The Catskills · Ulster County

Big Indian

Tiny Rt 28 hamlet at the foot of Slide Mountain — the gateway hike to the highest peak in the Catskills.

Big Indian is a hamlet, not a town — a couple of buildings, a country store, the trailhead-feeder road that climbs up into the Slide Mountain Wilderness. From here, the Slide-Cornell-Wittenberg traverse is the most-storied ridge walk in the Catskills, and Slide itself (4,180′) is the highest peak in the range. Big Indian and adjacent Pine Hill anchor the western approach to the Belleayre ski area, and the Esopus Creek runs cold and fast through both. A weekend here is a hiking-and-cabin weekend, not a dining-out weekend, and we cover it as such.