for this years family vacation, we kept things simple. a week in the adirondacks, followed by a week in western new york. and since we were going to the adirondacks first, our route would take us through the catskills, right past a hike i long ago placed on my bucket list.
in 2016, when we were brand new fulltime rv-ers, we stayed in accord, ny, where we spent a bit of time exploring the surrounding area (posts here, here, and here). during this time, i learned of the lemon squeeze hike, but after a bit of research, decided it wasn’t for us. the kids were all still so little and the hike was a bit on the long side for us at the time. also, it costs an exorbitant amount of money just to park on the property. oh, and i weighed about 70 more pounds than i do now. so, i put it on a bucket list and our travels moved on.
well, this time around, everything was different. except for the exorbitant fees ($35/person, just to park in a very remote parking lot). yeesh. and so begins the first adventure of our summer 2025 family trip.
we fueled up in the parking lot. some went with granola. some had blueberries. one of had a red bull. on brand all around.
most of the five mile hike was along a carriage road that brought the day tripping peasants closer to the mohonk mountain house. everyone was in good spirits. it’s almost like they enjoyed it.
there were a few spots with goodish views along the way, but we weren’t here for the views.
finally we reached the castle, errrrr – mountain house, and were permitted to stroll around the outdoor grounds, including a pretty cool treehouse, but be very certain, we were NOT allowed inside.
just past the mountain house, our real adventure began. the moment i had been waiting for for nine years. the labyrinth and the lemon squeeze….
this is the sort of stuff they have always loved and today was no different. we scrambled up and over rocks, squeezed between boulders, climbed ladders and hugged tight to ledges, and slowly but surely worked our way up through the labyrinth.
eventually we reached the “crevice”, which is a pretty narrow fissure in the rock, the we were going to “squeeze” ourselves up into and pop out on the top of the mountain. hence, the lemon squeeze.
we all filed in, accepting our fate.
it was in fact narrow, and very squeezy. we will be climbing up through this…
the kids (and derek) did great. the space got more and more narrow. the ladders were very steep. and everyone charged ahead full steam.
before we knew it, we were squeezing (and squishing) ourselves out the top. it was no joke.
at the top, we had some pretty good views of the surrounding mountains. we had a little snack and took some pics and then headed up a little higher to a fire tower/lookout area.
it was crazy windy. so we didn’t linger long, but we were sure to get some aerial footage of the fancy pants mountain house before we began our trek back to the peasant parking lot.
our walk out was relatively uneventful. we stopped at a little pond to observe some wildlife for a bit. always a fun little hiking extra.
and finally. the lemon squeeze, not to be confused with the lemon squeezER, was checked off my bucket list. (we did not know that there were two seperate hikes, with such similar names and sort of just assumed it was people mixing them up. so derek booked our hotel near the lemon squeezER and it wasn’t until we were making the long trek the day before and i hopped online to research getting parking passes and such that we realized we had the wrong one on the itinerary. they are only about an hour apart, but the lemon squeezER is decidedly less fun and exciting. thankfully, the lemon squeeze was not out of the way, but it did require us getting an earlier start in the morning, which is not a favorite vacation requirement for my fam.)
anyways. that’s all for our kickoff adventure of our summer 2025 family vacay.