Hanging Out at the Top of Red Hill: A Hike Worth Remembering

Perched atop a 2,990-foot Catskill Mountain in Denning, New York, the Red Hill Fire Observation Station ain't your run-of-the-mill hike. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), it's the southernmost fire tower in the Catskill Park, a part of the Catskills’ forest fire detection network since 1920. These dedicated observers, guarding the mountain from 1920 to 1990, are the ones you can picture manning the tower. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) took over the joint in 1990.

Now, adventurers still scale the peak and tower for unbeatable vistas of the Catskill High Peaks to the north. Spending time at the station gives you a newfound respect for those dedicated souls. In the slow times, they'd even fix up the road and telephone line, and live off the land, hunting and foraging for wild food. The observers drew their water from a mountain spring, and their cabin, built in 1931, is one of the oldest remaining observer's cabins in New York, an authentic relic of the earlier style used by the DEC.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons