Episode 122 - Catskill Fossil Forests with Kristen Wycoff

[00:00:00] These forests were completely buried, died, and millions and millions of years later rebuilt.

[00:00:08] Three different times. They have found three different elevations of forest. And it's pretty

[00:00:15] remarkable. Now in Carroll, they're still learning. That's a new quarry. They're still

[00:00:21] trying to figure out how that started. Oh my gosh! It's the woman from the New York

[00:00:26] State Museum. One of my very good friends with was a paleobotanist Linda Hernick. She was

[00:00:30] at that quarry in Carroll looking for liverworts, extinct liverworts, fossilized liverworts.

[00:00:36] You know these little plants. I don't even know really what they are that much. But

[00:00:41] she was very excited about doing her theses on these liverworts and they kept going

[00:00:44] back to this quarry because they kept finding them. Well she brought Chuck for Stratton

[00:00:48] with her who is the New York State geologist right now. And he all of a sudden realized

[00:00:54] that there was these channels going out from a center point. They were going out in all these

[00:00:59] different directions and he started clearing that they were all filled with filth and dirt

[00:01:03] and he started cleaning out these channels and realized oh my gosh this is a tree root

[00:01:08] system. And then they just started expanding this quarry and they found all of these different

[00:01:13] trees. And they could tell which ones they were. The bushwax were some of the worst

[00:01:30] days I've ever had in the mountains. Or life really. Whereas pants and mountains is totally

[00:01:36] opposite to some mountain on top of a cliff. I think the weather challenges on this incident

[00:01:42] were particularly difficult. It is really the development of New York State. Catskills

[00:01:49] were responsive. Now you're listening to Inside the Light. The Catskill Mountains podcast.

[00:02:03] Oh boy. Oh dude so like you know I showed you my schedule how crazy I've been. You

[00:02:12] taught you. You made talks about my dentist stuff. So I've been having like dental problems.

[00:02:17] I've had severe pain in my fillings and it's and I might seem a little off today

[00:02:23] so I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't like dentist stuff.

[00:02:26] Alright that's fine Stosh. We'll give you a pass this time. We won't sound the shame

[00:02:31] alarm but maybe next week. It's not fun. I don't know if you...

[00:02:38] It's part of getting older. You get older, you accumulate aches, pains, soreness. You

[00:02:44] know the baggage of life. Yes. Alright screw that. I ain't gonna do that crap.

[00:02:51] Ted you've been... We keep in touch with each other more often now that you're on the show.

[00:02:55] I hear you've been getting a lot of listener feedback. I don't get that much because I don't

[00:03:00] go out on the weekends. You have though. Alright so you want to talk about listener feedback?

[00:03:04] Yeah I mean some people have reached out to me on social media but what was funny is on Saturday

[00:03:13] we were finishing up our hike and the Catskills I saw a fellow walking across the bridge over

[00:03:22] the east branch of the Neversink River and he was fairly distinguished looking in terms of his

[00:03:29] longer hair really his long beard he kind of looked like he was with CZ Top if anybody

[00:03:33] remembers who CZ Top is and I recognized him as Bear from the podcast you did with him.

[00:03:42] Oh no way Bear. Right so it was Bear and Family Bear. Mrs. Bear was there, the young

[00:03:50] Bear Cubs were hiking with them so it was the Bear family of four and I told him I recognized him

[00:03:56] from the podcast and then I'm not sure how it came about but Mrs. Bear said oh yeah I recognize

[00:04:03] your voice referring to me from the podcast so we had a nice chat she's enjoying the podcast more

[00:04:12] and more particularly and she admitted this now that I'm on the show and she you know she and

[00:04:20] others that day frankly you know wanted my autograph so I'm going to start carrying

[00:04:23] around a black Sharpie with me an autographing Nelgene bottles maybe autographing people's

[00:04:29] backpacks you know doing selfies what's so funny doing so I'm serious about this I am I think I've

[00:04:35] reached that level of popularity I'm gonna have some Sharpies autograph stuff maybe like at the

[00:04:42] popular parking areas I'll sell some merch nice do I have your approval or do I have to have my

[00:04:48] lawyers get a hold of your lawyers to work these arrangements out? You're gonna have to get

[00:04:54] a hold of my lawyer he's pretty well known but I think you can contact him pretty quickly.

[00:05:00] Is he the Dewey, the Cheatman or the Howe? Which one is the other firm? Is that your

[00:05:06] firm Dewey, Cheatman or Howe? He's well now he's the Harvey Spencer of everybody.

[00:05:10] Oh Harvey Spencer okay so they say my lawyer put the lit in litigation.

[00:05:18] Correct. You're about to get lit. God I love that show so yeah well that's good to hear man and you

[00:05:28] know I gotta admit I enjoy your presence on here and it's very it's more entertaining

[00:05:35] it's more helpful that you know I don't get to just sit here and talk by myself

[00:05:40] and then try to spark up that conversation between two people that I don't know like

[00:05:46] like I don't know this person that here and there but you know it's really good to have you I'm glad

[00:05:52] you're getting that positive feedback you're now more famous than you once were on Instagram.

[00:05:56] That's right right and I'm gonna keep it that way that's my name.

[00:05:59] I have more followers. Yeah right so but in part I'm doing it A to help you and I

[00:06:04] appreciate all the effort you put into everything you volunteer for but also I have

[00:06:08] this impression that a lot of people when they set out on Saturday or Sunday morning queue up

[00:06:12] the podcast and that's what they're listening to on their drive up so trying to just kind of help

[00:06:18] it be more enjoyable more upbeat nice vibe to it and kind of get that mountain spirit heated up in

[00:06:27] them to get up here and hike. You have that you have that voice I don't I don't know it's

[00:06:32] that's yeah well I spent years I spent years in vocal training for this voice I really wanted

[00:06:37] I really wanted to take over for John Sterling and the broadcast the Yankee games but

[00:06:43] I just don't have enough color for that. I'm pretty sure they had you first in line for

[00:06:47] the DEC podcast and then what happened I stole yeah yeah well I turned down their first offer so

[00:06:53] I'm waiting for them to get back to me the you know there's good perks with that I get

[00:06:58] free mountain rescue um you know I don't have to buy permits at parking areas and

[00:07:05] get away with littering and yeah and I get to hike with a ranger whenever I want to so

[00:07:10] those those are benefits to the job. Put some Adirondack chairs in the viewpoints you know.

[00:07:16] Yeah I actually um I was gonna send you a picture I'm guilty of assembling two Adirondack

[00:07:21] chairs with my wife over the weekend but we're not putting them on a mountain top in the

[00:07:25] Adirondacks they will firmly be planted in our backyard. Good for you good for you

[00:07:31] so well that's good to hear I'm glad to hear I just I like that it's my point to get the podcast

[00:07:36] out and get the podcast you know for people who love the Catskills and such like that so it's

[00:07:44] it's happening I wouldn't say like as fast as you know other podcasts are but you know

[00:07:49] it's the Catskills I didn't think it would blossom like you know the good old amazing

[00:07:55] absolute stunning Joe Rogan podcast or the other podcasts that flow in the uh the northeast.

[00:08:02] Speak for yourself Joe I'm coming after you. Go right ahead please go after him and see what he

[00:08:09] does he'll probably hit you with some straight up backs I'm not gonna say anything. Ah so

[00:08:17] unfortunate news we will move on to some news uh an Adirondack forest ranger has passed away

[00:08:24] while ice climbing in Alaska now this happened April 27th uh not too long ago like three days

[00:08:30] ago from this recording so Robbie Meskis uh passed away 52 years old Adirondack forest ranger uh

[00:08:37] in Denali National Park while climbing an 8400 peak mountain in Denali it was a tough

[00:08:45] a very very tough climb it's called the escalator a steep 5000 foot climb you think these

[00:08:50] technical climbs and then the Catskills 5000 ice climbing and you know Robbie was an amazing

[00:08:57] forest ranger in the Adirondacks and they have been playing she's been serving as a forest ranger

[00:09:03] since 1999 so 25 years and everything she has done has been dedicated 100 to the community to the

[00:09:13] Adirondacks to the the ranger system and I met Robbie when I was going up to the uh to

[00:09:19] Marcy so Summit Marcy one time and she was actually like like you knew where you're going

[00:09:23] I'm just like hell yeah I do I'm you know I'm a Catskill hiker and stuff like that she's like

[00:09:28] well this is different than the Catskills I'm just like trust me I don't want to do it but no

[00:09:31] we had we had a good we had a good conversation and she was very awesome and she was uh she

[00:09:36] wasn't worried about what I was doing she knew that that I had my 55 pound pack on me for a

[00:09:41] two-day hike and she was like oh wow this guy's a little over prepared I'll let him go

[00:09:46] but it was great to talk to her but would say in this I remember seeing on her her social media

[00:09:52] posts that one time she a couple days ago she was waiting out a storm up in Alaska in a tent so

[00:09:58] I was I was like I was a little concerned and I was like oh okay so she's probably in a crazy area

[00:10:04] but I didn't know she was ice climbing but she's been part of hundreds of searches

[00:10:09] in the in the Adirondacks hiker snow storms one recent search that she had where she found a

[00:10:14] guy uh going off the side of Mount Marcy and luckily found him and recorded it it was amazing

[00:10:20] stuff and you know I supported all her stuff that she did on social media she was a very high

[00:10:27] presence of social media high presence of lgbqt and it was absolutely fascinating just to hear

[00:10:34] her stories and such so a big loss to the ranger community in the end of New York state to

[00:10:41] the world in general of just of how amazing she was to our d ec family here in New York state so

[00:10:51] huge loss what do you what do you think well it's obviously very sad very tragic

[00:10:57] you know sometimes people this is where they bring up you know that this person died doing

[00:11:01] something that she loved right um but yeah it doesn't take away from the fact that

[00:11:08] it's a very sad tragic event and you just hope that her suffering and the the final moments of her life

[00:11:15] you know wasn't that much so yeah so you really know how to put me in a solemn moment

[00:11:23] and that's about that's about as much as I can say so the one thing that that that

