Your Group Chat Is Vacationing. So Should You (Woodstock, Phonecia & Highmount Edition)
This week in the Catskills: hiking, Belleayre gondola rides, free mountain music, Woodstock evenings, and full, official permission to do absolutely nothing.
By mid-August, summer has a funny way of speeding up. Calendars fill back in, inboxes keep moving no matter how much you ignore them, and suddenly there are only so many weekends left before someone mentions pumpkin spice unironically. That's exactly when the Catskills start to feel especially good.
Come up to Highmount and Belleayre Mountain, trade traffic for trees, put the phone somewhere you can't hear it, and remember what an afternoon without an agenda actually feels like.
And if you do want an agenda? We've got a decent one.
Start High: Ride the Belleayre Gondola
The easiest way to understand why we love this corner of the Catskills is to see it from above, ideally without breaking a sweat to get there. The Catskill Thunder Gondola hauls you up the mountain for sweeping views across the Catskill Forest Preserve, tickets online or at Discovery Lodge, weather permitting. Ride up, wander around, breathe deeply, look out across miles of green mountains. There is no KPI for this. No meeting. No notification that needs answering. Just mountains, doing what mountains do best, which is nothing at all, spectacularly.
Then Put Your Hiking Shoes to WorK
Highmount is surrounded by the kind of hiking that can fill an entire morning, or simply justify a genuinely excellent lunch afterward, which is arguably the better reason to go. Start early while the air's still cool, bring water, take your time, stop occasionally to pretend you're admiring the view instead of catching your breath. The Catskills are considerably more impressive when you actually look at them instead of trying to set a hiking speed record nobody asked you to attempt.
Friday Night: Music on the Mountain
This Friday, August 21, Music on the Belle continues at Discovery Lodge with Lily of the Valley, bringing bluegrass to the mountain. Free admission, 6 to 9 PM. This might be our favorite kind of Catskills Friday: mountains in the background, live music, something good to eat, and zero reason to rush anywhere. Even your group chat can't compete with this one.
Need Water? Head to Belleayre Beach
Summer's still very much alive. Belleayre Beach in nearby Pine Hill offers swimming, boating, kayaking, paddleboarding, fishing, and picnicking. Spend the afternoon in the water, bring a book you'll pretend to read, claim a shady patch of grass, and see how long you can go without checking your email. Current record holder: nobody, ever.
Take a Woodstock Detour
Ready for a little more activity? Woodstock makes an excellent afternoon or evening out. Walk Tinker Street, browse the shops, grab coffee, have dinner, soak up the town's long-running mix of art, music, and Catskills eccentricity that no amount of tie-dye seems to dilute. Plenty happening this week at Bearsville Theater: Joyce Manor on Thursday, August 20, The Band Memo on Friday, August 21, and Pink Talking Fish (a genuinely excellent tribute to Pink Floyd, Talking Heads, and Phish, in case you needed a reason to say "yes" three separate times) on Saturday, August 22.
For something a touch more casual, Pearl Moon Woodstock has Brad Cole & Bossa Blue performing Friday evening, and live brunch with Sarah Power on Sunday, for anyone whose idea of recovery involves a mimosa and someone else singing about it.
Or Go the Other Direction: Phoenicia
Phoenicia remains one of our favorite nearby stops. Stroll through town, grab a bite at Bettina’s, and if you're after a slightly different Catskills adventure, check out Rail Explorers, where pedal-powered rail bikes follow the Esopus Creek through the woods, exercise that feels suspiciously like sightseeing, which is exactly the kind of trick we can get behind.
And Then, Do Nothing
Come back to Alpine Four Season Lodge. Sit outside. Look into the woods. Pour a glass of rosé. Make dinner. Light the fire. Listen to absolutely nothing happening, on purpose, for once. A Catskills getaway was never supposed to become another project you have to manage. Sometimes the best part is simply waking up in Highmount, making coffee, and realizing the mountain's just, right there, no commute required.
Your Late-Summer Catskills Escape Is Closer Than You Think
Hike in the morning. Ride the Belleayre gondola. Swim in the afternoon. Catch free music Friday night. Spend Saturday wandering Woodstock. And somewhere in between, leave enough room to do absolutely nothing at all. Summer isn't over yet. Don't let the remaining weekends quietly disappear into your calendar the way they always do.
Book your Highmount stay directly at Alpine Four Season Lodgeand make the mountain your home base for Belleayre, Woodstock, Phoenicia, and everything in between.
Daniel & The Crew
32 Galli Curci Road, Highmount, NY 12441
