Harriman Hiker: Harriman State Park and Beyond: Kakiat Bushwack

Kakiat Bushwack
Kakiat County Park,
Rockland Co,
New York

Hiking Trails:
Old Mill Trail: Blue blaze
Kakiat Trail: White blaze
Mountain Trail: Orange blaze

Total Time: 1:15 hours
Estimated Distance: 1.8 Miles
Level of Difficulty: Moderate
Level of Recommendation: Highly recommended for a good bushwack
Points of Interest: Scramble and good view

Hiking Partners:
Shimmy Rosenberg
Morty Rosenberg

It had been a very rainy week, and I had not had the opportunity to go hiking the prior Sunday. So after work one day when it wasn't raining, Shimmy called me to get together for a quick hike up Kakiat. When I was a teenager I would frequent Kakiat, and I had a specific bushwack route to the summit. I had not done this route in years and figured with our time constraint that this this would be a good hike.

We parked in the Kakiat parking area, crossed the Mahwah River bridge, and took the Old Mill Trail for a very short distance to the Kakiat Trail. We then proceeded up the mountain, and where the trail crosses the stream we veered off the trail and continued along the side of the stream bushwacking up my former route. There is a nice seasonal waterfall here. Prior to the Power Lines, we veered south and took the steep scramble up to the top by the Kakiat viewpoint.

At this point we noticed there were dark storm clouds rolling in, and checking the radar map on our phones we realized the storm was imminent. We quickly scurried down the mountain in the Mountain Trail, and the rain started as we were about halfway down. Thankfully it was still light at first and we were under tree cover, so although we did get pretty wet, we didn't get thoroughly soaked.