Perkins Memorial Tower via Appalachian Trail is a 3.8 mile heavily trafficked out and back trail located near Bear Mountain, New York that features beautiful wild flowers and is rated as moderate. The trail offers a number of activity options and is best used from April until September. Dogs are also able to use this trail but must be kept on leash.
There is a fee of $10 per vehicle. Fees are collected on weekdays between 6/22-9/2. For the rest of the year, fees are only collected on the weekend. Empire Passholders can get in for free.
Great trail! Still a little icy in spots and a few large down trees on the trail. Pretty empty around 9 on a Saturday.
Had a little bit of everything , it was great. An hour long to hike i would say and 30 mins to come down.
I thought it was great - for those who need less stairs at the intersection you will see straight say tower - right rock says inn . That road is very flat and smooth takes you all the way up to the tower
Instead of taking the Appalachian trail up and back, a friend and I decided to do the Major Welch loop up to the memorial tower and take the A.trail back down. The loop had STEEP rock scrambling involved (there's a warning at the beginning of the trail, heed it) but once you get to the top, the views are gorgeous. Another warning: we tried to take the A.trail path marked on the Alltrails map, but this portion of the A.trail was NOT being maintained, the markers are gone/barely visible, etc. We only realized after trekking through unmarked woods that the A.trail south of us (marked on the map as "updated 2019") was the "new" way to go. Don't get lost like we did.
Go counter-clockwise to avoid tough scramble down. Up is much easier. Good hike, tougher than I thought it would be.