Kaaterskill Falls is a 231-foot two-tier plunge waterfall at the head of Kaaterskill Clove in Greene County, New York, about 2.6 miles northwest of Palenville. Painted by Thomas Cole in the 1820s and later a paid spectacle for hotel guests, it is now reached by a short gravel path to a viewing platform above the gorge.
The falls
The creek draining North and South Lake — known as Lake Creek in some surveys and Spruce Creek in others — pours over the edge of the clove in two steps: an upper plunge of 167 feet and a lower one of 64 feet. Wikipedia gives 260 feet. The falls run all year, but without steady rain the flow can drop to a trickle in late summer.
Getting there
The falls are in the Kaaterskill Wild Forest, managed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The main access is the Laurel House Road lot (about 20 cars, portable toilets). From there a gravel path leads about 0.3 mile to the platform over the upper tier; a trail with long stone staircases continues down to the pool between the tiers, another 0.67 mile. Scutt Road and South Lake are the other parking areas.
The old Molly Smith lot on Route 23A has been closed since 2021, and the Town of Hunter bans parking anywhere along Route 23A through the clove from May to October, with ticketing and towing. The Kaaterskill Trolley shuttle is not running in 2026.
When to go
Spring and fall are the most impressive seasons. Summer weekends are crowded: a 2026 state visitor-use report counted up to 3,000 people a day in the clove on peak days in 2023 and floated a daily cap, not yet adopted. Traction spikes help in winter.
On site
State rules require visitors to stay on marked trails, keep more than six feet from cliff edges and stay out of the water within 150 feet upstream of the falls. Several people have died here, most after leaving the trail near the cliffs; in June 2025 a 70-year-old hiker fell from a rock ledge onto the stone steps and was killed. Leashed dogs are allowed. The crushed-stone approach, dropping over 100 feet, is hard going for standard wheelchairs.
History and name
Cole first painted the falls in 1826, after an 1825 visit, and William Cullen Bryant published a poem about them in 1836. Peter Schutt opened a boarding house above the brink in 1852; as the Laurel House hotel it dammed the creek and charged visitors below to watch the water released. The hotel closed in 1963 and the state burned it in 1967. The name likely comes from Catskill, "kill" being Dutch for stream.
Nearby
Bastion Falls is about 0.4 mile away. Fawns Leap, about 1.1 miles off, is the scene of Asher Durand's 1849 painting Kindred Spirits; a teenager drowned there in April 2026. Santa Cruz Falls and Five Cascades lie about 1.2 and 1.3 miles away.
Distances are straight-line.