Catskills, NY - Kelly Hollow

ABOUT THE PARK: 

Balsam Lake Mountain Wild Forest - New York State DEC

DIRECTIONS: 

GPS Coordinates 42.07839, -74.65082

Mill Brook Road parking lot for Kelly Hollow.

TRAIL MAP: 

Catskills Trail Map 142 - NYNJ Trail Conference

Balsam Lake Mountain Wild Forest - New York State DEC

HIKE DISTANCE:  3.7 miles

THE HIKE: 

This was my 4th hike of the day and I started much later than I would have liked to.  It was 5:30 PM so my plan was to make it out by 7:30 PM at the latest.  It's a fairly smooth and easy trail for the most part so fortunately I made it out on time because it is darned dark in those woods when the sun starts to set!

I most definitely signed the trail register, which I always do anyway, but being in there alone at almost dark, that was mandatory.

The trail is a woods road that follows along the creek down below.  You can hear the water but with foliage there is not much to see other than a waterfall or cascade if you step over to the edge and look down.  It was too dark down in there for any of my pictures to turn out.

A little bit of a glimpse at the creek down below.

All water crossings have bridges.

The Kelly Hollow Lean-to at ...

... Beaver Pond

The trail loops completely around Beaver Pond over to the other side.

Back at the creek, for a lollipop hike turn right on the short cut trail to loop back around to the parking lot but there is also an option to go left and make a little bit longer loop without repeating which is what we did.

The views of the creek are a little better on this side.

At a cemetery the trail turns right.

It comes out at Mill Brook Road where we turned right to cross over the creek on the road.

Just after crossing the creek there is a foot path on the right back into the woods.  (Or you can road walk back but we were good on time so we went back into the woods.)

It's only .3 miles back to the car.

Made it back just in time.