The nearest settlements are the small communities of Fleischmanns and Pine Hill a short distance to the southwest and south and smaller West Kill further away to the north.

The eastern slopes are steeper, falling 1,700 feet (520 m) into Deep Notch, the pass between it and Mount Sherrill to the east, traversed by state highway NY 42.

On the southwest the ridge with the tripoint continues to a 1,500 feet (460 m) height of land between Halcott and 2,456-foot (749 m) Monka Hill, site of the former Grand Hotel.

[4] Estimates of the mountain's actual summit elevation range to the higher end of the 20-foot (6.1 m) contour interval, to as high as 3,541 feet (1,079 m).

[5][7] The west slopes make a very gentle grade to the Elk Creek valley, with some steep portions on the northwest at the headwall of Hemlock Gully.

To the north a ridge descends gently to 2,990 feet (910 m) before rising again to the 3,408-foot (1,039 m) peak officially unnamed[4] but known as either Northeast Halcott or Sleeping Lion.

Like the Catskills as a whole, a dissected plateau, Halcott was formed not through the upthrust of rock layers but by the gradual erosion of stream valleys in an uplifted region about 350 mya.

[10] Halcott is extensively forested, primarily in mature northern hardwoods (beech, birch and maple), with some small Norway spruce and red pine plantations at lower elevations and scattered stands of hemlock left over from the era when those trees were heavily harvested for their tannin-rich bark.

[13] The slopes of the mountain were logged to some degree up to an average elevation of 3,150 feet (960 m), leaving a first-growth area of roughly 0.6 square miles (1.6 km2) on and below the summit.

There are no boreal evergreens, such as balsam fir and red spruce, as found on many other of the other Catskill High Peaks at these elevations.

[17] Between the fields and the first-growth forest on the summit is the forestry belt, where trees were cut by local farmers as firewood and hemlocks were harvested so that the tannin in their bark could be used to tan leather, a major regional industry that died out in the late 19th century when most of the accessible groves in the Catskills had been peeled and a synthetic process for making tannin was developed.

[3][7][21] Upon gaining the ridge at 3,000 feet (910 m), they follow it south up mostly gentle slopes to the mountain's summit, where a rough use path runs north–south to the canister, mounted on a cherry tree at the southern end.

[3][6][21] Access from the south and west follows gentler slopes but requires gaining permission from landowners to cross private landholdings at the mountain's base.