forests. The state's Conservation Commission was able to compile the first of a series of "Catskill Trails" booklets.
However, the trails built by the state rapidly fell into disuse, Raymond H. Torrey would note by the end of the decade as what hikers there were tended to bypass the Catskills in favor of the Adirondacks and higher peaks in northern New England. Unlike those regions, no lasting organizations of hikers and other passive outdoor recreationists were ever formed around the Catskills (a brief attempt to create a Catskill Mountain Club in the late 1920s sputtered out after a few years). The New York - New Jersey Trail Conference now updates and maintains many of the trails in Catskill Park, including many around Slide Mountain (Ulster County, New York).
The most important change during this time period was the amending of Article 14, in 1948 to allow for the construction of Belleayre Mountain Ski Center and thus encourage skiers to come to the Catskills, following the lead taken in the Adirondacks by the creation of Whiteface and Gore ski areas. It remains in operation and several other private ski areas such as Hunter Mountain and Windham Mountain have followed its lead.
The construction of the Interstate 87 section of the New York State Thruway up the Hudson Valley, and the upgrading of Route 17 from a two-lane road into a freeway, along much of the park's southwestern border greatly increased access to the Park during the 1950s and '60s, although the latter encountered fierce opposition from trout fishermen over some of the original bridges along the Beaver Kill, which would have destroyed some favored holes.
New York City built three more reservoirs partially within the Park: Neversink, Rondout and Pepacton.
In 1957, the Blue Line had expanded to its present configuration, taking in not only the lands almost to the Kingston city limit and Thruway at the east, but more of Sullivan and Delaware counties in the west. Trails and other recreational resources remained underused, however. In 1966 the Catskill Mountain 3500 Club, a peak bagging organization, was formally incorporated after having existed informally for several years – the first organization devoted to, among other things, speaking for the Catskill hiking community. Three years later, in 1969, the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development was founded.
On Earth Day in 1970, Governor Nelson Rockefeller signed legislation that recognized growing environmental concerns by combining the Conservation Department, which had been managing the Catskills and Adirondacks, with several other agencies to create the new Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which exists and manages the Forest Preserve to this day.
An idea that the Catskill Center had been pressing for was realized in 1973, when the state created a Temporary Commission to Study the Future of the Catskills, similar to one that it had set up in the Adirondacks. It took in as its area of study not just the Park but everywhere that could possibly be considered part of the Catskill region: all four counties of the Park, as well as Schoharie, Otsego and two towns in the southwestern corner of Albany County. It was the state's first-ever effort to look at what resources the Catskills had and what could be done with them. The Adirondack commission's recommendation for the establishment of a park-wide land use agency, the Adirondack Park Agency had been implemented in full, only to arouse great fury in that region as it issued zoning regulations far stricter than some towns had already enacted and mounted battles against longtime local residents over relatively small infractions. Catskills residents were worried that a similar solution awaited them.
While the commission considered the same recommendation for the Catskills, it ultimately decided against it in its final report in 1975 (it did try to promulgate a master land use plan, but that was rejected). What it did recommend was a master plan for the state land in the Forest Preserve, important since management was divided (and still is) between two different DEC regions, which had never been on the same page nor known what the other was doing.
It further recommended, following contemporary trends in public-land management (and a recommendation a special legislative committee had made back in 1960), that at least four of the growing tracts, or "management units" of Forest Preserve be formally designated as either or wild forests, again following a distinction drawn in the Adirondack Park. The former was similar in philosophy to those the federal government had already been designating in and forests in the West, but slightly less restrictive; the latter is an even less restrictive category that exists only in New York's Forest Preserve and allows for greater human impact. The practical effects are discussed below under Management.
A Master Plan was developed and implemented in the early 1980s. DEC got busy finally clarifying what user groups (in addition to hikers, , equestrianism and cross-country skiers) were allowed on which trails, and marking them appropriately.
George Pataki, who had been elected governor in 1995, decided to put the project on hold citing financial considerations. The site, locally referred to as the "road to nowhere," was maintained, but had little to do except stop and picnic and follow the short nature trail that has been cut through the nearby woods.
Finishing the project was a cornerstone recommendation of DEC's 1999 Public Access Plan, which again followed an Adirondack lead and proposed ways to increase public knowledge and awareness of the Park's resources. Some were implemented (such as improving and extending the trail system, which occurred later that year when a trail across Mill Brook Ridge was completed as part of the Finger Lakes Trail, linking the trail network on the lesser peaks in the Delaware County section of the park with the long-established system in Ulster and Greene counties), some have not been.