[00:11:27] sucked even more is that her friend her partner Melissa or Chesky was there with her and she

[00:11:33] actually survived the fall they both fell about a thousand feet yeah in the park service then they

[00:11:38] were airlifted out uh Melissa was airlifted out uh on Friday morning which was so three days ago which

[00:11:45] was 27th critical condition I haven't heard of anything about that yet so have you was that

[00:11:52] I haven't um and I did mean to check up on it but I didn't have the time but what I thought

[00:11:56] was interesting is that uh the fall was witnessed by some other climbers that were further up

[00:12:01] on a escalator uh they descended down to a level and actually I guess they built like a cave

[00:12:10] in the in the snowpack to spend the night and wait for a rescue

[00:12:15] wow awesome you know once again hikers looking out for other hikers ice climbers looking

[00:12:21] out for other ice climbers that's you know the decision that you want from other people is

[00:12:27] is to you know help you out when you're in that need and and especially on Denali which

[00:12:32] one of the the most unpredictable mountains in the world besides like K2 you know people take

[00:12:39] take weeks to go up that stuff and you know it's just insane to hear about this and

[00:12:45] you know tragic news to to the DEC community and to the rangers community because Robbie was an

[00:12:52] awesome powerhouse in helping the Adirondacks be a better place and was always

[00:12:59] the front runner and every one of these rescues be like you know what I'll kick some ass and I'll do

[00:13:04] this so crazy horrible loss so let's move on to some stuff so uh we give our condolences to the

[00:13:15] family to the DEC uh ranger friends and and everybody who was known Robbie uh we really

[00:13:22] really huge loss so I got this sent by my friend Michelle and it is actually some amazing piece of

[00:13:36] work that one of the most amazing written works I've ever seen this has come from

[00:13:40] Pat country 107.3 so I don't know how somebody from a freaking radio station could could write this

[00:13:49] about so uh Michelle I thank you for sending me this so Jersey mom steps between her two-year-old

[00:13:57] child and a mountain lion in Jersey let's just say that uh I I read this and I had I think

[00:14:06] I've read this about eight times and I still can't keep understanding so and Stratton New Jersey

[00:14:14] which is northern New Jersey located more towards like the New Jersey uh New York border uh some

[00:14:24] mother stepped in between her two-year-old and a mountain lion so the thing that happened

[00:14:30] uh apparently she stepped in between it and her killed her kid yelled that's a mountain lion

[00:14:38] her her two-year-old kid yelled that two and a half all right two and a half well beyond two

[00:14:43] and the extra six months makes the difference I suppose exactly I was just like yeah definitely

[00:14:50] that that kid yelled that 2 a.m. in the night in the morning 2 a.m. let's just say that

[00:14:57] at 2 a.m. the kid ran out there out of a dead sleep and said it was standing mere feet from us

[00:15:03] and I put in a glass and said my my two-year-old yelled out that's a mountain lion

[00:15:09] sorry Kristen about this uh you know I might I might plead that out because Kristen is a good

[00:15:14] woman but um this uh let's let's her name is giggy see reached out so giggy see that's that's

[00:15:23] her name giggy see is giggy see is the mother yes of the two and a half year old toddler who

[00:15:32] and the toddler is standing between the mountain lion and mom okay and is that a rapper name giggy

[00:15:41] see yeah I well I don't I don't know if yeah I don't know that giggy see yeah I don't think I've

[00:15:48] met giggy see but yeah all right I gotta look up where this is yeah yeah well it's uh it's in

[00:15:54] northern New Jersey the Sussex County western maybe from Sussex County area I'm familiar somewhat

[00:16:04] familiar with that area but sure yeah I just want to ask you Stas she actually believed this is a

[00:16:10] true story absolutely freaking not okay did you see the the whole story she said that the person

[00:16:17] wrote this story says she's a mountain lion whisper yeah well who who who I mean to all the parents out

[00:16:23] there who is strapping the car seat into their car to take their toddler out for a drive at 2 a.m.

[00:16:31] in the morning really don't you already have the car seat in the car I know when my children were

[00:16:38] young it's not like we swapped the car seat from one car to the other you get it in the car

[00:16:42] it stays in the car you're not taking it in and out so it doesn't explain in the story why it is she's

[00:16:48] out there at 2 a.m putting the car seat in the car right right and why this is happening while you're

[00:16:56] putting the car seat in the car presumably for your child's safety you're not paying attention

[00:17:01] to your child your child starts walking up the driveway up this hill and then to the mountain

[00:17:07] lion okay so she lets what was her name GZC she lets GGC GGC we're getting around the show just

[00:17:17] because we like saying her name um she'll be your new co-host I'll resign and GGC turns around she

[00:17:25] sees her child she sees the mountain line what does her kid say again what is that the 2 a.m

[00:17:31] that's a mountain line that's a like the kid has seen them before what on the Barney show Barney

[00:17:37] and friends uh bluey maybe yeah I I don't have answers for any of this so yeah I'm surprised we

[00:17:45] bring this on the show what type of what type of news is this it's fake news is that what we're

[00:17:51] turning this show is this what we're doing to get ratings stash you know we're gonna start reporting

[00:17:56] reporting bits like this as if they're the news have you listened to my shows before you know this

[00:18:01] is all about mountain lions I know I know I have I sent you at one time I don't think you read it but

[00:18:07] I did send you didn't you get that that whole chapter from a book about mountain lions and the

[00:18:13] shwan gunk mountains here the shwan gunk ridge I did yeah so you know I've read about that

[00:18:19] and I'm read about them of course up in the beaver kill area and that was that was legit fact

[00:18:24] base scientific evidence proof that you know back at the turn of the last century mountain lions

[00:18:33] in the shwan gunk ridge yeah and this is just this is just absolutely hilarious I cried no

[00:18:40] at the very top of my point at which the lion looked up at me and swiftly turned to run in

[00:18:45] the forest I'll never forget the clear vision I've had of her as she ran away her muscular

[00:18:50] legs and her long trailing behind her and that that's about it you know and the funny thing is this

[00:18:59] is up the once again still water like Delaware gap I would expect somebody named jizzy see me being

[00:19:06] more towards a Jersey shore I mean yeah well maybe she was on her way back but this this reminds me

[00:19:12] stash we'll see if you remember this when I sent you that foe news clip last year I think it was about

[00:19:22] the the mountain lion and the cat skills that the rangers had reported to them don't you and

[00:19:29] you actually contacted the rangers about it did I what yeah don't you remember I sent you like

[00:19:36] this I made up this fake news clip and the ranger report about a mountain lion sighting

[00:19:41] and remember that you don't I'm gonna I'm gonna pull it out I'm gonna have it marked as an exhibit

[00:19:46] they're gonna have my legal team present this to you but yeah outrageous so mountain lions

[00:19:54] they're they're around either in the woods or in your imagination yet there's no evidence of them

[00:20:00] nobody's seen a mountain lion print in the snow in the winter when they love to hunt well I have

[00:20:05] fossil fragments with mountain lion paw prints in them that I'll be producing later tonight

[00:20:11] all right that's that's that's that's fine that works that works out all right moving along

[00:20:16] moving along moving along so anything else uh do you have any tidbits to you know anything

[00:20:23] no I'm later on tonight I have these the new segment stump stash we'll see how you perform

[00:20:30] um with uh three questions about tonight's topic so we'll see if you if you're up on fossils

[00:20:40] I forgot to do the intro Jesus I'm off point so we're talking about uh Gilboa fossils tonight

[00:20:46] with Chris and Wycoff so sorry about that from the good because Gilboa Historical Society so yeah

[00:20:52] roll that in good lord definitely off it's warm out here man I got a like a you want to

[00:20:58] you should see the fan that I have blowing the air on me it's absolutely so small what I want to

[00:21:02] see is what's in that cup this cup we'll talk about that later so thank you to the monthly

[00:21:09] supporters Chris Darren Vicki John Betsy Denise Vanessa Joseph Jim Michael and David appreciate

[00:21:16] you guys supporting the show really appreciate it once again you guys are really making this go

[00:21:21] along uh sponsors of the show check out outdoor chronicles photography molly from outdoor

[00:21:26] chronicles photography specialized in adventure alopin and adventure couple photography and the

[00:21:30] Catskills Adirondack and the White Mountains she's an efficient for getting married a licensed guide

[00:21:35] and she's also a story maker molly won't just give you photos she'll give you memories that will

[00:21:40] last forever do not hesitate to get a hold of molly on all platforms also have you ever

[00:21:45] wanted to learn more about hiking or backpacking or even but just brush up on the old skills

[00:21:50] in the backcountry check out trailbound project a hiking and backpacking school located in New

[00:21:55] Jersey scott and joe from the new jersey search and rescue team have amazing background in wilderness

[00:22:00] first aid and wilderness first responder and the mountain recovery association and they

[00:22:05] do here to help you learn all the new skills of backpacking and hiking many other skills that

[00:22:10] could help you and others while in a shell check them out on their website and social media

[00:22:15] platforms so trebonne project project just posted their schedule of different uh things that

[00:22:22] they're doing a guided hike and stone living room on may 4th backpacking trip one an intro to

[00:22:29] backpacking on the 4th as well may 4th women into the wilderness that's booked but they're going to

[00:22:34] have an overflow of that which is in the uh may 11th a guided hike to hemlock falls which is on

[00:22:40] May 11th essentials gear hiking trip which is on 518 which is May 15th again uh hiking basics

[00:22:49] and safety may 18th again as well compets and navigation will disperse they have everything

[00:22:54] scheduled all the way up until august and uh so check them out definitely they have a lot of

[00:23:02] stuff going on so uh speaking of uh like social media platforms and stuff so we're gonna try a

[00:23:10] new thing so tag the podcast on one of your hikes and we'll chat about you on the show

[00:23:15] or we'll have you come on the show in the podcast you know i know we've had a bunch of people

[00:23:20] tag us once in a while uh on the show you know danie mighty mischievous has tagged us once in a

