A National Parks Service Forest Ranger takes you step by step on a guided tour of some of the most rugged wilderness terrain in the northeastern United States-the high peaks of the Catskill Forest Preserve-as well as guiding you to some of the more accessible and better trammeled sites and scenes of "Rip Van Winkle Country."
The author, a conservation professional, has taken an interdisciplinary approach, drawing the latest information from geology, forest ecology, meteorology, wildlife biology, geography, economics, and history to offer a well-rounded picture of the Catskill Mountains as the hikes rise to the sky through levels of rock strata and ever-changing forests. The goal. as the author states, is for the reader to experience the hike and see the Catskills as "a natural historian, not a tourist," and to see not just the present, but the past as well... and maybe even the future.
"Book One: The Northern Catskills" includes: the escarpment wall, Huckleberry Pt., Plattekill Clove, Kaaterskill High Peak, Kaaterskill Clove, Roundtop, Hunter Mtn., Windham High Peak, Pratt's Rock, Mount Utsayantha, Huntersfield, The Devil's Path: Indian Head, Twin, Sugarloaf & Paltyeau, Bearpen, The Blackhead Range: Thomas Cole, Blackdome & Blackhead.