Welcome to the Mountain Cloves Scenic Byway Including Hunter and Tannersville

The Mountain Cloves Scenic Byway provides a profound travel experience within the northern high peaks of the Catskill Mountains. For centuries, tourists have been inspired by the Mountain Cloves’ panoramic views of rugged mountains, valleys and rushing streams. This same Catskill landscape influenced the landscape painters of the Hudson River School, the first uniquely American art movement. Winding through the heart of the northern Catskill Mountains, travelers experience mountain scenery, clear waterways, and rolling farmland complemented by historic hamlets. Take a trip along the Byway and experience not just its natural beauty and tranquility, but also the great shopping, dining, lodging, cultural and historic offerings in and around the Town of Hunter—including the villages of Hunter, Tannersville, Lanesville and beyond.

You’ll also come away with a deeper awareness of the history and diversity of not just the Catskill Region, but New York State and the United States.The Byway’s story connects the threads of history in the Catskill Region, bringing together the natural resources of the reservoirs and mountains, the past and present artistic colonies and communities, the historical railroads and the early settlers, and the recreational opportunities for residents and visitors afforded by the widespread publicly protected lands.

Highlights Along The Byway

Towns and Villages

See the business listings starting on page 16 for many of the dining, shopping, lodging, and service options along the Byway!

Hunter Village

The Village of Hunter frames the base of Hunter Mountain Resort. You’ll find lodging and dining options here, as well as shopping at Rust Diamonds & More in Hunter Village Square. The Catskill Mountain Foundation offers films and performing arts programs in music, dance, and theater.

Tannersville-Painted Village in the Sky

Commercial center where dozens of local businesses occupy renovated buildings cheerfully painted in pastel colors. You’ll find many shopping and dining options here, along with performing arts at the Catskill Mountain Foundation’s Orpheum Performing Arts Center. The “Paint Project” featured on the Today show has attracted tourists and new businesses, and helped Main Street secure historic district designation.

Tannersville was a recent recipient of a New York State Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI) Grant, a comprehensive approach to boosting local economies by transforming communities into vibrant neighborhoods where the next generation of New Yorkers will want to live, work, and raise a family. In its fifth year, the program is investing $200 million across the state, or $20 million in each region. The downtown districts that receive the funding are chosen by each of the State’s 10 Regional Economic Development Councils (REDCs). Tannersville is one of the two winners in the Capital Region, and has been awarded $10M towards improvements that will help transform the downtown area. With technical assistance provided by the State and guidance from a local planning committee and the public, Tannersville will develop a Strategic Investment Plan that identifies specific projects that align with a unique vision for revitalization of the downtown area.

to pop and rock. The Doctorow Center for the Arts is also home to the Mountain Cinema, a three-screen movie house that shows Hollywood, Foreign and Independent films year-round, as well as the Piano Performance Museum, a one-of-a-kind collection of historic pianos and musical artifacts tracing the history of the piano in Europe and America over the past four centuries.

Attractions and Historic Sites

All Souls Church

Photo by Francis X. Driscoll

All Souls Church–Devil’s Path Vista

1107 Co Rd 25, Tannersville

All Souls Church is a beautiful 1894 stone chapel, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, offers a commanding distant view of the Devil’s Path Range. Its impressive stone, wood, and stained glass interior may be appreciated during concerts and special events.

Catskill Mountain Foundation

Doctorow Center for the Arts

7971 Main Street, Hunter

Orpheum Performing Arts Center

6050 Main Street, Tannersville

catskillmtn.org

The premier presenting arts organization in Greene County, the Catskill Mountain Foundation operates two performing arts spaces on the mountaintop: the Doctorow Center for the Arts in Hunter and the Orpheum Performing Arts Center in Tannersville. More than 75 performances are presented yearly, everything from classical music to dance to family performances

Mountain Top Historical Society

Mountain Top Historical Society & Kaaterskill Rail Trail

5132 Route 23A, Haines Falls mths.org

MTHS operates a Visitors Center and a Hudson River School

Art Trail Interpretive Center. Its 20-acre campus includes a fully restored 1913 Ulster & Delaware train station, as well as a quiet pond and walking paths, including the Kaaterskill Rail Trail (see page 19).

Mountain Top Library

6093 Main Street, Tannersville

mountaintoplibrary.org

Mountain Top Library, originally called the Haines Falls Free Library, was founded in 1900. In 2014, after a 9-year renovation project, the Library moved to the heart of the Village of Tannersville, into circa 1954 Catholic Church Marian Center building, and officially changed the name to Mountain Top Library. Year round, the Library sponsors many events, programs and activities for the community, for people of all ages. Programs offered are educational, entertaining, life enhancing and/or thought provoking, with an emphasis on their relevance to our Mountain Top community’s wants and needs.

Hunter Mountain Resort

64 Klein Avenue, Hunter

huntermtn.com

Hunter Mountain, second highest peak in the Catskills, is known for downhill skiing and snowboarding for all ability levels. Including several terrain parks and an all-ages tubing run, the resort is a popular wedding setting in the summer and autumn months. From July 1 through mid-October, Hunter Mountain also operates a scenic skyride, a state-of-the-art six-passenger chairlift that will take you in comfort to the 3,200-foot summit of Hunter Mountain. From there, you can enjoy amazing views for a sightseeing trip of the high peaks of the northern Catskills.

