Platte Clove - March 2012

TobiasTicetonyk · Thu Mar 29, 2012 6:50 pm

On 2 separate days I explored the all too familiar Devil's Kitchen. I didn't hike the whole thing (don't listen to the naysayers- it's not really that crazy). I didn't see the middle 2 gargantuan falls, or the top Plattekil waterfall, or Black Chasm but I was happy, as my trip down Hell's Hole now allows me to claim that I have seen every waterfall in the Plaaterzkillz. If anyone wants to know how to get down there from the bottom or top and safely and efficiently navigate the clove, message me and ask. I plan on hiking the whole thing this May, and I have hiked every section of it in bits and pieces of it throughout my entire life, but honestly that's not a very long time. My favorite part is still Black Chasm. I would love to go up Black Chasm to Indian Head, then over to Plattekil falls and Hell's Hole to hike back down.

Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... 844&type=3

Some select pictures that radiate awesomeness.... if anyone has other names, go ahead and regurgitate them:

"Honolulu", lower section of the clove

The other side of "Honolulu"

"The Icebox", lower section of the clove

"That-Place-We-Went-To-On-Your-Fourtysomethinth-Birthday-And-I-Still-Have-A-Piece-Of-Red-Shale-I-Painted-Myself-With-Hole", lower clove

"Grandma's Hole", lower clove

AND NOW FOR THE UPPER CLOVE!!

WELCOME TO HELL'S HOLE

At the bottom of Hell's Hole... big boulder jam-dam. straight down from below me. I had to skirt around this waterfall, on top of it. It was actually wide for platte clove standards, dry, flat, and stable. If I fell to my left it would not have ended well, but it was by no means a risk to take this walk. It is a safe route. Hell, it's the only route!!!

And upstream from there... Bridal Veil Falls!!! Wooooooo!!!....woo.....oooo...o?

Turn around from that view of Bridal Veil, and the Hudson River! Imagine standing on a boat, centuries ago, first sailing up, and seeing this.. somehow... Personally, I'd rather be standing here!

Lots of effects on this photo, but it was so blurry and crappy that I consider this a salvage job.

more bridal veil

Ok, so that stable waterfall escarpment I mentioned earlier only got me to the top of the Hell Hole waterfall confluence, below Bridal Veil. To get to the actual bottom of hell hole and that waterfall, I had to get to the bottom of Bridal Veil, up above it on a slope, and down said slope, making one multi-elevation not-exactly-closed circle to the bottom of the boulder jam-dam. I call the slope I went down the "slopes of insanity" Here is a view looking back into Hell's Hole from the Slopes of Insanity. They were not deadly. Just... fast.

The last stretch of the Slopes of Insanity. Looking at the boulder jam-dam and HellHole Confluence falls. I really need a name for this one.

Ok, so this is the waterfall downstream from the hell hole confluence waterfall. At the bottom of this gully, there is a formidable drop. To get around this one, take the southern bank. No deadly cliffs, just bushwhack up steepness. Follow the blue markers. Downstream from that waterfall that you cannot see in this picture, there is another large waterfall. I'll post pictures of them eventually. That one has a very deep and wide swimming hole. Tall fall. Awesome. The next one downstream from that is "The Icebox". Get it??

Turned around as I went back up Hell Hole

Lower section of Hell's Hole Falls

Top part of Hell's hole falls coming out of the gully beneath the bridge

Upstream, below the bridge. Is this Schalk's Falls?

And on my drive down Platte Clove road back to Wittenberg Valley, I stopped to take this awful, overexposed picture of Black Chasm Falls. I love this waterfall. I have a post for it in Black Chasm thread... it's somewhere around here.

WELL, there you go! Another trip report that features my pictures and incoherent ramblings!!! I'll post pictures of the rest of Devil's Kitchen eventually, so ya'll can see what I didn't go to in this excursion. Questionz? Commentz? If there is already a thread for this, a moderator can move this around if needed.

jroz · Thu Mar 29, 2012 8:10 pm

That seems a bit insane

TobiasTicetonyk · Thu Mar 29, 2012 9:22 pm

jroz wrote:That seems a bit insane

Yeah, there were quite a few moments where I found myself thinking "don't fall... don't move... don't fall.. don't even breathe".. but I think I turned out just fine!

Mon Apr 02, 2012 12:16 pm

Wonderful pics and tour! A great resource! Thanks for posting it!

