Devil's Path
Devil’s Path is a Catskills hiking traverse in Greene County, New York, built around steep up-and-down climbs between multiple peaks. The route is widely regarded as strenuous because of the sustained grade into rocky gaps and chutes, including sections where you may need hands as well as feet to get past near-vertical rock and narrow passages.
The classic east-side start is at the end of Prediger Road near Elka Park in the Town of Hunter, then the trail heads into the eastern “range” section. Early on, the route includes a junction where the blue-blazed Jimmy Dolan Notch Trail leaves for an alternate line to the feature known as Indian Head Mountain.
On the eastern Devil’s Path, the itinerary climbs Indian Head, then drops to Jimmy Dolan Notch (the highest col on the trail), then continues to Twin and Sugarloaf. After Pecoy Notch, the route carries on toward Mink Hollow and then reaches Plateau before descending toward Stony Clove Notch, where NY 214 provides the route’s single road crossing.
From there the trail continues west across West Kill Mountain and other western Catskills high points. Most hikers do it as day trips to one or two summits using the connecting trails into the cols, but it can be completed in a single long day for experienced parties. The corridor is mostly on New York state Forest Preserve land, with Devils Path lying within the Indian Head Wilderness Area east of Stony Clove Notch and the Hunter Mountain Wild Forest then West Kill Wilderness Area beyond.