Their works helped establish the Catskill Mountain House and other hotels around North-South Lake as the fashionable summer vacation spot for wealthy Americans of the era.

Its slopes are spread out and rise gently for some distance, then a bit more steeply, to the summit dome, which is surrounded by rock cliffs at about 3,500 feet (1,100 m) in elevation.

The first recorded ascent of Kaaterskill High Peak took place on July 26, 1793, when Peter DeLaBigarre, a French "agent" and frequent visitor to the nearby Clermont estate of Chancellor Robert Livingston, who published him regularly in Transactions, the journal of the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts and Manufactures.

Most of his narrative was given over to a springtime trip to Overlook Mountain and North-South Lake, but on the later day he records that he brought a "natural philosopher" friend along with a barometer and climbed "Round Top", which he believed to be the highest Catskill peak, renaming it Liberty Cap in honor of the political change in his homeland.

One of those visitors, Princeton geography professor Arnold Henry Guyot, spent much of his summers in the early 1870s striking out to other mountains in the region.

[7] When New York established its Forest Preserve several years later, a delegation from the state forestry board commemorated the event by climbing Slide, not High Peak.

A privately owned observation tower and neighboring two-story building were built on the summit in the late 19th century, but seem to have been removed sometime around state acquisition of the property two decades later.

A former New York City Police Department camp near the top of Platte Clove was proposed as a site for a prison when it was abandoned in the 1970s, but the plan was dropped after local opposition.

A half-mile (1 km) horse-drawn railroad was once constructed on the south slopes below the col, following the brook by Byrne Road, to haul logs out of the area.

One of them, on June 13, 1967, resulted in two fatalities when a twin engine Piper PA-23-250 Aztec flew into a ledge just below summit in adverse weather conditions.

[12] The small Cortina Valley ski area, started in 1975[8] tried to make a go of it under several different ownerships on the northwestern slope of Round Top, but went out of business for good around 2000.

Typically for the Catskills, High Peak and much of the state land around it are covered with a northern-hardwood slope forest in which beech, birch and maple predominate.

The summit dome of both High Peak and Round Top are likewise home to a boreal forest of balsam fir and red spruce, with paper birch as a deciduous associate species.

It remains wet and muddy even through dry weather, and in late spring it is often one of the best places to see some of the wildflower species of the Catskills, such as trillium and clintonia.

The southern route is still overwhelmingly preferred due to its gentle, almost level climb for much of its distance, allowing hikers to build up a good pace for a determined take on the summit.

The unofficial Twilight Park Trail (named for a private residential community at the head of Kaaterskill Clove, at its northern end) is used in all cases to gain the summit.

Starting from the trailhead parking lot at the top of Platte Clove, recently expanded by NYSDEC, hikers follow the old Steenburg Road, now the snowmobile trail, blazed both with large orange plastic discs for snowmobiles (rarely seen) and smaller blue ones for foot users (A color given on all DEC lands to sections of the Long Path not part of other designated trails).

At the last fork, a mile (1.6 km) from the trailhead a state sign indicates the distances to Palenville, the next place the Long Path reaches civilization, and other points of interest on the far side of the mountain.

A yellow-blazed spur, the former Nature Friends Trail, only recently added to the state system, leads to the scenic Huckleberry Point overlook after a while.

Beyond Pine Plains, the forest returns to a more deciduous character as the trail remains level while becoming decidedly westward in heading, crossing many rivulets or streambeds, some offering picturesque mini-cascades of their own.

Finally, at a junction 3.7 miles (6.0 km) from the trailhead, the Long Path drops down into Kaaterskill Clove while the snowmobile route heads up a slightly steeper slope.

A combination of smaller cairns, surveyor's tape flags and old blue paint blazes have been used by various stealth maintainers over the years to keep this wet and sometimes hard-to-spot route marked.

It begins by winding through the notably scrubbier woods of these slopes before finally settling for a traverse up past some impressive rock outcrops, where it becomes more heavily trodden and easier to follow.

The trail switches back at the top of a small rise and begins to descend slightly to the two streams at the base of Hillyer Ravine.

With permission from private landowners on the south slope a party can begin from the vicinity of Josh Road and follow the southern end of the Twilight Park Trail or forks of it up the mountain for the highest possible starting elevation.

The chief challenge in following this route is routefinding on the ledges to the northeast of Round Top, where the unwary hiker can easily reach a dead end and have to backtrack.

Indian Head and Twin mountains in the Devil's Path can be seen to the immediate south (the latter's summit appearing lower than High Peak even though it is not), with Plateau bookending them to the west.

Joseph Brant, the legendary Indian warrior who fought for the British, stopped by for a visit once, giving rise in later years to legends that he based his fearsome raids here.

The lower of the two on High Peak is one of the more easily reached since it sits right on the snowmobile loop, and much of the fuselage remains since removing the wreckage is not a priority for NYSDEC and its limited funding.