about MOUNTAIN CREEK COTTAGE

A classic Catskills country cottage built in the 1950’s, this perfect vacation getaway has just been newly renovated with a glass-front wood burning stove, a mudroom, a bright, new, clean, modern kitchen, and a new, (very sunny) deck and screened-in porch. The bathroom has a claw foot tub and there are three bedrooms.

Room Descriptions:

  • Room 1 (downstairs) has a full-size bed
  • Room 2 (upstairs) as a twin bed, and closet
  • Room 3 (upstairs) has a queen-size bed and closet
  • Please also enjoy the reading nook upstairs that’s furnished with a writing desk, a vintage typewriter, a cozy chair and a shelf of books for you to borrow during your stay.

Amenities:

  • Full kitchen
  • Claw foot tub
  • Screened porch
  • Sunny deck
  • Fire pit
  • Gas BBQ
  • Creek access for fishing and swimming
  • Big front yard and back yard for lawn games (bocce and croquet sets provided) or just hanging out
  • 30 acres to hike and explore

This is a place to truly disconnect and unwind (and vacation like it's 1999 - according to the NYT).  Where’s theTV? Not here! There’s also no Internet and no cell phone service, but there is a land line, and if you really need to pick up or send a message or Google a question you can come to our house (just down the road) to use our satellite Internet service, which is accessible from our porch when we're not at home. Don't be put off by this lack of electronic amenities, the most popular comment we have had from guests is how refreshed they felt to be untethered from their devices for a couple of days. When is the last time you tried that?

Also check out our favorite guest Taryn's blog post about her birthday stay at the cottage this summer.  She took some amazing pics and we were thrilled to have her as a guest.

And don't forget to follow us on Instagram @mountaincreekcottage.  We post new pictures and happenings and new photos from guests whenever we can.

WEST KILL AND SPRUCETON VALLEY

The cottage is situated in Spruceton Valley, one of the Catskill Mountain’s best-kept secrets. With the Hunter-West Kill Wilderness on its north slope and the Rusk Mountain Wild Forest on its south slope, the valley is a hidden jewel slap bang in the middle of the Catskill Mountain Forest Preserve in Catskill State Park.

To reach it from “down below” (as the locals say) you have to cross the natural barriers of Halcott Mountain and the Halcott Mountain Forest, via the deep channel of Echo Notch, a popular destination for ice climbers in the winter, to West Kill, a small, no-store, no-gas-station, two-church, one-post-office town.  When you turn off the main road and head up to the cottage you will be forgiven for imagining that you have been transported to a place far away from any city. The north of Scotland? . . . or another world altogether perhaps?

Just a three-hour drive from Manhattan and about four miles past the town, nestled on the south slope of Evergreen Mountain and overlooking West Kill Creek, the cottage has views of the mountains of North Dome, St. Anne, and West Kill, which make up the ridgeline that separates the valley from the Osopus river and Route 28.  This ridge comprised part of the lands of an indigenous people called the Muh-he-con-neok, whose name means “People of the Waters That Are Never Still” – the Native American tribe that had become more commonly known by the name in the title of James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 novel, The Last of the Mohicans.  The ridge is also home to the Devil’s Path Trail, considered one of the hardest and most rewarding day hikes in the country.

The Hunter West Kill Wilderness Area across the creek was the first property to be acquired by New York state for a forest preserve in December 1874, when New York was able to acquire 187.5 acres of woodland through a mortgage foreclosure. Today, the Hunter West Kill Wilderness Area portion of the park covers 19,500 acres. Meanwhile, on our side of the creek, the cottage borders 3,900 acres of the Rusk Mountain Wild Forest, which extends from the summit of Hunter Mountain on the east and runs westward along the ridge that includes Evergreen, Rusk, Pine Island and Packsaddle mountains. 

It's an explorer's paradise.