[00:23:25] while uh joe has tagged us once in a while so tag us on your your hikes and we'll chat about

[00:23:31] the hike that you did and uh you know our thoughts on the hike you did uh right dad does

[00:23:37] that sound good absolutely sounds fun because you know somebody might be doing something

[00:23:43] different every week and then we'll chat about that in our experiences yeah it's we want to be in

[00:23:47] touch with our listeners definitely definitely we're here for we're here for you indeed so you

[00:23:53] drinking anything tonight dad uh i'm having my typical home roasted home brewed cup of coffee

[00:24:00] tonight hmm it's any yeti cup why would you have to get a cup at home well when you when you

[00:24:06] have two loving and caring daughters they buy you things like this for christmas father's day

[00:24:13] your birthday so i would never buy a yeti coffee mug for myself but my daughter's did my one daughter

[00:24:20] did she got it for me they're both great she ain't gonna listen to the show i see that's that's

[00:24:25] kind of disrespectful well but you know i i absolutely they have to listen where they're

[00:24:29] getting caught out of the will hey hey that's i run a tight ship around here okay i want respect

[00:24:36] for my kids they're listening to the show or i'm disinheriting them that's it i gotta thank you

[00:24:43] thank you that kid's and gives us a little bit more outreach so anything so uh so tad previous

[00:24:49] hikes what have you done oh god how yes where where do you want me to start i could so this

[00:24:54] hike that i did with danie davis on saturday and who else uh and zack zack in action on instagram

[00:25:03] he came along nice so danie had been talking about for quite a while this little blimp or dimple

[00:25:12] that he saw on some topographical imagery of slide mountain so he's been wanting to go out

[00:25:19] there and check this out and see if it was just some artifact that didn't relate to anything on the

[00:25:25] ground or if it actually related to something on the ground and also zack had pinged me a few times

[00:25:33] on instagram about hiking slide from the east branch so it all came together at the last minute

[00:25:40] interestingly danie or not danie but zack when i told him that we were going to be doing the

[00:25:45] hike this weekend it was too late for zack to jump on board but sure enough saturday morning and the

[00:25:52] dining area parking lot danie and i were getting ready to head out and who pulls up but zack and

[00:26:00] he joined us and like i said we um we hiked out the east branch i could go on and on about

[00:26:06] the overall hike and the tonight show would be a few hours long so the one thing i really want

[00:26:11] to emphasize is the early morning hike up the east branch of the never sink going along that braided

[00:26:24] meandering so-called fisherman's path is fabulous a lot of people hike downstream the never sink

[00:26:34] they'll go bushwhack lone rocky or do lone rocky balsam cap friday come down the never sink

[00:26:42] and it's a long hike it becomes just monotonous you you know you start to just wanted to get back

[00:26:49] to your car and you don't at least i've seen you don't enjoy that hike all that much the best

[00:26:54] way to hike the east branch in my opinion early morning upstream it's got that golden hour glow

[00:27:01] for what seems to be forever in the morning um you're enthused about the hike you're heading upstream

[00:27:07] i think it's just one of the best spots in the cat sills so we hiked up the east branch to

[00:27:14] the arched tree which marks the point at which the herd path goes up and down to rocky

[00:27:23] and we just continued going up the east branch and continued and continued to

[00:27:28] the western fork of the east branch and continued up that we just went on and on and on and on and on

[00:27:34] and eventually we came to the top of slide mountain and then we bushwhack down slide so

[00:27:40] i won't go into the details i shared some of them with stash it's a great hike

[00:27:45] encourage though everyone to hike up that east branch in the early morning hours

[00:27:50] all right and then we'll also as we'll learn later on tonight um i'll bring up who i met

[00:27:55] along the way yeah former guest on the show and how long a former guest on the show how long were you

[00:28:02] on that trail to meet that person the absolute coincidence of that is absolutely insane oh well

[00:28:09] we so we had hiked up the east branch as i said and continued way up and beyond the point at

[00:28:15] which most folks turn off and head up or down uh to rocky um and it'll bring me also to an

[00:28:23] interesting thing we did find that dimple that showed up on the artifacts and interesting yeah and

[00:28:30] it was you know it was kind of like it was about 50 yards across more or less maybe a depression of

[00:28:36] 20 to 25 feet uh there wasn't enough evidence on the ground for danie to figure out with some degree

[00:28:45] of geological precision why it was there but what we all found interesting is way way way up in the

[00:28:54] never never never land of the reaches of the east branch we found a deer stand in a tree nice a full

[00:29:06] blown metal deer stand like high up in a tree somebody had slept all the way up there to go hunting

[00:29:14] which then is like okay you're up in your tree stand during hunting season

[00:29:19] you shoot and kill a deer yeah out now what now what yeah exactly right are you up there with

[00:29:26] a bunch of people do you hoist it up a tree gut it dress it hack out the meat i mean i don't know

[00:29:32] how much a typical deer weighs but what is it you do you you i mean do you how do you cut

[00:29:40] up a deer do you know stash i don't have a clue i'm not i'm not a i'm not a big deer hunter so you

[00:29:46] dress it and so what are you left with like 50 60 70 pounds of meat mm-hmm so a couple guys i guess could

[00:29:53] could haul that out but that's a long way to go to a deer for a deer so so you bring up a good

[00:30:00] good point is that a lot of the places that i've searched for previously in the and the cat skills

[00:30:06] have been old previous camps of deer hunters really to be honest you go up in eversync and you keep

[00:30:13] going up to the headwaters there's actual campsite on the western side of friday mountain that is an

[00:30:20] old 1960s 1970s campsite been there right it's the one with the wood stove there with the makeshift

[00:30:30] like um uh uh flew going up and then bending out over the overhang yeah i've been there a few times

[00:30:37] it's got some hot and pans some shovels yeah who was it uh jim bouton i think told me it was known

[00:30:43] as the draft dodgers camp that's what i've heard yeah i might need i i've seen some sort of that so

[00:30:51] i'll need an exact gps point for that so my friend joe has been looking for that you know

[00:30:55] joe fairy oh yeah playing hunter guy i think joe knows where it is joe doesn't you know really no no

[00:31:01] joe and i talked about it he then he's then he's sandbag he's he's not as good of a friend of yours

[00:31:07] as you think he is because i know that joe knows about it because before i found it i had searched

[00:31:13] for it a few times and so i asked joe where it was where i was going wrong and of course

[00:31:21] joe knows i mean he's one of those sources about cat skill intel that if he doesn't know about it

[00:31:28] there's few other people that would so the time we went and looked at the first time he probably

[00:31:34] he's bound at the second time the first time we looked for it he went up and over we went up

[00:31:39] and over course of friday uh right in the call and then went down uh you know those ledges are

[00:31:44] absolutely insane i don't think there's any other ledges on the west side of friday that you can

[00:31:50] encounter in the cat skills at all it's just amazing ledges after ledges massive rock after

[00:31:57] massive rock and we searched and searched this was a horrible it wasn't raining but it was raining

[00:32:05] like lightly so you know stuff was falling on you we had fog uh so like i would i would look up

[00:32:12] at the ledge of joe that was 20 feet up above me i couldn't see him and i would yell so the story is

[00:32:19] let's get up break it we had another friend that was meeting us from slide in the middle of friday

[00:32:25] mountain to to look as well so just imagine that hey sure you're having a meetup in the middle of

[00:32:31] like the the toothpick forest on the western slope of friday and freaking no man's land yeah

[00:32:39] absolute no man's man nobody's been here so i'm like joe i look at him i'm like how the hell are we

[00:32:45] supposed to know he's gonna be here and how the hell are we supposed to know that he's gonna be

[00:32:49] alive you know this is absolutely insane and uh so we meet that guy we actually sit there

[00:32:56] and wait for like 20 30 minutes and i'm getting a little nervous i'm like this guy's not gonna

[00:33:00] meet us you know now we have to go searching for him we're screwed and this is once again a crappy

[00:33:07] all the sudden you know joe whistles joe's does like his freaking you know father whistle of his

[00:33:14] two pinky fingers in there and the guy's just like hey we're like you gotta be kidding me this happened

[00:33:20] so crazy climb back over friday mountain we get to uh the viewpoint that joe has no clue of i'm

[00:33:27] just like you have no clue about this viewpoint on friday that overlooks he's like i've never

[00:33:33] been here before i'm like and we're all looking at each other like are you serious this is like

[00:33:38] one of the iconic viewpoints that you can't miss that's the one south of the canister

[00:33:44] yes rid of rub Ralph's ramp yeah and he saw it and he was blown away and uh and then it

[00:33:53] blossoms out to a picture perfect day at the end of the hike but uh but yes that that that one

[00:33:58] area you're talking about going on the the western part of friday in between the call of slide and

[00:34:05] Cornell is no man's land absolutely i would i would say untouched basically and then you gotta

[00:34:13] you find your own tree stand there and you're like what the hell is going on you say it's

[00:34:16] untouched yes so we found that the uh tree stand and a tree there was no ladder we didn't look

[00:34:23] around long for the ladder but presumably who's ever in control that tree stand is stashed their ladder

[00:34:31] and then further up is we're going towards slides you run into some of these interesting

[00:34:35] clearings you know where things just kind of level out your your hiking uphill you're navigating

[00:34:41] through these you know boulder tallas fields up and over some rock outcroppings you come

[00:34:48] up over the top of it next thing you know it's like clear there's no trees around right so you

[00:34:53] you hike through a little field you go uphill more and more and eventually as we're approaching the

[00:34:58] summit we started to run into an interesting collection of things made out of medical

[00:35:06] metal some buckets um some steel shelving yeah i mean just a real whole bunch of oddities

[00:35:14] we were speculating whether or not like john burrows might have some type of hangout up there

[00:35:19] like a little writing studio or something we're not exactly sure but it was just a weird place to

[00:35:26] i mean we were very high up at that point we were probably over 4 000 feet that we were running

[00:35:31] into this oh yeah i mean it's it's interesting how and these were things that were big the

[00:35:38] shelving or whatever contraption this was was just so large you have to wonder is was it possible for a

