A remote Catskills campsite above Devil's Kill in the Indian Head Wilderness, near abandoned 1800s bluestone quarries; hikers report a phantom lantern swinging along an old mining road said to belong to a dead miner.
Devil's Kitchen, Platte Clove / Indian Head Wilderness Area, Hunter, NY 12442
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free; backcountry camping in NYSDEC-managed Indian Head Wilderness. Backcountry rules apply.
Access
Limited Access
Rugged backcountry: steep gorge, waterfalls, boulder fields, and trails blocked by downed trees. Strenuous and potentially dangerous.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1880 · Within the NYSDEC-managed Indian Head Wilderness Area · Surrounded by abandoned 19th-century Catskill bluestone quarries that paved New York City · Featured in Fodor's and in 'Haunted Places in New York' by Sean Mosley
Devil's Kitchen sits in the Platte Clove, a steep, dramatic gorge on the eastern edge of the Catskills near Saugerties, within the Indian Head Wilderness Area managed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The name 'Devil's Kitchen' has been attributed both to the jumble of giant boulders at the bottom of the gorge — imagined as the Devil's cookware — and to the boiling, cauldron-like plunge pools beneath the clove's many waterfalls, thought to resemble pots stirred by demons.
Throughout the 1800s, the Catskills hosted a thriving bluestone industry. Quarries operating into the 1880s extracted bluestone and slate that was shipped down to New York City to pave its sidewalks. As cement replaced bluestone, the quarries were abandoned, leaving behind cuts, spoil piles, and old haul roads now reclaimed by forest. One such abandoned road runs parallel to and just downhill of the modern trail near the Devil's Kitchen campsite; today it is choked with downed trees and impassable.
The broader Platte Clove area has a long history as a destination for artists, photographers, and tourists, and the nearby Overlook Mountain House (built 1871, rebuilt after fires, and ultimately acquired by New York State in 1940) drew visitors to the region. Today Devil's Kitchen is known for hiking, ice climbing, and primitive camping, and is considered one of the eeriest corners of the Catskills.
The Devil's Kitchen campsite's haunted reputation is documented in regional travel writing including Fodor's and in the book 'Haunted Places in New York' by Sean Mosley.
Sources
The signature haunting of Devil's Kitchen is the phantom lantern. According to accounts repeated in Fodor's travel writing and in Sean Mosley's 'Haunted Places in New York,' visitors near the campsite have seen a light swinging back and forth along the abandoned road that parallels the trail just downhill — moving as though carried by someone strolling peacefully by lantern light.
What makes the sighting unsettling, as the original Shadowlands submission notes, is that no one could actually walk that road peacefully today: it is blocked by downed trees crossing it at all angles, impassable to a casual walker. Local lore attributes the swinging light to the ghost of a miner — one of the bluestone workers who labored in the 1800s quarries and may have died there — still making his way home along a road that no longer exists in usable form.
No specific miner is named in any account, and the phenomenon is presented as folklore rather than documented fact. The legend is corroborated across regional travel media and a published book of New York hauntings, which is why HauntBound ships it as a recognized Catskills ghost story while treating the apparition itself as unverified.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Hike into the Indian Head Wilderness to the Devil's Kitchen campsite above Devil's Kill, passing abandoned bluestone quarries. After dark, watch the old mining road for the swinging phantom lantern attributed to a long-dead miner.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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