2023-08-02: Shale Pit/Ottis Hall Hills

Shale Pit Hill, elevation 2640'. Broome town highpoint. Schoharie County highpoints 4/16.

Ottis Hall Hill, elevation 2652'. Gilboa town highpoint. Schoharie County highpoints 5/16.

Trip total 3.31 mi, 479' gain, 1h09m RT.

I headed up to Schoharie County after work Wednesday to check out some nearby town high points on a bit of a whim. I finished the Greene County highpoints but some of the nearby surrounding towns in Schoharie and Albany Counties began to catch my interest, including Broome and Gilboa. Both are tiny towns nestled in the foothills of the Catskills and their highest points are less than a mile away from one another, both easily accessible in a short bushwhack from Shale Pit Road.

On my way up I stopped along Route 36 in Durham. County Route 36 is the shortest highway in Greene County, only about 300' long, and takes over where Potter Mountain Road briefly crosses the county line. Just north of this highway is the westernmost point in Durham which, like many extreme points, had caught my interest some time ago. I jumped out of the car to bag the point, then hopped back in and continued my drive.

The corner of the fencepost marks the point where Greene, Albany, and Schoharie Counties meet.

Westernmost point in Durham NY. 74° 15' 15.52" W.

A view of Huntersfield Mountain along Route 3 in Conesville.

The Broome highpoint, officially unnamed, is located in High Knob State Forest, near a local maximum at the town line with Conesville to the south. The Gilboa highpoint, also formally unnamed, is located 0.8 miles to the northwest on private land near Hubbard Hill. By parking on the seasonal Shale Pit Road in Conesville, I could bushwhack up to 'Shale Pit Hill' in Broome, then continue onwards to 'Ottis Hall Hill' in Gilboa, then back to the car in a decent amount of time. The road isn't in too bad condition for a seasonal road and my Corolla had no problem making it to the parking spot.

The track of my hike overlaid on the USGS topographic quad. Shale Pit Hill is along the town line (dotted line) below center; Ottis Hall is the high point southeast of Hubbard Hill at the upper left.

My parking spot at the highest point of Shale Pit Road.

The bushwhack up Shale Pit Hill was relatively short but fairly difficult. A lot of the forests here are new growth with evidence of clear cutting in the past few decades. Dense young beech forests made for slow and occasionally painful going, although the summit itself was pretty clear. There were a lot of ferns on this hike, covering the ground where mosses or grass might in other forests.

Grassy birch/maple forests on the way up. Note the small size of all the trees.

A mature grisette (Amanita vaginata) late in the sporulation phase.

Shale Pit Hill, Broome town highpoint. Elevation 2640'.  Schoharie County highpoints 4/16. I wasn't sure where exactly the town line was so I tried to take my picture towards the north end of the flat summit.

I briefly considered going back and climbing Ottis Hill from Leonard Hill Road to the north, which would make for a shorter but less well-researched hike, and quickly decided against it. I followed the ridgeline north through some heavy blowdowns to an intermediary hill with a narrow summit ridge. From here I turned west through a variety of different environments including recently cut areas, logging trails overgrown with thorns, and extremely dense young forests. There was some decent elevation loss/gain here and I passed a number of active hunting stands.

An orange crate stands as a makeshift hunting seat near the Gilboa/Broome town line.

A shale stone clearing at the end of the private Rogers Road, which I inadvertently encountered. At my closest I was within 600' of houses but didn't come within visible range of anything.

The summit of Ottis Hall Hill is fairly long and flat and with some heavily overgrown areas it was hard to tell what exactly was the highest ground. I bushwhacked through a wide clearing of waist-deep thorns, and while the clearing seemed to be the highest ground, I headed all the way to the clearer woods on the far side to be sure. The highpoint here is a rather pleasant area of maple trees that reminds me of forests I used to play in as a child.

Bright evening sunlight shines through maples near the edge of the clearing.

Ottis Hall Hill, Gilboa town highpoint. Elevation 2652'. Schoharie County highpoints 5/16. After taking this picture I found some ground that seemed slightly higher along a rock wall at the edge of the clearing, probably within two feet of elevation.

Descent went fairly quickly and uneventfully. I followed the ridgeline and according to the GPS track I followed quite nearly the exact same route I did on ascent in some places, although I didn't recognize too many landmarks. I was able to circumvent some obstacles such as thorn bushes and dense woods knowing the area a bit better now and soon found myself back at the car with two more towns conquered.

The heavily degraded skull of an unidentified animal, possibly a young deer, found below Shale Pit Hill.