Not Just OK – A Trek into the Hudson Gorge

By Bill Ingersoll

It may surprise you to know that one of the Adirondack Park’s most iconic landmarks has only been part of the Forest Preserve since 2013. Before that, it was owned by the Finch Pruyn logging company and closed to the general public for more than a century. Since its acquisition, the OK Slip Tract has become a popular hiking destination. Now managed as part of the Hudson Gorge Wilderness, its star attraction is OK Slip Falls, an extraordinary waterfall located a short distance south of the Hudson River.

The state’s purchase of OK Slip Falls was a major news story at the time, and many grandiose claims were made about its superlative features. Some of those claims may still persist, because who wouldn’t want to hike to the tallest waterfall in the state? Some descriptions of the waterfall say it is 200 to 250 feet tall, which would be remarkable if true – OK Slip would be taller than Niagara.

While it is an impressive cascade, a close scrutiny of the contours on USGS topographic maps reveals that OK Slip is only about 100 feet tall – less than half as tall as Roaring Brook Falls in Saint Huberts. But it is still a remarkable sight!

There are also some tall tales in circulation about the source of the name, including on educational placards located at the trailhead parking area. The “slip” is a reference to an old logging sluice. From the early days of Adirondack logging in the 19th century through to the middle of the 20th century, the preferred method for transporting logs to the great sawmills at Glens Falls was to float them down the Hudson River. The slip would have been a clever device in which logs harvested in the mountains above the Hudson Gorge were shot down to the river on a plume of water, sort of like a modern waterslide.

The popular story takes a detour into speculation when it comes to the “OK” part of the name. Supposedly, lumbermen called out those letters as a verbal warning to anyone below before the logs went a-sliding. This is a cute story, but it discounts an 1890 newspaper article I once found describing a river-driving fatality “at a place between ‘O. K. slip’ and ‘P. K. slip,’ in the fourteenth township.” The presence of a PK Slip, a short distance downstream from OK Slip suggests that the letters were more likely someone’s initials.

Note that modern maps still identify a place called P Gay Mountain on the gorge’s south rim; if you say “P.K.” and “P Gay” aloud, they sound almost identical. It would’ve been easy for an old-time surveyor to hear one name but record the other in his notes, and I suspect several Adirondack place names were thus corrupted. There is another summit a few miles away called Pete Gay Mountain. Therefore I have to wonder, was Pete Gay a lumber jobber with a log sluice in the Hudson Gorge? And by any chance, did he have a brother named Oliver?

Admittedly, this is all conjecture on my part, and further research is warranted. Whatever or whoever “OK” was, the name OK Slip was also applied to the brook, the waterfall, and a nearby pond.

How to Get There

The trailhead parking area can be found on NY Route 28, 7.8 miles east of the intersection with NY Route 30 in Indian Lake or 4.9 miles west of the Thirteenth Lake Road/NY Route 28 intersection, at a fork with an unnamed side road. You will need to walk westward along the shoulder of the highway for 0.2 mile to find the sign for the start of the trail.

The Hike

The trail to OK Slip Falls shares a common trailhead with the route to Ross, Whortleberry, and Big Bad Luck ponds. Begin by walking 0.2 mile west along the shoulder to the brown sign marking the start of the trail. Follow it down from the highway and north through a short muddy area, intercepting an old road within minutes. Bear right and follow the marked foot trail for 0.7-mile, over a small hill to a junction where the blue-marked trail to OK Slip bears right.

What follows is a 1.4-mile section of newly constructed trail leading northeast from the older section of state land into the newer tract purchased from Finch Pruyn. As a credit to the former owner, the boundary between the two properties is not clear; it is all a wild forest with intermixed hardwood and hemlock stands. The trail threads a course between small hills and wetlands, which makes for a pleasant walk.

At 2.1 miles, or about an hour from the start, you reach a prominent gravel road. This is the access right of way for the private youth camp at OK Slip Pond, which is now a private inholding surrounded by state land. The pond is to the left, but there is no public access to it. You could, however, follow the road to the right back toward Route 28 (a distance of 1.9 miles). The most remarkable feature in that direction is the mineshaft south of P Gay Mountain – the remains of an old garnet operation. As you might expect, the location of the shaft is intentionally hard to find.

The trail to OK Slip Falls turns briefly left on the road and then veers right again less than 200 feet later back into the woods. You are now on an older trail that follows a former tote road. Despite the logging history the forest is quite nice, aesthetically not much different from lands that have been part of the Forest Preserve for many years – suggesting that Finch Pruyn had not logged this area in a long while. Parts of the trail are muddy, but overall it is an enjoyable hike with a subtle downhill grade.

You descend more noticeably as you near the falls, entering the spruce-hemlock stand that covers the slope on the east side of the OK Slip gorge. At 3.2 miles you reach a junction, where a sign points right to the overlook 100 feet away. This is the best view that you will find of OK Slip Falls from a marked trail. The cascade is about 450 feet away and slightly below you, roaring over a wall of dark rock into the rugged valley below. Your viewing point is a small ledge surrounded by conifers; it will do for now, but the opening will surely grow in over the course of time as many feet come to see the falls.

Optional Side Trip to the Hudson River – Returning to the trail junction, the route to the left is a 0.9-mile spur that wraps around the falls to the mouth of OK Slip Brook. Although the walk to the OK Slip Falls overlook is undulating but not too hilly, this continuing walk to the Hudson River entails a steep descent of 350 feet into the bottom of the gorge… which becomes a steep 350-foot ascent on the return. 

It is an attractive walk into a historic river driving area (now dominated by commercial rafting ventures), but it does not lead directly to any further views of the falls, unless you search for them off-trail. The marked trail ends at the river directly below Kettle Mountain, 4.1 miles from the trailhead. There is a small sandy beach here and a campfire ring, although the site is too small, root-filled, and sandy to be a good campsite.

Bill Ingersoll is a co-founder and the vice-chair of Adirondack Wilderness Advocates, as well as the author of Wilderness Camping in the Adirondacks, published in 2024 by North Country Books. For more info, visit: adirondackwilderness.org.