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Peekamoose Area - 1/1/2012

Aircraft Carrier Rock, Ashokan High Point, Balsam Swamp, Bangle Hill, Big Rosy Bone Knob, Cherrytown, Denmar, East, Flat Hill, Little Rocky, Mombaccus, Pople Hill, Red Hill, Samson , Spencers Ledge, Sugarloaf (sundown), Vernooy Falls
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TobiasTicetonyk
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Location: Wittenberg (Home) / Missoula (School)
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Peekamoose Area - 1/1/2012

Unread post by TobiasTicetonyk »

Well, after an eventful night we decided to tour Peekamooseland. Visited Blue Hole, Buttermilk Falls, Bear's Butt, Solstice Clove, and finally, something I had been looking for, for a very long time: relict waterfalls!!! Probably 40 or 50 feet above the ravine of Solstice Clove, on the first typical Catskill Terrace, there was a break in the infinite sandstone wall. This break had to be investigated, only to reveal overwhelming evidence of past flowing water erosion. Could it be from the Wisconian stage melting? Or even the mythical Illinoian stage? Who knows. But If one reviews the pictures from solstice clove, the first waterfall has a giant pool carved out, well above any water that could have flowed in the past many thousands of years. Methinkz its hundreds of thousdands? millions? I would love to research any kind of constant as to sandstone water erosion, but there are so many variables such as particle density/texture, velocity, slope, temperature, I don't know.... Solstice Clove has many secrets. Peekamooseland is ancient. I've always been amazed at the relic swimming holes above the Rondout creek if one finds the right cliffs to explore. Perhapz the Catskills, before glaciations, resembled the Badlands of the west. Sediment, carved down into steep routes and gullies from water. Imagine, the stream formation just above diamond notch falls before the waterfall (sharp cut in bedrock), or downstream Biscuit Brook (the narrow chutes). Thin slices of sandstone carved out over millions of years, ensnaring the ice sheets as they slither their way south. How tall could the great wall of manitou have been? What great mountains have been washed away from the once uplifted plateau, ~11,000AMSL at its possible highest? If the cloves are geologically young streams, how many ancient cloves have been lost... and what kind of plants/animals inhabited these dissected plateaus? OK, enough of my Catskill fantasies and paleogeographical ramblings, on with the pictures!!!... not too many of them this time though.


WUT DA??? What happened to Blue Hole? This isn't how it looked when I was a youngling! All the rocks are gone! What's going to keep the water in, now? Seriously... all the *@&$@ing rocks are gone! Damn you, Irene!
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Ok, something is not right here... those rocks... I don't remember them looking like.. oh god, this is in winter. The water level is high in this picture, but why are those rocks exposed? The lack of rocks in the Rondout damning up Blue Hole has decreased the water level by ~4'- in high water. I wonder what this will look like in the summer. Better jumping, I guess.
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Still plenty deep. Anyone ever swim there with goggles on? It's quite a sight. I don't remember the exact depth. 22' or something? Who knows.
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Purty
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Miscellaneous waterfall along the Rondout Creek
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The beginning of the Bear's Butt
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Buttermilk Falls.. well.. one of them.. photos of the upper portion will be posted eventually
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Notice how the water is no longer flowing in a picturesque manner from the first flat boulder below the falls? Irene, you #*%@*!!!
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The beginning of Solstice Clove!!!
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Ok, there are those pictures of the relict waterfall/flume above Solstice Clove. These are not the typical glacier erosional features found along many of the higher cliffs in the mountains. The flume kept winding through this cliff but the pictures really are awful. I have some terrible quality video that I might update and post. Basically, this flume was extremely steep, and deep. The velocity must have been extreme when it was flowing. And above this terrace, is just steep mountain. No more cliffs at all to the top of the mountain. A mysterious place, there must be many more ancient flumes like this buried under talus in the Catskills.
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Bottom of picture
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Oh, and before I forget, this is the first waterfall in Solstice Clove. Notice the ancient, out-of-commission flumes and bowls. The first picture is looking down. Notice in the bottom left there's an untested waterslide. You can see above the main pool there are older, dead pools. Try to imagine them as a stream, continuing on down the valley. Could the relict waterfalls photographed above be the ancient tributaries to the stream that ran through the dead pools? We'll never know!!!

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Here is my original post for Solstice Clove.
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=429&sid=5b37603352 ... 6a9af7d94c



WUT'DYA THINK!?!?!?!?
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mike
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Location: Ravena, NY

Re: Peekamoose Area - 1/1/2012

Unread post by mike »

Great pictures! I need to explore this place more soon. I used to go there back in the 70's. Back then the Blue Hole had a large ledge to jump off and the hole was deeper. Then the ledge broke off and ruined the hole. Much the rock has washed away. It was "THE" place to go swimming. Sometimes there would be 100 people there.

Some of those chutes are awesome looking. Very unique.

If you ever want to go again, let me know. We are in the process of measuring all the waterfalls in the Catskills.
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