[00:35:47] single person to bring that up but then you have this image of john burrows logging anything he wanted

[00:35:52] up the mountain so yeah so that's it we had a we had a fantastic hike on saturday we did

[00:36:00] uh bushwhacked down what is known as pirates ridge have you ever heard that name before pirates

[00:36:06] ridge i have yeah i didn't know what was named pirates ridge but apparently that's what its name

[00:36:11] so we went down pirates ridge also somewhat typical of any ridge in the cat skills there were some

[00:36:21] some areas of interest we did find where somebody on top of one rock outcropping had stacked up a

[00:36:27] bunch of stones and put some wooden members on it as if it was like a picnic table area

[00:36:34] uh and really are you serious oh yeah i i have a picture of zack sitting there i can send you

[00:36:42] you did not send me that in the beginning well i can send it to you i mean i have i have photographic

[00:36:47] evidence of all these tall tales from the trail but what was interesting is this was a fairly old

[00:36:55] assemblage of the rocks and the wooden members because there was a lot of rot to it

[00:37:02] wasn't something that somebody had done easily you know it had to be 20 25 years or more

[00:37:08] that somebody had done this so wow and this was going on pirates ridge yeah we were coming down

[00:37:15] pirates ridge from the lookout that you would clue me into a while back um what did you think of

[00:37:24] that by the way yeah he thought it was cool but we we also found another special spot up there

[00:37:29] you that it's always you so you always got a one-up thing i am one-uping you and i'm going to do it

[00:37:34] again and again and again so just get used to it get used to it you can't mute me anymore when i

[00:37:39] one up you okay because i have rights i have rights now and i'm gonna enforce them so at any rate

[00:37:48] uh yeah it's fun you know it's fun to hike up and down slide mountain yeah so you know uh

[00:37:56] you talk about pirates ridge i've also heard of that was also called once as tumbling ridge

[00:38:03] none of us took a tumble and it was late in the hike so we were somewhat tired but not that tired

[00:38:08] that's what i've heard because uh it was once at at a nice enough angle as where in the in

[00:38:15] the winter time you could tumble down and just keep going and going and going until you reach

[00:38:19] the never sink yeah well that that toe of the slope where it um goes into the uh deer shanty

[00:38:27] brook area right right at the bottom of that ridge is fairly steep yeah but that's probably

[00:38:34] a vertical differential of less than a hundred feet there and yeah i i did i don't know if i

[00:38:42] showed you i we did post it on insta the photo of zack coming down the action photo of zack coming

[00:38:49] down that ridge so that's now known as tumbling zack in action so is zack an action gonna be on

[00:38:56] the show uh i don't know well we can talk about that we can definitely talk about that we can

[00:39:02] reach out to zack zack was supposed to be at a surprise birthday party on saturday and so he

[00:39:07] originally told me he wasn't going to make the hike and like i said we're danie and i

[00:39:11] were getting ready to set out next thing we know zack come strolling through the parking lot and joined

[00:39:17] us i think zack had a good time i would i would i would hope so because that's an absolutely

[00:39:22] fantastic hike you know yeah going up there so without you talk about surprise birthday party so

[00:39:29] saturday i actually had the day off and we were gonna hold my mom a surprise 70th birthday

[00:39:36] party and i had the the the option of occupying her until she got to the party so what did i do i

[00:39:47] didn't say we'd take her hike and she's seven years old uh i i plan on i do plan on spending money

[00:39:52] to get a a nice size wheelchair with big wheels and take her to some of these places that i've

[00:39:57] been to you know the cat's go mountain house uh maybe maybe a fire tower here there red hill

[00:40:03] maybe or something like that to get her at least a glimpse of my through my eyes of what i've seen

[00:40:09] because she's never she's she's driven through the cat's goes but she's never had the experience

[00:40:14] i'm like she's seven years old she needs to have this this time of work and she can see stuff so

[00:40:20] you know i was like hey mom why don't we go bald eagle spotting and she was ecstatic

[00:40:26] she was like crazy and she's like do you mind if i invite uh your nephew shane

[00:40:31] who is 12 years old and i was like hell yeah if he's in for it whatever that would be fantastic so

[00:40:37] they both joined us bald eagle spotting i i had one spot planned which is the east sydney dam which

[00:40:44] is the if you if you listen to episode i think it's 62 of the bald eagle uh restoration project

[00:40:51] we talk about east sydney dam being one of the two spots in new york spate that had a

[00:40:56] new york state or i had a bald eagle's nest in new york state only two spots montezuma national

[00:41:02] or montezuma park and then east sydney dam now this uh once again i was i was i was unsure if there

[00:41:09] would be eagles there so i was just like let's go right down from my house not even a quarter of

[00:41:14] mile down from my house is a bald eagle's nest massive huge bald eagle's nest uh it's sort

[00:41:19] of on private property but you can see with binoculars from there uh you can see from my

[00:41:24] my good old 200 millimeter camera you can see stuff so we went down there and grateful enough

[00:41:31] there was a massive mother bald eagle sitting there with an eaglet in the in the in the nest

[00:41:38] you know picking away at things and the eaglet would pop up once in a while my mom and and my

[00:41:43] nephew would be so excited like oh there's the eaglet there's the eagle oh my god did you

[00:41:48] have a slingshot with you not at all i would have loved to throw and salmon up there

[00:41:52] like i would have thrown some salmon up there and have it come down and get it right up to the

[00:41:58] eagle it but i i gotta post the pictures on on on soon i gotta get those professional pictures

[00:42:04] up because you can see the eaglet and the mother eagle turning kind of like the side and you can

[00:42:08] see their beaks absolutely phenomenal so the second place we go to is near my cousin's house

[00:42:15] unfortunately to get up to there you gotta have like a four-wheel drive vehicle and it's

[00:42:20] like rough and stuff it's dc i don't know if it's dc protected but they say it is and i told them you

[00:42:26] know i really don't follow the dc guidelines since they start started would you say you would you say

[00:42:33] you don't follow i don't follow the dc guidelines when it comes to trail like maintenance but with

[00:42:40] the bald eagles they got their own podcast they can do their own thing but from the so i wish i

[00:42:48] i'm gonna you know i'm gonna send you a picture of where we stood to see how this bald eagle's nest

[00:42:55] how big this bald eagle's nest oh i don't have any for myself dammit um so i gotta say half a

[00:43:03] mile away you could still see the nest uh how big it was and plus you could see the little head

[00:43:09] like the the white head of the bald eagle and my mom you know to see it with binoculars was

[00:43:14] ecstatic it was just like oh my god you know it's right above there look at how big i guarantee that

[00:43:19] the size of this this this bald eagle's nest was about the size of a small house you know it was

[00:43:24] just well absolutely amazing and then we we shift on to east sydney dam and i did my research and

[00:43:32] they didn't show any nest up there but they they did say that bald eagles are present up there

[00:43:37] and we drive down and i'm like ah you know the water is low bald eagle's not going to be here

[00:43:42] all of a sudden i see three birds flying over me and i'm just like you know what i'm gonna take a

[00:43:47] quick picture at that with my my big lens i zoom in and it's a juvenile bald eagle wow and i'm like

[00:43:53] i'm like oh wow and all of a sudden two more the mother and the father fly over and uh they're

[00:44:00] kind of like cascading down into the thing and teaching it how to like kind of fish

[00:44:05] in there and we are just blown away and one of them flies right over top of us

[00:44:10] and it was just absolutely phenomenal time my mom was ecstatic totally blew her away

[00:44:17] that she could spot these bald eagles and she had absolutely no clue that there was a surprise

[00:44:24] birthday party going on for her and uh you know we go down five minutes away is the the site of

[00:44:31] the the 70th birthday and we we leader in and all of a sudden you know we pull in and then my

[00:44:38] cousin uh pulls in right next to us like i'm like are you freaking serious he gives me the way

[00:44:44] oh like so close and so close so we i come up with the diversion and i'm just like hey

[00:44:50] are you here for the uh the craft show he's like oh yeah we've been craft show hunting like all day

[00:44:56] long we've been to at least three of them and my mom is totally not knowing what's going on and

[00:45:02] she totally goes for it and we walk her into the the pavilion that we're doing and it's a surprise

[00:45:08] she gets totally blown away and she gets and has a massive heart attack that you got you got to be

[00:45:15] careful at age 70 i know the type of surprise i mean that's the that's the thing i was scared

[00:45:20] of i was scared of that totally but she looks back at me and gives me that dirty look of just

[00:45:25] like i can't believe you did this and uh you know just uh it was it was so good and uh so bittersweet

[00:45:33] and and a lot of people you know from uh we had my my aunt from north carolina show up a lot of

[00:45:39] friends from long island show up uh up north showed up so we had about 70 people there and it was

[00:45:46] was very great so now we now we have to hear you brought us this far into the story we have

[00:45:51] to hear what'd you get mom for her 70th birthday a birthday card that's it you got mom a brother

[00:45:58] that's that's what i tell my kids i rather have a card than a present right write me a note in a

[00:46:05] card because i have a box full of these cards you know i yeah i mentioned earlier like you know

[00:46:11] i have this coffee mug and that's great and everything but having these cards where they

[00:46:16] write things in them is uh very special so that's cool exactly yeah and you know like once again i

[00:46:24] my mom wants to go bald eagle spotting some more so i'm looking to get some into some more better

[00:46:31] binoculars so if anybody has any suggestion for decent binoculars but not going like into the

[00:46:37] $2,000 range that i've freaking seen so far let me know well the the interesting thing with

[00:46:43] binoculars is they actually have them now with like stabilization that stabilizes you know your

[00:46:49] field of view so you yeah you can pick up a more powerful pair of binoculars or something with

[00:46:55] a higher level of magnification and ordinarily when you have that level of magnification

[00:47:02] the more you move them around the harder it is to focus in and see what you're looking at

[00:47:06] but now with technology come as far as it has just like in your camera with image stabilization

[00:47:13] they've brought that to binoculars as you expect yeah i'm looking forward to it yeah so yeah cool