L_G_D · Tue Apr 03, 2012 8:36 am

Nice, I never had the guts to go down from the top of Hell's Hole, we did kinda skirt the side once, coming downstream from the main Plattekill Falls (at the top near the little red cabin) then along the edge above the next falls, over to Hell's Hole. That was adventure enough. Did you go right down stream from Hell's Hole? That seems a bit.... adventurous... lol

One of these days, I'd like to hike from the bottom up, and either come out Hell's Hole or Black Chasm. It seems it would be easier to go up either one of those than down them.... yikes.

BryanSwan · Fri Apr 06, 2012 2:09 am

I've occasionally lurked here but I felt this was a topic which required my attention. Quick introduction, my name is Bryan Swan and I run the World Waterfall Database and Northwest Waterfall Survey. I live in Seattle, but I've got family in Boston and I've been able to do a little bit of waterfall hunting in New York (in the Catskills and Hudson Valley) when visiting with my WWD cohort Dean Goss in Burlington, VT. Of the few places I've been in NY, Platte Clove is the one I'm most impressed with. The sheer scale of the valley is just off the charts for that part of the country. I've only managed to see three of the falls there myself (Old Mill, Plattekill and the uppermost falls along Hell's Hole Brook) but in researching New York's waterfalls for our World Waterfall Database datum, I've been damn near obsessed at figuring out how exactly the waterfalls are broken down in there. Next time I'm back east, I fully intend on taking a stab at descending down Hell's Hole to see if nothing else Bridal Veil Falls, so this beta answers several questions I had and is greatly appreciated on my end.

From what I know, there are at least eight significant named waterfalls along the Plattekill (I would bet more). Russell Dunn gives a good amount of detail in his Catskill Region Waterfall Guide about the names of these falls, but his information seems to contradict itself regarding the order of the falls. As best as I can deduce, top to bottom they are as follows: Old Mill Falls, Plattekill Falls, Pomeroy Falls, Rainbow Falls, Lower Rainbow Falls (aka Hell Hole Falls), Green Falls (aka Evergreen Falls), Rocky Rapids, Gray Rock Falls, Upper Red Falls, Lower Red Falls.

I believe Pomeroy Falls is what is now known as Bridal Veil Falls, but at the same time, the falls known as Bridal Veil is so close to the next drop downstream (the one right at the junction with Hell Hole Brook) that I would almost have to believe those two are Rainbow and Lower Rainbow Falls respectively, and that Pomeroy Falls is a smaller drop between (Bridal Veil) and the bottom of Plattekill Falls itself. As far as which waterfalls the other five names belong to, I have no idea. Dunn cites a source which suggests there are 14 waterfalls over 20 feet tall within Platte Clove (this would be assumed to include Black Chasm and Hell's Hole Brook as well), and without photographic records of each one it may be quite difficult to determine which is which. So there it is, there are likely names for all of these, but I don't know which ones match up with which pictures.

I can say for sure that the second-to-last picture posted above is not Schalks Falls - Schalks is found on Plattekill Creek immediately upstream from the bridge along Platte Clove Road right in the middle of West Saugerties, almost right across the street from its junction with Manorville Road. Real easy to get to, but not terribly obvious unless you get out of your car and peer over the guardrail.

L_G_D · Fri Apr 06, 2012 7:36 am

Looking at the WWD, ambitious undertaking, a lot of information to go through there.

If you haven't seen these already, here are some links to the Platte Clove area falls on this site:

http://www.nyfalls.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3681

http://www.nyfalls.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3372

http://www.nyfalls.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2091

http://www.nyfalls.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3406

http://www.nyfalls.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3409

Don't know what happened to the pictures on some of those.... Anyway, as I've said before, when I get the courage and ambition, I plan to hike Platte Clove from the bottom and either come out Hell's Hole or more likely Black Chasm and try to record all the falls along the way. There's so much to do in that area that it would take a lifetime.

BryanSwan · Sat Apr 07, 2012 3:12 am

L_G_D wrote:Looking at the WWD, ambitious undertaking, a lot of information to go through there.

You have no idea. In preparing our New York data it's already much bigger than I anticipated. I think we'll easily bust 10,000 waterfalls for the United States alone.

Don't know what happened to the pictures on some of those.... Anyway, as I've said before, when I get the courage and ambition, I plan to hike Platte Clove from the bottom and either come out Hell's Hole or more likely Black Chasm and try to record all the falls along the way. There's so much to do in that area that it would take a lifetime.

Definitely looking forward to seeing the fruits of that effort. If I didn't live on the other side of the country I'd be right there with you - definitely my kind of hike.