The In-Between Season

Mud, rain and how the land dictates when we open for the season

There’s a stretch of time in the Catskills that doesn’t really belong to traditional winter or spring. People politely call it mud season.

The snow is mostly gone, but the ground hasn’t quite decided what it wants to be yet. Patches of ice linger. Every path across the property becomes an experiment in footwear choices. It’s messy.

But it’s also the moment when the land (and we!) starts to move again. I love it! After months of frozen ground, the first thaw feels dramatic. Water starts running everywhere. Small streams appear where you forgot they existed.

You definitely hear it before you see it — the rush of water moving downhill, birds returning, the whole place starting to wake up. Just this week, the daffodil buds are visible, newts are in the pond, and the ducks are back.

Waiting for the land to be ready

Mud season is a strange time to be here. It can be 70 degrees one day, can rain for two weeks straight or a Nor’easter could hit at any moment.

The property looks rough around the edges too. The fields are brown, the trees still bare. And yet this in-between period is when you start to see the season ahead taking shape.

The land  certainly sets the schedule. You can plan projects, plant things, build infrastructure, repair fences — but the seasons arrive on their own timeline. And so does the wind. Spring comes when it’s ready.

Our attention now turns to the months ahead. Paths need clearing, outdoor spaces need setting up again, infrastructure that quietly survived the winter needs checking. There’s a lot that happens during this time that most guests never see.

But it’s also one of the most satisfying moments of the year. You start to imagine the place in summer again — the fields green, the warmth returning, people gathered outside instead of watching snow fall through the windows.

Why Hengarth opens when it does

People occasionally ask why Hengarth operates seasonally. The answer is fairly simple: the Catskills do.

Glamping, gatherings, and time outdoors only really work when the land itself is ready. When the paths are dry enough to walk comfortably, when evenings can be spent around a fire instead of retreating from the cold.

By late spring the landscape will have shifted completely.

When the meadows turn green and the trees fill in — when we’ve all had time to recover from winter — that’s when Hengarth opens for group glamping and corporate off-sites.

And it’s not always exactly the same weekend every year. It might be before Memorial Day, it might not be. It’s almost never because a date on the calendar says we should open. It’s because the land has reached that moment when it feels right to invite people back outside.

If winter teaches patience, the onset of mud season reminds you that change is coming. Even if it does mean a few weeks every year where every pair of boots we own lives by the door.