[00:47:21] yeah so great weekend for both of us once again uh to slide mountain once uh have you uh tad really

[00:47:28] quick have you bushwhacked up slide mountain the john burrows group that i told you about that

[00:47:32] one time have you done that um i'm not i don't know if i recall exactly which route it was

[00:47:41] but i have bushwhacked up slide several times of course yeah my understanding is he came up

[00:47:46] through woodland valley that first time yeah the burrows route yeah so i've been up through woodland

[00:47:52] valley a couple times that's a fantastic hike i remember the first time i did it was in

[00:47:59] the the latter half of october and i caught it on a day early in the morning where it was just

[00:48:07] glowing with the early morning sunrise the leaves on the trees and came up that ridge that brought me

[00:48:17] right in between Cornell and slide that was my first time going up nice that sounds fantastic

[00:48:25] yeah this yeah we'll have to we'll have to do that the burrows route because if we ever hook

[00:48:31] up and hike it's you can put that on the list but you're just too busy volunteering and stuff

[00:48:36] to hike with me yes and you know speaking about volunteers uh once again volunteer 3500 club has now

[00:48:45] had their trailhead steward schedule is out now and open now you talk about bear bear was a big

[00:48:49] volunteer before with the 3500 club trailhead stewards uh he's had a fantastic time we talked

[00:48:56] about that shillen mcguire was was a trailhead volunteer i was a i am a trailhead volunteer

[00:49:01] i can't wait to do it again signing up this year tad i know you won't do that i think it's against

[00:49:06] your like uh guidelines or something like that you gotta maybe i'll do that i'll i'll um you

[00:49:11] know you let me know what weekend to be there dc let us will they will we so we'll book it

[00:49:18] and then all the dc will be like listen that week's closed off we got to do that yeah well no

[00:49:23] we'll just we'll still crash it and we'll do our volunteering and we'll have them you know

[00:49:28] they'll have to handcuff us put us in shackles and haul us away even but then and but we'll be so

[00:49:35] ferocious about being our trailhead volunteers that even a pack of wild mountain lions wouldn't

[00:49:43] be able to haul us away when it be stopping us okay we still build some gatorondack chairs at

[00:49:47] the top of slide mountain don't stop us yeah can't stop us yeah we could we could do that at night

[00:49:52] we could go up there at night do that stealth mode and distract the dc you know trying to capture

[00:50:00] and apprehend the adirondack chair musketeers if you will in the cat skills i know slay slay

[00:50:09] the volunteer during the day slayden martin our good friends of mine they will uh turn the other

[00:50:15] way they they're not gonna be when we're done with this we're going to war with the dc

[00:50:19] we're taking them out all right so cat skill trail crew they also have a schedule out they were doing

[00:50:26] stuff on mary's glenn very tough area of the cat skills so appreciate you guys cat skill mountain

[00:50:32] clubs the visitor's center jolly rovers trail crew have recently announced their new schedule so that

[00:50:38] is uh gonna be pretty awesome stuff so they have my friend actually he's search and rescue

[00:50:43] volunteer uh ben has uh signed up for their their stuff so i'm gonna ask have to ask ben if he uh

[00:50:52] if he signed up through like the the podcast or not so if he found out about the jolly rovers

[00:50:58] trail crew through the podcast or not so brelly mountain fire tower uh also if you need stickers

[00:51:04] let me know or go to camp cat skill and you could get some free stickers there these are

[00:51:10] absolutely free so once again contact me free stickers put them on your car put them on your

[00:51:16] yeti's put them on your uh nail gene bottles whatever it's not going to ruin anything they're all

[00:51:21] they're all a bunch of weird artifacts anyway so so weather forecast let's get on friday looks

[00:51:29] absolutely stunning uh it been the up in the high mountains we're talking about i kind of

[00:51:35] i go from mountain to mountain every week so this is from plateau mountain uh on friday

[00:51:41] high winds of five miles per hour top of temperature 50 degrees going down to 46 degrees

[00:51:49] absolutely stunning some clouds here and there nothing absolutely beautiful day to hike friday

[00:51:55] saturday is a little bit like kind of if you're uh starts off with some clouds in the morning

[00:52:00] and then going off to light rain in the afternoon in the evening somewhat uh a high of 46 and a low

[00:52:07] 41 not bad once again you need that extra layering just in case you get up to the high peaks and

[00:52:12] there's a little bit more of a wind uh probably 10 to 20 mile per hour winds sunday looks like

[00:52:19] like rain in the morning and then getting out to some cloudy skies uh goes from anywhere from

[00:52:24] mid 40s down to the low 30s with the wind shield so once again we might be progressing into the warmer

[00:52:31] weather but at the higher peaks you still need those layers just in case i always carry a raincoat

[00:52:39] and then maybe some sort of uh a long sleeve layer below that just in case my my pack

[00:52:46] tad i don't know what i tell you my pack was when i went when i went hiking was uh when i did

[00:52:51] my trail maintenance was around like 33 pounds i believe so that's that's outrageous absolutely insane

[00:53:01] all right so no casca i was gonna do a cat's come out in history but i'm not going to do it today

[00:53:05] yeah we're gonna get into history later with christin we're gonna go we're gonna dive back

[00:53:10] 380 million years i think that's historic enough i would say definitely all right so sponsors

[00:53:19] is it time for some new gear hiking the cats go say no more camp cats go and tanners but how's

[00:53:24] all your hiking needs footwear socks moisture working shirts free shot meals cats go merchandise and

[00:53:29] more they have all the essentials for your hiking needs located in tanners well and online

[00:53:33] check out camp cats go if you want free stickers stop here in tanners well also if you're ready

[00:53:39] hit the trails make sure you take the scenic route scenic route guidance are here to help you

[00:53:43] with your goals big or small like marcia your slide alone or stewards check out scenic route

[00:53:48] guiding and gear rental sign instagram and facebook for more information also if you mentioned the

[00:53:53] podcast you can get 10% off use the amazing codeword mountain lion also check out another summit a

[00:54:01] non-profit program that leads outdoor adventures and activities for veterans and first responders

[00:54:06] for free another summit's epic adventure applications are open this year's epic adventures

[00:54:12] includes a nine day canoe trip in the north main woods and a through hike of the north

[00:54:16] full placid trail in the adirondacks epic adventures are a step up program where you will receive

[00:54:21] classroom introduction wilderness first day trading and a custom three day trip

[00:54:25] all leading up to the adventure you'll never forget of course this is all 100 free for

[00:54:30] veterans and first responders applications are open till may 1st for the alligash river canoe

[00:54:35] trip and may 15th for the north full placid trip so apply today at another summit dot org

[00:54:42] 59 oh 150 9 0 7 that's close that's cutting it close yeah can the de c do this long of a podcast

[00:54:52] now they don't have it in the budget their guys come 5 p.m when it's quitting time we're gonna

[00:54:57] punch out all right so let's get on to the guests of the night tonight we have christin

[00:55:05] white off here from the gilboa historical society talking about fossils in the catskill now this

[00:55:09] past couple years this has been a big uprising and findings in the catskill area and northeast

[00:55:16] and the world really of finding of one of the oldest forests in the catskills has been found here

[00:55:21] in the area so welcome to the show christin hi it's nice to meet you and thank you for inviting me

[00:55:27] heck yeah this is awesome how are you doing i'm doing great in fact i just spent

[00:55:31] um a good part of the day in the gilboa museum i'm painting another mural for the museum

[00:55:38] it's in this particular mural is of the age of the fishes it's all devonian fish oh that's

[00:55:44] got to be awesome and so anyway that's ever been to the museum they know that there's several

[00:55:49] paintings and murals of the devonian period of the famous tree fossils that were found in gilboa

[00:55:55] excellent excellent so uh big question right now is i just gotta ask you both right now

[00:56:00] what's the weather like right now they're christin because it's right now it's it's dark and rainy

[00:56:04] i actually had to turn on one of my lights here how about you yes it's um it's just started raining

[00:56:09] here but i haven't heard any thunder or lightning yet got some thunder tati anything near you the

[00:56:15] weather in the hudson valley is uneventful at the moment i it's it's been super warm up here all day

[00:56:24] and uh like like 80 almost 80 degrees up here and then all of a sudden it drops down to 62 degrees

[00:56:29] and it's pretty dark right now for 430 you know it's it's pretty cool uh that we're getting kind

[00:56:35] of like summer in here right now and it's the end of april so i i like it so christin sorry about

[00:56:42] that i was i was very curious i'm very curious about the weather what's going on where everybody

[00:56:46] lives because it's definitely different from up here in onyanto where where i'm at oh you're

[00:56:50] in onyama okay yes ma'am i'm not that far away from me hi no i think the funny thing is is i think

[00:56:56] we're both me you between me you and ted we're all scattered at the same amount of distance apart

[00:57:02] like it's it's like the same exact distance in between so it's all different patterns really so

[00:57:10] uh so christin why don't you give a little background about yourself for the listeners and

[00:57:14] uh we'll jump into everything all right well um we started the museum in 2005 and i am one of the

[00:57:21] co-founders and when i heard i mean gilboa the town of gilboa it's a twin focus because if you knew

[00:57:27] the town of gilboa was actually sacrificed for a new york city watershed so the historical

[00:57:32] society originally got together to do this museum and really focused on the village the

[00:57:37] pictures the people and i just knew a lot about the fossils and at that time i just said can

[00:57:42] you just give me one wall and i can represent all the gilboa tree fossils and other fossils

[00:57:49] that we have in the area on that wall and they were nice enough to let me do that and that's how

[00:57:54] it started and um people are they come they do they come from all over the world because

[00:58:01] a lot of geologists are when they study geology or paleontology the word gilboa comes up

[00:58:08] because that's where these famous trees fossils were found um in the in the late 1800s early 1900s

[00:58:16] um in fact they became world famous when they did the gilboa dam and they found over 40

[00:58:23] tree stumps and they were pretty much all over the world every famous institution and museum has one

[00:58:31] and so then i got in deep with the historical society and i actually was president for a while

