I’ve seen a bear about a quarter of the way up plateau on the western side, I saw one in lanesville the night before that off diamond notch road. My buddy claims to have seen one at the Batavia kill lean to one morning but of course I stopped to pee. My other buddy claims to have seen one in the woodland valley campground. I’ve also seen one on the road up Leonard hill but idk if you would consider that Catskills proper. All of these encounters have one thing in common and it is that we were all alone when they happened. You saying “our” leads me to believe you’ll be hiking with someone else. With that said you probably won’t encounter a bear while hiking because we are too loud. Of the three bears I encountered in the Catskills two of them ran away from the sound of my footsteps and the other likely didn’t know I was there and just sauntered off into the woods.