Also in 1999, Governor Pataki designated most of the summits of the High Peaks as Bird Conservation Areas, in recognition of the importance of their as summer habitat for Bicknell's thrush, only recently declared to be a separate species. It was the first such designation within either Forest Preserve, and the Adirondacks would this time be the one to follow suit a few years later.
The most controversial aspect, however, was its decision to limit mountain biking to designated trails and ban them from wilderness areas. While this had been done everywhere else where wilderness protection existed, mountain bikers and their organizations have lobbied hard for an exception, arguing that bicycles are not machines and do not deserve to be banned from use of the wilderness. DEC missed its target date of 2004, to coincide with the park's centennial celebrations, for the release of the final version. The revised master plan was adopted in August 2008.
The Interpretive Center project was completed and unveiled on July 1, 2015. A nature trail opened near the center in 2016.
Source: PRISM Climate Group |
Source: PRISM Climate Group |
New York's wilderness areas must be composed of of contiguous land, twice the federal standard. Land is to be left as "untrammeled by man" and as close to its natural state as possible, offering outstanding opportunities for solitude. No artificially-powered devices are permitted to be used in wilderness areas – may only be used to clear trails with express written authorization from the DEC commissioner, and vehicle usage is forbidden in all save dire emergency circumstances. Most trails are single-track, avoiding old logging roads except at the lowest elevations. Designated campsites are kept to a minimum.
The goal of wilderness is to minimize human impact on the land as much as possible. Passive recreation such as hiking, hunting and birding is the main use of these lands.
Under the current Master Plan, many of the remaining tracts of first-growth forest, and many of the higher summits, are within wilderness areas.
Currently there are four: the Slide Mountain and Big Indian-Beaverkill wildernesses in Ulster County, and the Indian Head and West Kill wildernesses in Greene County. The updated Master Plan would add more wilderness in Greene County, most notably the Blackhead Range and Escarpment.
It has also been informal DEC policy to treat all lands in its possession in the Catskill Park above 3,100 feet (944 m) in elevation as de facto wilderness. The proposed update would not only make that rule official, it would extend it as much as possible to all land 2,700 feet (823 m) and higher.
In Wild Forest areas, vehicles may be used as DEC designates. This has made them popular places for snowmobilers, cross-country skiers, and (in one area) mountain bikers (all-terrain vehicles remain banned, however). Hunters also find them desirable as the second- and third-growth forests in the area are more likely to contain deer and the carcass of the taken animal can be driven out of the woods instead of being walked out.
Some Wild Forest units exist with rather forced boundaries to allow for a use otherwise incompatible with a surrounding wilderness, such as the Overlook Mountain Wild Forest a corridor through the Indian Head Wilderness Area which contains the popular and still driveable dirt road to the fire tower atop the summit near Woodstock. A similar solution has been proposed under the new Master Plan to continue to allow more active use of the Hunter Mountain fire tower and the road leading up to it.
The Halcott Mountain Wild Forest is so designated only because it lacks enough contiguous area to qualify as wilderness.
Wild Forest areas besides those mentioned above include the Long Pond-Willowemoc in Sullivan County; the Touch-Me-Not, Cherry Ridge-Campbell Mountain and Dry Brook Ridge in Delaware County; the Balsam Lake, Bluestone, Lundy, Peekamoose Valley and Phoenicia-Mt. Tremper, Shandaken and Sundown in Ulster and the Blackhead, Colgate Lake, Hunter Mountain, Kaaterskill, North Point and Windham High Peak Wild Forests.
In addition to redesignating a good portion of those areas as wilderness, the proposed update would consolidate some into larger units (all the Delaware County properties, for instance).
The campgrounds are generally far smaller units, with many sites and basic facilities available, sometimes abutting wilderness and wild forest areas, and paved roads offering easy vehicle access. North-South Lake, however, is a vast area (New York's largest public campground) including not only many sites but human swimming areas at both lakes, the former Catskill Mountain House site at Pine Orchard and many of the historic trails around it.
Similarly, Belleayre's property extends well east of its ski trails and includes some of the hiking trails in the region as well.
Other campgrounds include Beaverkill, Devil's Tombstone, Kenneth L. Wilson, Mongaup Pond and Woodland Valley.
There are at least two Day Use Areas, within the park, one near Belleayre and the other at the Catskill Interpretive Center site. These are small tracts with picnic tables and sites where camping is forbidden, much as one would find in a small local park.
The Ulster County hamlets of Phoenicia and Pine Hill, both within the park, were formerly villages.
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