A Remarkable Prehistoric Find

Trilobite!

Fingertip Tiny!

After getting a geologic hint from two of my volunteers, I had to adventure and find this prehistoric discovery. I cannot tell you where it is, but among all the conglomerate, there was a limestone erratic that had a tiny TRILOBITE!!!! Check this out!

I was beside myself excited!

TheChristyBel

Gertrude's Nose

Patterson's Pellet

Exploring Minnewaska State Park today. I heard of a really cool place to hike to from a co-worker called Gertrude's Nose. This hike is a 7.5-mile loop that takes you to 1,288 ft about a bunch of stunning cliff edges, rock formations, and some really amazing views. From the Minnewaska State Park - Lake parking lot, you head down past the bathing beach area and continue left along the Minnewaska Lake Loop (a red trail). As you continue up and around some s-curves, you'll pass the Castle Point Carriage Road, and then after a few more minutes, you'll reach the Millbrook Mountain Carriage Road on your right. This yellow-blazed carriage road will bring you to a great overlook with an awesome quartz conglomerate erratic called, Patterson's Pellet. It's a boulder that is remarkably balancing and staying put on the edge of the cliff face. As you continue on the yellow trail, you'll reach a junction for a red-blazed foot trail for Gertrude's Nose. You'll pass along some great scenic scapes and cliff edges. You'll eventually head down into the woods along some scrambly rocks and boulders. After the rocky descent you'll pop into a clearing with powelines overhead and continue under them. Back onto the cliff's edge, down again, and back into woods. Once you emerge from the woods, you'll get back to the cliff's edge and head toward Gertrude's Nose. It is definitely a long stroll along the cliff until the nose. Gertrude's Chin is a giant pile of rocks and talus below. The Nose is about 25 minutes from the Chin as you continue forward. The "Nose" means a rock formation that juts out of the cliff with nothing pretty much underneath it. After lots of photos and summit posing and hanging out at the nose area for lunch, we continued the loop going over more of the top of the ridge towards Millbrook Mountain that is the tallest in the Near Trapps (this is on the Mohonk Preserve side). After hanging there and getting some breeze-appreciation, we hiked back towards the middle of the ridge and back towards Minnewaska Lake. There are a lot of Lowbush Blueberry bushes and a great loop hike! I strongly suggest it! Enjoy the photos!

TheChristyBel

Couple Photo on the Nose

Kaaterskill Falls

A Castkill Attraction!

On a day off, we decided to trek about under two hours to the Catskills and check out Kaaterskill Falls. A few of my friends had posted pictures of these falls on Instagram and since we are so close to the Catskills, we should go check it out. We traveled north and got there relatively early (plus it was early spring, so the summer tourists' season was not quite upon us. Getting there is kinda tricky as you have to park on this pull off on the road going up the mountain, they hike along the windy mountain highway to the trailhead. The website stated that the trail was a STRENUOUS quick hike to the falls. Knowing Marc and I who have hiked STRENUOUS trails everywhere, we anticipated a hard hike. But to our hiking level, this hike was NOTHING TO US. We got there, unphased by the hike, and the sight was a beautiful site.

Side Profile of Bastion Falls

Bastion Falls

Kaaterskill Falls is the tallest two-tiered waterfall in New York. The strenuous, but not so strenuous trail for us was about 2.0 miles. There is a set of waterfalls that you see when you first get to the trailhead. Do not be fooled, this is NOT Kaaterskill Falls, this is Bastion Falls. Very great primary falls to see on this hike!

As you continue on the terrain, you hike up and down uneven rooted trails, a series of wooden stairs, and more rooted trails until you get to the double-decker falls!

The Kaaterskill Falls are 260-feet of water falling action. You can check out the lower falls and pool from the large boulders. There is a non-official social trail that can get you from the bottom tier to the second tier. However, it is eroded and really dangerous. So we just admired from the bottom.

Some old hash tags! Haha

After taking lots of photos and snacking on the large boulders at the base, we discovered you could travel up more up the mountain and park at this parking lot at the end of a backroad to get to a viewing platform of the upper falls. So we got into the car and decided to check it out too! It was really cool. The trail to the platform was definitely new and renovated and it was super cool to check out. There was also a trail that traveled to the mouth of the upper falls. This was really neat because there were many stone engavings of people from as early as the 1920s and 30s!

It was a pretty cool day trip up in the Catskills! I definitely recommend going to check out. I also heard that you can swim/wade in the pools, but I hear it is definitely a tourist attraction and gets pretty crowded come summer.

TheChristyBel

From the viewing platform!

Upper Falls

Kaaterskill Falls
1,946 ft above sea level

Awosting Falls

On a day off, I decided to explore and get to know this place I am living in. With that, I wanted to get to know the Preserve's neighbor, the Minnewaska State Park. We had heard of some of the waterfalls that the park was home to and we had to check them out. This afternoon, we walked to Awosting Falls. Awosting Falls is a 65-foot water fall in the state park. You can access it fairly easily. It's just a quick walk from the main gatehouse or a 3.5 mile hike down a carriage road from the main Minnewaska Lake parking lot. When you arrive, you are able to sit on the edge of the carriage road and take in the beauty of this natural, ancient waterfall.

Enjoy!

TheChristyBel