Descriptions of Places

The rivers that drain the Catskills to the west follow a similar pattern. These include, shown on the map from left to right, the Delaware, with its West and East Branches (major tributary the Beaverkill shown in purple), the Neversink, with two branches towards its headwaters, and finally Rondout Creek. All of these streams descend from the mountains in a southwesterly direction,  then turn to the southeast where the mountains give way to the lower-relief Allegheny Plateau. They later cascade down into a valley of the Ridge and Valley province behind the Shawangunk Mountains. Rondout Creek takes this common descent in the shortest distance. Its gradient, though moderate in the grand scheme of things, is steepest among these rivers. Flanked by mountains, its upper half flows down through the narrow and deep Peekamoose Valley, walled by steep slopes 2500 feet and 1500 feet tall. The summits of Table Mountain, Peekamoose Mountain, Lone Mountain, Rocky Mountain and Balsam Cap are

The Shawangunk Mountains sit at a special spot on the continent. In Southeastern New York state, the Appalachian Mountain range follows a general pattern that continues all the way to Virginia, and to some extent down to Alabama. Driving across these mountains, you will cross bedrock in chronological order of its formation. Let's take Route 17 starting at the New Jersey border. The Ramapo Mountains in Rockland and Orange Counties, part of the Crystalline Appalachians, have extremely ancient gneiss bedrock. It was uplifted from deep in the earth's crust and now forms a resistant highlands. From the town of Monroe on through the rest of Orange County, the gneiss recedes below the surface and one encounters rolling terrain of the Great Appalachian Valley, made up of somewhat less ancient deep ocean sediments. Crossing into Sullivan County, the road ascends Shawangunk Ridge. Here, resting on top of the Great Valley's shale, is a massive amount of white conglomerate composed o