2024-06-02: Fulton Hill

Fulton Hill, elevation 2346'. Fulton town highpoint; Schoharie County town highpoints 9/16. 2.8 mi, 318' gain, 52m round-trip.

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon, and I had already bagged one town highpoint, Petersburg Mountain, after church. Of course, that wasn't quite enough for me, so I pushed on to Fulton Hill farther to the south.

Located in Mallet Pond State Forest, Fulton Hill is buried deep in the backcountry of Schoharie County. The closest road to the summit is Cemetery Road, a sketchy dirt road that climbs to within a half-mile of the highpoint. I parked at the intersection of Fulton Hill and Cemetery roads, where there was space for my car, and began the walk up the latter.

My route up Fulton Hill. Overlay courtesy of CalTopo.

While I probably could have driven Cemetery Road, it was fun to walk it. The short stretch of road passes several points of interest, including a pond, an old shale pit, and a creepy-looking overgrown cemetery, from which the road takes its name. Beyond the shale pit, at the highest point on the road, I turned into the woods to begin the bushwhack portion of the hike.

The overgrown cemetery on Cemetery Road.

Much of the bushwhack went through open spruce forests, old tree plantations on state forest land. Many of Schoharie County's forests look like this. At Fulton Hill, however, there was a lot of undergrowth on the forest floor, with brambles and pricker bushes impeding my progress.

Heavy underbrush in the otherwise open forest.

The farther I got from the road, the denser the underbrush became. I relied on my phone for navigation to the high point more than I usually like to. The thick understory meant that I circumnavigated the highpoint for some time, searching for an easy way to get to it. I finally found my way through a grove of junipers that was too dark for any understory to grow.

The dark, dead-looking juniper grove near the highpoint.

Finally, I found what looked like the highest spot, in a thicket near the base of some massive spruce trees. The whole area is covered in deep mosses and brush, and it was hard to tell the exact highest point for sure, so I stomped around a bit to ensure that I reached it before heading back down.

Slightly less choking underbrush on my descent.

I found a bit of an easier route out of the woods, tracking farther southwest through less dense underbrush. This put me back on Cemetery Road beyond the crest of the hill, so there was some extra elevation gain on descent.

Looking up the crest of Cemetery Road from the east.

The walk down Cemetery Road was very buggy. The hike as a whole had been annoyingly buggy, but once I passed the pond, I was swarmed by horseflies. I ended up running much of the descent to try to get away from them. June is bug season in the Catskills, and I wasn't terribly surprised. Still, they were a small price to pay for another town highpoint down.