Catskill Mountains
The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province and subrange of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas close to or within the borders of the Catskill Park, a forest preserve protected from many forms of development under New York state law.
Geologically, the Catskills are a mature dissected plateau, a flat region subsequently uplifted and eroded into sharp relief by watercourses. The Catskills form the northeastern end of the Allegheny Plateau.
The Catskills were named by early Dutch settlers. They are well known in American society as the setting for films and works of art, including many 19th-century Hudson River School paintings, as well as for being a favored destination for vacationers from New York City in the mid-20th century. The region's many large resorts gave many young stand-up comedians an opportunity to hone their craft. Since the late 19th century, the Catskills have been a haven for artists, musicians and writers, especially in and around the towns of Woodstock and Phoenicia.
History
Etymology
's 1656 map of New Netherland located the Landt van Kats Kill at the mouth of Catskill Creek. The region to the south is identified as Hooge Landt van Esopus, a reference to a local band of northern Lenape Native Americans who inhabited the banks of the Hudson and hunted in the highlands along the Esopus Creek.While the meaning of the name and the namer are settled matters, how and why the area is named "Catskills" is a mystery. Mountain lions were known to have been in the area when the Dutch arrived in the 17th century and may have been a reason for the name.
The confusion over the origins of the name led over the years to variant spellings such as Kaatskill and Kaaterskill, both of which are also still used: the former in the regional magazine Kaatskill Life, the latter as the name of a mountain peak and a waterfall. Henry Schoolcraft is supposed to have coined the indigenous term for the range, On-ti-o-ra, in 1844, due to the term not being attested prior to his record of it.
Geography
The Catskill Mountains are approximately north-northwest of New York City and southwest of Albany, starting west of the Hudson River. The Catskills occupy much of two counties, and extend slightly into Delaware, Sullivan, and southwestern Schoharie counties.At the range's eastern end, the mountains begin dramatically with the Catskill Escarpment rising up suddenly from the Hudson Valley. The western boundary is far less certain, as the mountains gradually decline in height and grade into the rest of the Allegheny Plateau, but maps from the 18th and 19th centuries consistently mark the border of the Catskill Mountains as the East Branch of the Delaware River, which is consistent with the actual topographic relief. The Pocono Mountains, to the immediate southwest in Pennsylvania, are also a part of the Allegheny Plateau.
The Catskills contain more than 30 peaks above and parts of six important rivers. The Catskill Mountain 3500 Club is an organization whose members have climbed all the peaks in the Catskills over. The highest mountain, Slide Mountain in Ulster County, has an elevation of.
File:Tubers on Esopus Creek 2011.jpg|right|thumb|Free-floating tubers on Esopus Creek|alt=People in inner tubes wearing lifejackets in a whitewater stream just above a small drop over a rock.
Climatically, the Catskills lie within the Allegheny Highlands forests ecoregion.
Climate
According to the Köppen climate classification system, the Catskill Mountains have two climate zones. The vast majority of the Catskills have a warm summer humid continental climate with some isolated locations in valleys with hot summer humid continental climate. The plant hardiness zone on Slide Mountain at is 5a with an average annual extreme minimum temperature of. The plant hardiness zone in Margaretville at is 5b with an average annual extreme minimum temperature of.Geology
Although the Catskills are sometimes compared with the Adirondack Mountains farther north, the two mountain ranges are not geologically related, as the Adirondacks are a continuation of the Canadian Shield. Similarly, the Shawangunk Ridge, which forms the southeastern edge of the Catskills, is part of the geologically distinct Ridge-and-Valley province and is a continuation of the same ridge known as Kittatinny Mountain in New Jersey and Blue Mountain in Pennsylvania.The Catskill Mountains are more of a dissected plateau than a series of mountain ranges. The sediments that make up the rocks in the Catskills were deposited when the ancient Acadian Mountains in the east were rising and subsequently eroding. The sediments traveled westward and formed a great delta into the sea that was in the area at that time. The escarpment of the Catskill Mountains is near the former edge of this delta, as the sediments deposited in the northeastern areas along the escarpment were deposited above sea level by moving rivers, and the Acadian Mountains were located roughly where the Taconic Mountains are located today. Finer sediment was deposited further westward, and thus the rocks change from gravel conglomerates to sandstone and shale. Further west, these fresh water deposits intermingle with shallow marine sandstone and shale until the end, in deeper water limestone.