[00:58:37] now i am vice president of the gilboa historical society and i'm also chair of the

[00:58:43] educational committee i do most of your field trips and tours um for the museum especially

[00:58:50] that's related to the fossils now though the funny thing is i'm guessing a lot of the people

[00:58:55] who listen to the show don't know really where goboa is because most of them don't travel up past

[00:59:01] i would say the window and stuff so can you show like tell us where gilboa is i know where

[00:59:07] is i love gilboa gilboa is on the northern edge of the northern catskills we're about a half hour

[00:59:14] from hunter windom um rocksberry platy kill uh and that's how most people know the catskills

[00:59:22] is the ski resort so that's why i mentioned it and we were a pretty big town believe it or not in

[00:59:27] the late 1800s in fact we had um we were the largest town of scahary county in 1850 gilboa was

[00:59:34] and the reason no one has really heard of it much is because it was completely sacrificed it's

[00:59:37] a reservoir um the only thing left is a school a post office and now we have the gilboa museum

[00:59:43] and the newly opened um rockland cidery which is right down the road they just opened two years

[00:59:49] ago and that's a great improvement i we have live music live music and um cider and in our little

[00:59:56] town and i've like i've seen those uh look like those little pop-up signs everywhere and i've

[01:00:01] always wanted to go down there but every time i've gone down there in the past couple of years

[01:00:04] they've been closed so i've it's been weird oh really well the cidery is usually open every

[01:00:09] weekend and they usually have bands every saturday um and food trucks but the museum is only open

[01:00:15] from memorial weekend saturday and sunday till columbus day weekend saturday and sunday

[01:00:20] in the winter we do usually close up and it's a lot of volunteers and it's hard to get people

[01:00:26] in the winter it's just not worth it i do i do private tours though and several members of my group

[01:00:32] are on call for people that are brazen through and want to meet and see them there are fossils

[01:00:37] that are outside the museum and then but the majority of the really good ones are inside the

[01:00:42] museum and um when i started this in 2005 there really wasn't a lot of new um theories or

[01:00:55] anything new that had really been discovered with these fossils for almost a hundred years

[01:01:00] and so i painted this mural and it's based mainly on the paleontology of that early 1900s

[01:01:06] by the state paleontologist winterford gold ring and um it's beautiful and a lot of things

[01:01:11] there's huge akadia mountains and the wearing down of these mountains is what really created

[01:01:16] your cat skill mountains of today one sedimentary layer at a time that's why we're so

[01:01:21] known for fossils in new york state and um and then wouldn't you know it just a year or two later

[01:01:27] a crew from the new york state museum and dr stein from the bigamton university

[01:01:33] discovered the entire tree all together with the crown attached and they found out that this

[01:01:39] tree didn't look anything like they thought it did it they thought it was a fern tree

[01:01:43] well it turned out it's more like a bottle brush palm and they they were able to

[01:01:49] excavate this and do a complete research study on it at the new york state museum

[01:01:54] and involved another paleontologist there's pretty much just three or four in the whole world that

[01:01:59] study these tree fossils and the guy out in wales near england um was also involved

[01:02:05] dr christ barry and then we um had 2010 come along and new york city started renovating the dam

[01:02:13] and they were these these paleontologists were allowed to go back to the original river bank quarry

[01:02:19] and see if they could find any more fossils and york city was was great in allowing them to go there

[01:02:25] and held things out for probably three or four weeks on their end but it was really nice of them

[01:02:29] to do that but they did find another like 35 um stumps gilboa stumps and then they also

[01:02:36] discovered a new tree two new tree species and one is nicknamed the snake tree it grew along the

[01:02:42] ground and then produced these crowns up in the trees of the gilboa trees which is officially

[01:02:48] called eospermitopterus and the snake tree is officially called tetracylopterus and these were

[01:02:55] huge um findings in 2010 and 2011 and another theses was written and put in the nature magazine

[01:03:03] and um worldwide fame came about this whole research then and um then i'm sure you've all

[01:03:12] heard about it lately a new forest has been discovered in caro new york and i've been the

[01:03:18] one of the lucky ones that have been there to see it and it is pretty much a quarry a flat quarry

[01:03:24] with like 11 10 to 12 tree roots spreading across this whole quarry and the most remarkable

[01:03:31] thing about this is excuse me that archaeopteryus a tree that was much more modern was discovered

[01:03:39] living with the gilboa tree and that's what was the real real exciting part of finding this caro

[01:03:46] it's not only the oldest forest too these roots are about two or three million years older than

[01:03:53] the gilboa trees which were always thought to be the oldest in the world so when they

[01:03:58] realized that this these roots were all living together at the same time this is another huge

[01:04:04] theory um and evidence that really we always don't know exactly what we we thought things were

[01:04:12] and so now we know that archaeopteryus a more modern tree lived with the gilboa tree which

[01:04:18] is a very primitive tree and um and other trees too they found that they had never discovered

[01:04:23] that old before you are very knowledgeable in this in this area what about your background are you

[01:04:29] have any background in in this um well my background is that my dad was an earth science teacher

[01:04:36] and my mother was an artist impressive i actually went into horticulture which did help me with

[01:04:42] the botany end of this whole um tree and plant research with with fossils it actually did give

[01:04:48] me a big background but it was just my love of um fossil hunting as a kid and doing wonderful

[01:04:55] things with my parents am i and i um i kind of i'm a mixed bag of uh painting devonian paintings

[01:05:03] which is my favorite thing to do right now i mean that's impressive that you're naming off all

[01:05:08] these tree species and stuff like that and without any stutter at all like i can't even remember what

[01:05:13] you just said because of the crazy well i was lucky enough i was really lucky enough to work

[01:05:19] directly with the paleobotanist i mean they kept a lot of things to themselves when they were

[01:05:23] writing their theses and everything but then occasionally they would actually ask me to do

[01:05:28] one of the first drawings that they of the forest how they envisioned it in fact this

[01:05:35] New York state or the New York City renovation when they went in there they not only found these

[01:05:43] new tree species the nick that nick named the snake tree you can remember that right

[01:05:48] and this thing's like a six inch trunk that grew on the ground these really weird looking

[01:05:52] roots that dug into the bedrock really cool and um but they didn't realize so many things

[01:05:59] they found in that quarry that were were answers to questions even about eospermitopteris the original

[01:06:05] gilboa tree um they just found they actually found the stumps with these huge root mounds all the

[01:06:12] way around the stumps and until that time we thought these fossilized tree stumps that we

[01:06:17] were finding were the whole stump but uh-uh they realized they were just the inner core

[01:06:22] and these trees had these huge root skirts that went all the way around the tree and gave

[01:06:27] it support because they didn't have much support and they were knocked down many times with flooding

[01:06:34] and in fact um something very climatic definitely happened in our area upstate new york to have

[01:06:41] so many complete trees and complete stumps and to have them pretty much the oldest in the world

[01:06:51] you referred to upstate new york and let's just put this in more of a

[01:06:57] the chronology or the the time period and the geographical location at the point in time that

[01:07:04] this forest was actually alive and growing um geographically where was it located relative

[01:07:12] to the equator okay good question yes this was below the equator and we were together with england at

[01:07:21] that time north america was attached to england europe and so try to imagine where new england is

[01:07:29] and the start of the atlantic ocean there was these huge mountain

[01:07:33] train um as big as the himalayas of today and these were the akkadian mountains

[01:07:38] and um they played a big part because like i said they kept running they had storms and the runoff

[01:07:45] was of fresh water but it was flowing into the devonian sea which was salt water so you had

[01:07:51] brackish water and this is going back 380 million years ago to answer your question these are these

[01:07:58] were the first forests on earth and they really represent so much because it's the first time

[01:08:05] that carbon dioxide is changing along with oxygen and you know your your this is our first

[01:08:12] climatic change really was one of the first ones in our world so we and we can talk about that

[01:08:18] when you talk about um carbon dioxide isn't it true that in large part one of the significance

[01:08:26] of this forest 380 million years ago is it was a large factor and converting the carbon dioxide

[01:08:36] into oxygen and putting exactly and put carbon in the ground released oxygen into the atmosphere

[01:08:43] which allowed what to occur it allowed living living creatures like stop like stash when you say

[01:08:51] a living creature you're referring to a creature like stash yes we're all we're creatures yes so

[01:08:56] we're animals and um these creatures were mostly in the water but guess what this time period because

[01:09:03] of these plants living and growing on the land for the first time ever guess what insects

[01:09:11] and mites arthropods they're called um were developed and started to live on the earth also

[01:09:17] and so that also is when your lung fish they were they were amphibians were just starting to develop

[01:09:25] their fins were starting to turn into feet and arms and they started crawling out of the water

[01:09:32] and hanging out with a snake tree right they wanted to hang out with with the plants they're

[01:09:37] not really sure if the plants were edible but they may have been looking for you know just

[01:09:44] other places to go swim it maybe was drying up in a certain area and they had to go look for

[01:09:48] more water or maybe they decided they liked the taste of these um arthropods these mites and insects

[01:09:55] that have been discovered recently too that at first they didn't think there were any life

[01:10:00] on land at all up until probably the 1970s when they discovered this in Gilboa

[01:10:06] which is crazy because it's it's right basically in our backyard this significant thing and I

[01:10:11] think one of the things that really emphasizes the importance of the Gilboa fossil forest is

[01:10:18] what you said early on that you can find these fossils in any major museum in the world is that

[01:10:25] true and I know for a fact yeah people come up to you say we just we saw went to Chicago

[01:10:31] Institute we saw one at Boston University we saw one at the Smithsonian and on the natural

[01:10:37] Museum of History often changes out their display I get a little irritated people think they're going

[01:10:42] to find the this famous New York State fossil at the National Museum of History and sometimes it's

[01:10:46] just not on display I read recently that in the London Museum there is one of these Gilboa

[01:10:54] fossils right when you walk in yeah and I mentioned earlier Winifred Goldring the state paleontologists

[01:11:01] right there at the turn of the century he made these fossils world famous and she sent them

[01:11:06] she literally sent them overseas too and and she's the one that really made Gilboa on the map

