Quadricentennial Challenge
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Catskills Live! Trails & Wilderness Association
issues a challenge to all — venture forth and seek all 15
Quadricentennial Challenge geocaches. Go to many great places
throughout Ulster County — visit the shores of the Hudson,
feel the cool air in an historic cement mine, enjoy our small
parks, ride on our rail trails, summit two Catskill peaks, and
savor the breath-taking view from Gertrude's Nose in Minnewaska
State Park Preserve. Bask in our county's treasures with family and
friends, exercise your body, and build lasting memories. Over 100
specially minted commemorative Quadricentennial geocoins were
released from 15 Challenge geocaches set up in 2009 in celebration
of the 400th anniversary of the exploration of New York State by
Henry Hudson. Congratulations to Joe The Mailman, the first person
to complete all 15 caches! Funding for the Challenge was provided
by Ulster County and the Hudson River Valley
Greenway.
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Sloan Gorge Preserve
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The Sloan Gorge Preserve is located in northeastern Ulster
County, New York State. Shortly before his death, artist Allan
Edward Sloan donated this 88-acre preserve to the Woodstock Land
Conservancy. It opened to the public in June 2007.
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An elongate, oval, 1.5 mile loop trail makes the mixed hardwood
and coniferous forest, vernal pools, seasonal stream, and deep
bedrock gorge available to all. This gem of a preserve is
well-suited for hiking, birding, wildlife observation, nature
study, and educational activities.
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The Sloan Gorge Preserve is located in northeastern Ulster
County, New York State. Shortly before his death, artist Allan
Edward Sloan donated this 88-acre preserve to the Woodstock Land
Conservancy. It opened to the public in June 2007.
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Old Bluestone Quarries
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Following Henry Hudson's opening of the Hudson Valley, one of
the industries to develop in the Catskill Mountain region was
bluestone quarrying. The Sloan Gorge preserve stands out for its
excellent bedrock exposures of sandstone and shale. Sandstone or
“bluestone” was quarried here for use locally as
flagstones and in walkways because of its well-defined horizontal
bedding planes that were easy to separate into layers a few inches
in thickness. In many places scattered throughout the preserve,
bluestone debris remains as testimony to the late 1800s and early
1900 quarry days.
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Careful examination of the debris reveals lines of drill holes
hand-pounded with star drills and split with half-round wedges. Few
people realize that the art of splitting large rocks also required
constant scoring of a “guide” line around the block to
be split. This guideline was regularly scored with a chisel and
sledge hammer during both the drilling and splitting process. It
served to help align the break line and generally followed the same
direction on bedrock throughout quarries — a direction found
through experience to be best aligned for breakage with the
orientation of the internal crystalline structure of the
bedrock.
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Sloan Gorge
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Sloan Gorge was carved by glacial meltwaters cascading off the
flank of Overlook Mountain and the Catskill Front, flowing
north-northeast to south-southwest through the gorge.
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This deeply entrenched gorge, while mostly dry today, preserves
an important chapter in the recent geologic history of the
Catskills region.
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Robert Titus provides an excellent interpretive geology trail
description of the gorge, which has been correlated with numbered
markers along the trail, for all to enjoy.
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Detailed discussions are available in trailside brochures and
online at the website of the Woodstock Land Conservancy.
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The Gilboa and Ashokan Forests — the First
Forests on Earth
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The carving of Sloan Gorge by ancient stream channels is just
one of many chapters in the geologic evolution of the Sloan Gorge
Preserve and surrounding area. Perhaps the most geologically
exciting aspect of the gorge and surrounding area is the fact that
the bedrock layers here were host to THE oldest fossil tree forest
on earth. Geologists worldwide seek and study early plant and tree
remains. Before publication of this geocache description, the
oldest recognized, described, and published forest was the Gilboa
Forest (approximately 380 million years old), recognized for its
upright stumps and insect fauna found near Gilboa, New York,
roughly 29 miles north-northwest of Sloan Gorge Preserve.
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Two stumps from the Gilboa Forest, found in the Moscow
Formation, are illustrated here. Paleontologists have discovered
evidence of fossil animals including earthworms, centipedes,
spiders, and insects associated with these early plant remains.
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In 1995, geologist Paul Rubin recognized that younger geologic
beds of the Catskill delta contained an even older fossil forest.
As such, it is important to place the Gilboa forest in geologic
perspective relative to the bedrock in Sloan Gorge and nearby
environs. The Gilboa area fossils generally span elevations ranging
roughly from 960 to 1120 feet above mean sea level (msl),
representing three successive forests. The base of Sloan Gorge lies
close to 700 feet msl. The same geologic formation present in Sloan
Gorge also extends northward, westward, and southward to and beyond
Olivebridge, through part of the Ashokan Reservoir and down through
the Ashokan Field Campus to an elevation of about 320 feet msl.
Portions of fern-like trees are found throughout this region, all
hundreds of feet lower in elevation than those in the Gilboa
Forest.
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Geologic beds, like layers in a cake, are oldest from the bottom
up. The same is true of these sediments transported off the flank
of the former Acadia Mountains that once rose further east to
elevations of tens of thousands of feet. Thus, our local sandstones
and shales that comprise the Panther Mountain Formation are
significantly older than those of the Gilboa forests known in the
overlying Gilboa Formation, possibly predating them by about 10
million years.
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Examples of bark, limb, and frond imprints and casts of these
primitive trees, the first that ever grew on earth (approximately
390 million years ago!), are depicted here. Many were found at an
elevation of about 570 feet msl, some including downed tree
imprints extending more than nine feet in length. These tree
segments are thus from one or more of the earliest forests on earth
that later evolved and extended westward into the Gilboa forests
along a swampy, tropical, coast of the inland Catskill Sea some 390
million years ago — over 160 million years before the
appearance of the first dinosaurs. We might well name this region
the “Ancient Ashokan Forest”!
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Keep your eyes open as you walk throughout Sloan Gorge, the
Catskill Mountains, and particularly near the base of the Catskill
escarpment.
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You may find imprints and casts of some of the oldest fossil
trees on earth.
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Picture yourself walking amidst tall fern-like trees alongside
braided rivers cascading westward off the jagged Acadia
Mountains.
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The Cache
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This is a three stage multi-cache. Each stage is well-spaced
along and close to the loop trail such that the successful
geocacher will be sure to see the entire Sloan Gorge Preserve. Be
sure to bear left at the trail junction beyond the half-hip
trusses. Two stages must be found before the third, treasure-laden,
cache is found.
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Each cache stage consists of a 2-liter cylindrical poly bottle.
The final cache is filled with kid-friendly items and, initially,
four NYS Quadricentennial Challenge geocoins designed to travel
throughout the world. This geocache was approved by the
Woodstock Land Conservancy.
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Parking
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Access to the cache is available from a single
parking location. Located at the foot of Overlook Mountain on the
Woodstock-Saugerties town line on Stoll Road near its southwestern
end close to Goat Hill Road (Ulster County). The Sloan Gorge
Preserve is open from dawn to dusk. Due to rugged trail conditions
and the wishes of the Woodstock Land Conservancy, geocaching
is not permitted after dusk. Look for the Woodstock Land
Conservancy kiosk. Please park only in the Sloan Gorge parking
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Please Cache In and Trash Out!
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