2018 - Hike 30 - September 9 - Minnewaska State Park Preserve - Kerhonkson, NY

Rainbow Falls Loop
Posted by Chris 9/9/18

Basics:
Length - About 5.5 miles
Elevation gain - ~700 feet
Nearest city - I'd call this a semi isolated area but Kerhonkson wasn't very far away
Difficulty - Moderate with some difficult spots requiring VERY good agility

The Day:
We headed out very early today.  It was 100 miles away but that was about where the chance of rain went down from 100% to 20%.  It worked, there was no rain at this place.  We initially were headed for a location that was in a preserve managed by some sort of foundation.  The trail guide on Alltrails looked good but when we got there we found out it was 15 dollars PER PERSON to go into the Mohonk preserve.  So we took the toll collector's advice and went to the state park up the road.  Then Alltrails hit it out of the park and found a beautiful interesting loop trail with no crowds (there were a ton of people at the park but most of them went to some other waterfall and we only saw a few people all day on the trail).

The trail:
The trail loop goes in one way along a gravel road and out the other along trails.  Even the gravel road had scenery all over the place.  The Rainbow Falls trail itself (starts at the far point of the gravel road) was lovely and narrow, secluded and rugged.  There were ENORMOUS granite areas that had to be climbed and drop offs that had to be done squatting down and holding onto branches etc.  It pushed the limits of what I'd call moderate but with good hiking boots and dry weather it was very enjoyable to traverse.

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