[01:11:13] which which back then was quite a feat because they were very heavy and transporting them must

[01:11:18] have been quite a chore back then oh yes and that's always a chore even today yeah right nobody wants

[01:11:24] to help christen find you know carry a fossil out of the Skaheri Creek believe me it's the

[01:11:30] biggest chore I would before I turn it back to Stosh um when you mentioned that at the point in

[01:11:37] time that this forest was alive and a growing growing it was south of the equator did it also

[01:11:42] have the same climate that we would now associate with that area no good question um it was like

[01:11:49] that's why my paintings all look like a tropical rainforest because this was a very hot steamy

[01:11:55] tropical environment and that's why these trees were able to grow and and make it really because

[01:12:03] it was such a harsh land at that time for trees to just to be able to to see themselves and live

[01:12:09] there they didn't have seeds sorry I take that word back they reproduced by spores only

[01:12:14] you're talking moss ferns they are your descendants of these tree fossils today we have moss and ferns

[01:12:23] wow so christin when you you're talking about the size of this snake tree and the size of these trees

[01:12:28] that they found recently uh and caro and and gilboa now they're not like the size of the trees

[01:12:35] that we see today in our natural forest are they no these trees eosperma top dress the gilboa tree

[01:12:41] ranged anywhere from 25 to 35 feet usually um but and that's the way most of them were the

[01:12:48] the snake tree kind of they think it had like a symbiotic relationship with the gilboa tree

[01:12:52] because it was always curved around and then would shoot their crowns up into the the branches of the

[01:12:58] on gilboa tree and so they feel like they were always leaning on each other and helping each

[01:13:02] other but the one archaeoptery that was found in caro now that's a big tree that is a tall

[01:13:09] big tree probably look like your huge great your big white pines of today wow just massive

[01:13:17] trees that i mean rainforests always had nutrients always had supplies constantly going into it so

[01:13:22] they're constantly growing and that's and now now so we're talking about the i'm guessing the shift

[01:13:29] of course going from the equator all the way up to here was during those times of just the

[01:13:34] movement of the earth and when we separated from europe and such like that and now we're up here

[01:13:38] and going at that time of how did we discover these like they they did they just pop like

[01:13:46] pop up how'd we discover the Cairo area then how'd we discover the uh oh wow did you see that

[01:13:51] it was some massive lightning did you see that in my background well i'll start with gilboa

[01:13:56] sorry gilboa what there were people that found in this in the village of gilboa because it was a

[01:14:00] flood and there was a couple people that did actually find stumps and knew they knew what

[01:14:05] they were and they brought them to um other scientists of that time they're talking late

[01:14:09] 1800s but then when the dam was done that was when winter for gold ring was called in from the

[01:14:16] new york state museum and that's when they really researched these stumps and you know

[01:14:23] they couldn't believe them and they found actually three separate forests in gilboa they know that

[01:14:28] these forests were completely buried died and millions and millions of years later rebuilt

[01:14:37] three different times they have found three different elevations of forest and um it's pretty

[01:14:43] remarkable now in caro they're still learning that's a that's a new quarry they're still trying to

[01:14:50] figure out um and how that started oh my gosh it's it's the woman from the new york state

[01:14:55] museum i'm very good friends with was a paleobotanist linda hernick she was at that quarry

[01:15:01] in caro looking for liver warts extinct liver warts fossilized liver warts you know these

[01:15:05] these little plants you know i don't even know really what they are that much but um

[01:15:10] she was very excited about doing her these things on these liver warts and they kept going back

[01:15:13] to this quarry because they kept finding them well she brought chuck bristraten with her who is the

[01:15:19] new york state geologist right now and he all of a sudden realized that there was these channels

[01:15:25] going out in from a center point they were going out in all these different directions

[01:15:29] and he started clearing that they were all filled with soil and dirt and he started cleaning out

[01:15:34] these channels and realized oh my gosh this is a tree root system and then they just started

[01:15:39] expanding this quarry and they found all these different trees and they could tell which ones

[01:15:44] they were from the roots wow and there how was it they're able to date the age of these fossils

[01:15:53] well that's a very complicated process but it's called carbon dating and i can't even tell you

[01:16:00] i have asked several times and there's like a no easy way it's with uranium it's it's um it's

[01:16:06] it's in the research lab but it's very accurate but going right down to that million year right

[01:16:12] two or three million years but going back to when the bilboa fossils were first discovered

[01:16:17] didn't they in part know at least approximately how old they were given the layer of rock

[01:16:23] that they were found in yes and no yes they they have you know the the scientists do know

[01:16:32] all the different layers the hamilton the the marcellus there's all these different

[01:16:37] shale layers this was in sandstone and they're all called something yes and they so they could

[01:16:42] pinpoint approximately what date they were looking at and until they did the carbon dating

[01:16:49] so we're like you're talking about the gilboa site and the gobo dam that's right around the

[01:16:54] sco harry reservoir of course right i mean the gobo dam was built that's at like i'm trying to think

[01:17:00] of the elevation that is at that's around like like 1500 feet yeah i would say about 1500 okay

[01:17:07] because they found a lot of the fossils down around 1100 1200 feet and this was the re like the

[01:17:12] recreation of the dam again so the first time they didn't find anything but the second time

[01:17:17] we were probably looking no the first time they did the first time they did the dam that's when

[01:17:21] they made them world famous back in the 19 probably 1910 1920 is when they were really

[01:17:26] brought out to the world oh by this woman paleontologist and then they went back

[01:17:31] um back in 2010 and they they found more stomps and they also found these other two

[01:17:38] tree species seeing these you know it's really interesting where they found the whole tree

[01:17:44] with the crown attached it's up on top of this mountain at 2200 feet wow yeah pretty pretty

[01:17:52] is that why i can never get down to the like the goboa dam site is there always just like hey you're

[01:17:57] gonna do some because i always want to go down and explore near there but they're not letting me

[01:18:02] well you you can if you have your fishing permit okay um well if you have a local fishing

[01:18:06] permit and you have a dam permit a city permit you can all right but but don't think you're

[01:18:11] gonna get up also take it away with you before we move along what's the name of the mountain

[01:18:17] where the oh yes tree was found out it was called it's called mountain mountain it calls is that a

[01:18:24] private i'm bleeding out is that well yeah okay we really don't like a lot of people to know where

[01:18:30] it is okay i don't have to give us a i'm gonna bleep it out trust me chris i'm gonna be here to

[01:18:35] be like bleep mountain but it is on state land oh no excellent that's your information yeah so i'm

[01:18:41] getting my backhoe on on the trailer and heading out this weekend dan danie's gonna love that

[01:18:46] tad danie's gonna love that he's gonna join in yeah so um with this site uh besides just

[01:18:54] like uh just tree sums and stuff like that are there any like animal insects uh amphibians also

[01:19:00] found fossils they're they're found they're very rare um they have found you know like armor i have some

[01:19:07] pieces of armor on a rock which is pretty cool the new york state museum museum has many fish

[01:19:13] i have never really found right here and they haven't either just evidence of it they found

[01:19:18] like teeth you know imprints but of fish and then um they did find some arthropods up at that

[01:19:26] south mountain site which were like a half to quarter inch to a half inch long little like pill bug things

[01:19:33] and that's about the extent of it as far as animals really it's mostly plant fossils and some people

[01:19:40] find that boring when they look at plant fossils but they're very rare plant fossils are so much

[01:19:45] more rare than like when you find a seashell like a brachypod or a trilobite think about that

[01:19:50] to become fossilized that shell was hard and was able to make it through that whole process

[01:19:56] but what about a plant when you have like a firm frond i mean that's why something really climatic

[01:20:01] happened here in gilboa and the mud and and just getting buried completely and having probably

[01:20:06] no oxygen whatsoever helped create these these plant fossils interesting i have a huge collection

[01:20:14] and a lot most of it's in the museum but i um i find a lot of just pieces of roots i find pieces

[01:20:20] of branches i find pieces of stumps i find foliage sometimes just that looks like ferns

[01:20:27] but it's it's more twiggy and these are these are really exciting finds and i do i do take

[01:20:34] groups out and when you say you find these christin where is it you're finding them on

[01:20:39] the museum property or is it it's on okay um right near the museum is a gilboa bridge

[01:20:46] and if you look to the right you'll see the spillway of the dam and that's all new york city property

[01:20:51] nobody's allowed there no but even if you have your fishing permit that from the

[01:20:56] bridge to the spillway is off limits completely now the other direction goes north on the

[01:21:01] here creek and it's um forever wild and people can go um fossil hunting on there there's a little

[01:21:10] pull off and you can walk all the way to the cidery well so what is it if anything

[01:21:19] we know or hypothesize about the cellular structure of the gilboa trees are they more like

[01:21:28] the a tree the lumber of a tree that we associate with modern trees of today or they do we believe

[01:21:36] that they had a different texture composition integrity than what we have in our typical

[01:21:42] trees of today yeah they're not typical today no no no in fact these eospermatochteris the

[01:21:49] gilboa tree they think they were hollow inside they're pretty sure that they had like they had

[01:21:55] a xylem and flowam system um like trees of today of you know transporting system um but they

[01:22:02] they really aren't a woody plant a true tree is a woody plant okay and the snake tree is actually

[01:22:09] a woody plant is a true tree but eospermatochteris they have just recently theorized that they

[01:22:15] don't feel that is a woody plant so there's all these good little categories that you

[01:22:21] learn in botany about plants and trees and these are different they're very different and

[01:22:28] what is it from the fossils themselves or other factors that leads them to this conclusion

[01:22:34] that the gilboa fossil trees were not woody plants good question that one i don't know for

[01:22:41] sure okay that's that's fine they i'm talking you're talking i deal with these um

[01:22:46] doctorates in paleoventology and they have um their their theses are pages and pages long

[01:22:52] yeah i was gonna say deal i can't even sit and read their theses but what i do what i did do

[01:22:57] was encourage them to write a book that is people friendly that anybody can sit down and look at

