The Kaaterskill region in the northern Catskills was one of America’s earliest vacation destinations, and in the early 1800s “going to the Catskills” meant going there, with Haines Falls and the nearby Catskill Mountain House at its heart. The Kaaterskill Rail Trail follows a route that began as a footpath linking the Catskill Mountain House and other hotels to Haines Falls, then became a rail corridor by the 1880s as boarding houses and the grand Hotel Kaaterskill drew increasing numbers of travelers. At its peak, two competing passenger rail lines ran on parallel tracks toward the Catskill escarpment, bringing thousands of summer vacationers to the area’s scenery and to boarding houses, hotels, and resorts such as the Laurel House. Remains of that era still appear along the trail, including stone culverts from the 1880s, railroad bridge abutments, logging roads, cinders from steam engines, hotel remnants, and views of Kaaterskill Falls once seen clearly from the trains. At the trail’s end stands the Haines Falls Station of the Ulster and Delaware Railroad, built in 1913 to replace an earlier station at Haines Corners; rail service ended there in 1940, the station later served as a private home, and it is now the restored home of the Mountain Top Historical Society. The trail also connects Haines Falls with the 8,550-acre Kaaterskill Wild Forest in the Catskill Park, part of New York State’s Forest Preserve, and the surrounding landscape’s scenic, cultural, and historic resources were further recognized in 2013 when 41 miles of roadway in the Town of Hunter were designated New York State Scenic Byways.