The uplift and erosion of the Acadian Mountains was occurring during the Devonian and early Mississippian period. Over that time, thousands of feet of these sediments built up, slowly moving the Devonian seashore further west. A meteor impact occurred in the shallow sea approximately 375 mya, creating a diameter crater. This crater eventually filled with sediments and became Panther Mountain through the process of uplift and erosion. By the middle of the Mississippian period, the uplift stopped, and the Acadian Mountains had been eroded so much that sediments no longer flowed across the Catskill Delta.
File:Platte Clove.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Platte Clove, a break in the Catskill Escarpment created by glacial action
Over time, the sediments were buried by more sediments from other areas, until the original Devonian and Mississippian sediments were deeply buried and slowly became solid rock. Then the entire area experienced uplift, which caused the sedimentary rocks to begin to erode. Today, those upper sedimentary rocks have been completely removed, exposing the Devonian and Mississippian rocks. Today's Catskills are a result of the continued erosion of these rocks, both by streams and, in the recent past, by glaciers.
In successive ice ages, both valley and continental glaciers have widened the valleys and the notches of the Catskills and rounded the mountains. Grooves and scratches in exposed bedrock provide evidence of the great sheets of ice that once traversed the region. Even today the erosion of the mountains continues, with the region's rivers and streams deepening and widening the mountains' valleys and cloves.
Recreation
The Borscht Belt
In the mid–20th century, summer resorts in the Catskills, nicknamed the Borscht Belt, were a major vacation destination for Jewish New Yorkers. At its peak of popularity, about 500 resorts operated in the region. Later changes in vacationing patterns have led most of those travelers elsewhere, although there are still some bungalow communities and summer camps in the region catering to Orthodox populations.Aquatic sports and recreation
is a tributary of the Hudson River, starting at Winnisook Lake on Slide Mountain. It flows across Ulster County to the Hudson River at Saugerties. The Esopus is noted for making an almost 270-degree turn around Panther Mountain, following a buried impact crater rim. It is famous for tubing, a sport of rafting down a river in an inner tube. Many tubers begin their trip at Phoenicia, New York, and head down the creek towards the Ashokan Reservoir at Olive, New York.The Ashokan Reservoir is part of the New York City water supply system, with fishing allowed under permit, but ice fishing is prohibited. It is the most famous New York City-owned reservoir for rainbow trout.
River canoeing and kayaking are popular. There are 42 rapids ranging from class I to V+.
The Esopus Creek is famous for its fly fishing, although in recent years it has been plagued by invasive plants.
Cycling
Road and mountain biking are fairly popular in the range. Bicycle racing includes the Tour of the Catskills, a three-day road stage race held in Greene and Ulster counties each summer, and the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in Windham. Other cycling resources include the Catskill Scenic Trail, the Headwaters Trails in Stamford and the Roundtopia trail network. Several ski centers provide downhill mountain bicycling in the warmer months.Hiking and camping
Within the range is the Catskill Park, comprising over. Catskill Park is part of New York's Forest Preserve. Not all the land is publicly owned; about 60% remains in private hands, but new sections are added frequently. Most of the park and the preserve are within Ulster County, with a significant portion in Greene County, and parts in Sullivan and Delaware counties as well. Many of the trails in public areas are maintained and updated by the New York–New Jersey Trail Conference and the Catskill Mountain 3500 Club.Image:Hunter Mountain ski area.jpg|thumb|right|Hunter Mountain Devil's Path is one of the many trails open for hikers. Spots to camp in the Catskills include Bear Spring Mountain, Little Pond, Mongaup Pond, and North-South Lake.Skiing
There are five main downhill ski and snowboard areas in the Catskills: Belleayre Mountain ; Hunter Mountain ; Windham Mountain; Holiday Mountain Ski and Fun in Monticello; and Plattekill Mountain in Roxbury.Joppenbergh Mountain, in Rosendale Village hosted its first ski jumping competition in 1937. Ski jumping was continued on the mountain until February 7, 1971, when the last competition was held.
The Mountain Trails Cross Country Ski Center in Tannersville has of trails.