For the more adventurous, there are clearly marked New York State Department of Environmental Conservation hiking trails leading to the Hunter Mountain Fire Tower, the highest fire tower in New York State at 4,020 feet (for more information, see page 21).

Mountain Top Arboretum

4 Maude Adams Road, Tannersville

mtarboretum.org

A living sanctuary of native and introduced trees and shrubs. Created for education, research, and visitors’ pure enjoyment of the spectacular and varied Catskills landscape. Enjoy hiking, birding, plant life, geology, snowshoeing, and more. Events, lectures, and workshops are held year-round.

North/South Lake Campground and Day Use Area

874 N Lake Rd, Haines Falls

dec.ny.gov/outdoor/24487.html

North-South Lake is the biggest and most popular state campground in the Catskill Forest Preserve, offering extraordinary scenic beauty, and historical sites, such as: Alligator Rock, Kaaterskill Falls, and the former site of the Catskill Mountain House. An abrupt change in elevation occurs from about 540 feet above sea level at the base of the escarpment to approximately 2,250 feet at the site of the former Catskill Mountain House. The trails around the lakes have long provided visitors with exceptional views of the surrounding countryside. It is said that on a clear day, five states can be viewed from the escarpment.

Rip Van Winkle Lake Park

23 Lake Road, Tannersville

tannersvilleny.org/village-info/parks-recreation/

One of Tannersville’s great amenities, Rip Van Winkle Lake offers fun for the entire family. Area attractions include: pickleball court, skate park, basketball court, beach volleyball, playground, pavilion, huckleberry trail, outdoor musical instruments, outdoor workout gear, and frisbee golf.

Driving Paths

See the business listings starting on page 16 for many of the dining, shopping, lodging, and service options along the Byway!

The Kaaterskill Clove Experience

Route 23A from Palenville to Haines Falls

With its surrounding mountains and views overlooking the Hudson River, Kaaterskill Clove along Route 23A is the landscape that inspired early 19th century American artists. Here was a quality of nature, rugged, wild, sublime, and distinctly different from anything known in Europe.

Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, Asher B. Durand, and other painters, collectively known as the Hudson River School of Art, created some of America’s greatest landscape paintings, now found in museums around the world. Similarly inspired were writers Washington Irving, Mark Twain, James Fenimore Cooper, William Cullen Bryant, and others.

Lanesville Valley and Stony Clove

Route 214

Between Hunter and Plateau Mountains’ soaring slopes and along Stony Clove Creek, Stony Clove Notch holds some of the Catskills’ most striking scenery. Popular for hiking, camping, hunting, and ice climbing, this route is where the Mountain Clove Scenic Byway and Catskill Mountain Scenic Byway meet, passing through the hamlets between Edgewood, Lanesville, Chichester and Phoenicia.

Schoharie Creek Headwaters Valley County Route 16/Platte Clove Road

Truly picturesque mountainous terrain and a flat, narrow valley against a backdrop of the majestic Devil’s Path Range. Follow County Route 16/Platte Clove Road through Platte Clove Cleared by early settlers, painted by artists, lauded by poets, Platte Clove became a destination for visitors seeking wilderness. With mountainous flanks gouged by glaciers and carved by streams and waterfalls, Platte Clove today is still breathtaking, rugged, and dangerous. County Route 16/Platte Clove Road leads to the top of Platte Clove and beyond. Road is open mid-April through October.

Visit mtnclovesbyway.com to see an interactive map of the Byway, including audio and video tours!

Platte Clove

What’s in a Name?

In the Catskills, you’ll often see words or suffixes that you won’t find in many other places, but speak of the Dutch influence in this area. Two such words are “kill” and “clove.”

Derived from the Middle Dutch kille (kil in modern Dutch) meaning “riverbed” or “water channel,” a “kill” is a body of water, most commonly a creek, but also a tidal inlet, river, strait, or arm of the sea. The term is found in areas of Dutch influence in the Netherlands’ former North American colony of New Netherland, primarily the Hudson and Delaware Valleys. “Kill” is also joined with a noun to create a composite name for a place or body of water, as in Catskill or Kaaterskill.

A clove is a pass through large mountains, the place where walking people used to walk and driving people now drive. In Middle Dutch tradition, a kloof is a deep ravine or mountain pass. Kloove is directly translated as a “cut or gash in the body of Mother Earth” in Old Dutch. The Dutch, in their conquest of new worlds settled many regions including the Hudson Valley. The use of the term arrived with the earliest Dutch settlers, and “clove” is an anglicized version of Kloove or Kloof

Stony Clove

History of the Mountain Cloves Scenic Byway

The Mountain Cloves Scenic Byway (MCSB) originated in 1992 from three scenic corridors within Hunter that were officially designated under the NYS Scenic Roads program – Kaaterskill, Stony and Platte Cloves. Around 1997, the NYS Scenic Roads Program transitioned to the NYS Scenic Byways Program, administered by the NYS Department of Transportation, and was signed into law by the Legislature. In 2006, the Town of Hunter received a grant to create a corridor management plan (CMP) that would create a continuous Scenic Byway ‘loop’ connecting the three scenic Cloves. After a few years developing the CMP, the nomination package was accepted by the state Scenic Byway Advisory Board and signed into law by Governor Cuomo recognizing the 41-mile Mountain Cloves Scenic Byway, the first in the Catskill Park. A not-for-profit organization was created to preserve, manage and enhance the intrinsic resources found along the byway.