[01:23:04] they they don't even have to read it they can just look at the pictures and it's beautiful

[01:23:08] because they didn't have something like that and i wanted people to be able to

[01:23:12] understand this story but people like me the everyday person and so this is my level

[01:23:19] Catskill forest cat skill fought it's a cast go forest fossil book it's written by these

[01:23:25] paleo botanists that discovered and they tell how they discovered the crown and how they

[01:23:29] excavated it out of the mountain and in beautiful pictures of everything they did

[01:23:35] and we sell it in our gift shop and um you go to what my site gilboa fossils dot org

[01:23:41] and you go to the gift shop and we have this book available for you and it's it's really it's

[01:23:47] one of those like it's just a really great any person would be interested in reading it even from

[01:23:52] front to back crazy now like i'm not i'm on that kind of level where i like to see pictures

[01:23:58] you know i'm just i'm still a little kid i'm sorry tat is smiling over there he's just like wow

[01:24:03] this is so sad but you know i like to see old pictures and stuff describing what it is and

[01:24:08] then maybe like two pages of detailed information and then i'll maybe get it in a sentence or two

[01:24:14] and then i'll just be like ah no no no this is too much for me i'm on the next one so like um

[01:24:20] gilboa the funny thing is a lot of people don't know gilboa is is a very small town once again

[01:24:25] that used to be a town that was located further up north that got moved down south because of the

[01:24:32] reservoir system and look at what the reservoir system has done for us now is gave them they

[01:24:36] gave us the goboa site of where it's spotted the oldest forest in the world and and stuff like that

[01:24:44] like gilboa has like probably a population of not even a thousand right around there around there okay

[01:24:50] good 200 with you know with seasonal summer people exactly exactly so but you're right this has um

[01:24:56] that's the positive thing sacrifice our town is they found these gilboa fossils

[01:25:02] exactly so we have a very pristine environment here um there is no industry there's no there's

[01:25:09] hardly ever even dairy farms left i bet there's only two our whole town if there even is that left

[01:25:16] and so very very if people come here if they are sick at cancer they want to get away from the city

[01:25:22] you want clean air you want clean water this is the perfect place to come

[01:25:26] so the gilboa site is it the oldest or is that the kairosite well right now the kairosite is

[01:25:35] several million years older as a forest okay but really the conesville tree is a is a complete tree

[01:25:44] and and that really should be called the oldest tree in the world okay i don't hear that publicized

[01:25:51] too much but but i'm you know it is a whole tree so the forest the oldest forest is just roots

[01:25:59] okay and in gilboa we do have so much more you know we have some we have stumps we have branches

[01:26:04] crown sections so it's it's it's all good we're all among the oldest and you never know what's

[01:26:11] gonna what's coming up next that's what's so exciting i've been in this exactly 20 years and

[01:26:17] i have in this museum and i have a nothing but new discoveries it's been so exciting

[01:26:24] so that's that's a one big question that i have how is this discovered are you like using machines

[01:26:31] to excavate something all of a sudden something pops up or is this careful stuff like you're

[01:26:36] doing with like like dinosaur bones and stuff like that where they you know like in Jurassic

[01:26:40] park they're brushing away everything and oh yeah they take very good care i mean they did

[01:26:44] with the south mountain quarry i believe they did have an excavator go in ahead of time and um

[01:26:50] fortunately you know then they discovered this and and they stopped any kind of excavation

[01:26:55] on that tree and then um at the gilboa dam site that's a hard rock quarry um just try to imagine

[01:27:03] sandstone and there was no you know roughing that up really it was just they scraped it down

[01:27:11] because they haven't covered for probably almost a hundred years from the original um dam installation

[01:27:17] so and it's covered back up now after they got done um finding all these stumps and the snake

[01:27:24] tree and making imprints and doing studies and cutting some things out they cut some stuff right

[01:27:30] out of the bedrock to take back to with them and all they found on these is pretty much at

[01:27:34] the new york state museum but i go down on the creek and you find all kinds of things

[01:27:41] because everything washes in this case scary creek goes north so it's the i love that factor by

[01:27:48] the way i love that that the scary dream okay and what's great is after like hurricane iran

[01:27:54] oh my gosh it was like mother nature had like cleared this gigantic path for christin white

[01:28:01] cough just to go fossil hunting that's the way i felt um where everybody else was suffering with

[01:28:05] no homes and they're flooded and my house would happen to be up on a hill even though i had no

[01:28:10] roads to get out then um i was able later i went out fossil hunting and i found some of the best

[01:28:16] fault because that the flood will turn rocks over completely i have had rocks i went down to

[01:28:23] the creek one time and i found a whole root system and then we had a flood i never saw it

[01:28:28] again and these are big gigantic boulders and so water has power and so i found some really

[01:28:35] incredible fossils after hurricane iran and forever grateful and i have them at the at the gilbaugh

[01:28:41] museum now for the listeners just let you know that the scary creek uh starts all the way

[01:28:47] at the beginning of the indian head mountain range down down near devil's path and it goes

[01:28:52] all the way up up that's the thing that i love that it goes up new york state to the mohawk river

[01:28:58] like it flows north which is everybody's like oh everything you know the susquehanna the

[01:29:03] bass of susquehanna flows south down the chesapeake bay hudson flows down into the the the

[01:29:08] atlantic ocean and stuff like that but we have the scary creek which goes north and i love that

[01:29:13] thing my wife it's just always uh asking she's like why is that spillway in pratsville

[01:29:19] flowing the other way than opposite than the creeks i'm like because it flows north i don't

[01:29:23] know freaking why don't ask me i'm not a i'm not a person but it is it's very unusual and um

[01:29:29] it is it's pretty made for people that don't know where indian head is or whatever that i call it

[01:29:33] it's um kind of near elka park chanersville the headwaters and i have been there and it's

[01:29:40] like a little swamp yep if you can you can find fossils all along um every county up here i would

[01:29:48] say green county delaware county ozigo county um columbia all these you know saugherty is just a

[01:29:56] really big fossil place i've seen starfish from from saugherty's beautiful at the nether state

[01:30:04] museum and so if you're there's a lot of rock counts out there let me tell you they know where

[01:30:10] their quarries are to go and about stream beds are really good because they're always

[01:30:14] turning rocks over and for some reason i i find i've even found a stump in small creeks um around here

[01:30:23] in fact i heard there was a story of a whole truckload of these fossilized tree stumps from

[01:30:27] gilboa on their way to the new york state museum back in 1910 and it broke a bridge

[01:30:34] the whole nice rock everything went down that's that's sad when we lost all that history

[01:30:40] so i think they um they missed one i got it i got it i found that one i think but i don't know for

[01:30:45] sure which bridge it was so um we we've covered that at one time the gilboa fossil forest was

[01:30:53] believed to represent the oldest forest known to mankind and then subsequent discoveries have

[01:31:01] found that there were even a few older fossil forests that the gilboa fossil forest is so

[01:31:08] significant though that uh these fossils are literally around the world at all the major museums

[01:31:15] and what i understand and obviously you're gonna correct me if i'm wrong but it's believed and i

[01:31:21] think you mentioned this that there was a a single event or a very short period of time

[01:31:28] during which the forest is a living forest uh was destroyed or decimated and buried in sand

[01:31:39] or some other material is that correct that is correct and can you tell us more about that

[01:31:45] well these big huge mountains i was telling you about the akkadia mountains they're they're

[01:31:49] huge they're like the himalayas like i was saying are the andes and and they always have

[01:31:53] storms constantly they're always having runoff and they would just they not only created the

[01:32:00] cascades mountains of today one sedimentary rock at a time but they also would flood silt sand and

[01:32:07] just totally bury these these stumps and what would happen is the the stump and mostly gilboa

[01:32:13] is really known for the stump i mean these things are big too you're talking you know three

[01:32:17] or four feet high by two or three feet wide they're heavy but this is what i when we say the gilboa

[01:32:24] stumps that's what i'm referring to and what happened was they would be it filled up and

[01:32:31] it would create like a cast that's what the fossil tree is really a cast in a mold of the tree

[01:32:37] stump itself and then the trunk would break off and float away and that's why you don't

[01:32:44] find that many crowns you don't find that much foliage attached and it took that many years almost

[01:32:49] a hundred years from the first real major discovery to find out that this tree was really not a

[01:32:54] fern tree it was a bottle brush pump and so um but yeah it's very um when you cut off oxygen

[01:33:03] like that and fill it in that's how we be that's how you create a fossil and i'm sure it

[01:33:10] took millions and millions of years too i mean you know these go back three hundred and eighty

[01:33:14] million years that they lived and then the next period of time after the devoid period is carbon

[01:33:19] iferous and that's when you had the coal swamps i think a lot of people are very familiar of the

[01:33:24] pennsylvania the huge trees fern trees um moss big giant moth trees i think a lot of people

[01:33:31] could visualize that in their mind these weren't quite that tall but they were all buried

[01:33:36] and created coal but not in gilboa no cold god show no cold and go well thank god so stash if i

[01:33:45] can can we move on to the museum i have some questions about the museum absolutely move

[01:33:49] on to that awesome museum all right so christin this is your opportunity to give some plugs

[01:33:54] about the gilboa museum first of all what's the official name okay that it's the gilboa museum

[01:34:01] and nickolas j jurid center history center and and who was nickolas or who is nickolas

[01:34:08] actually went to gilboa school in 1947 graduate he's 94 years old he lives in texas now but he

[01:34:15] he came home for an alumni banquet one time and he happened to catch me at the museum

[01:34:20] and he was just amazed and it was just a one-room school house then everything we had jammed into

[01:34:25] one room all the fossils and all the you know gilboa artifacts and so the next year he came up

[01:34:31] says i want to build you a history center wow and so and this was in 2016 we built a history center

[01:34:38] on the next year he built a pavilion in honor of his wife dorthy cox jurid and he's been our biggest

[01:34:47] and then he's helped everybody in scary county he's he's he's our um everybody's gotten grants

[01:34:53] from him from the jurid foundation the iraqoi museum the stone fort in scary and um he's just

[01:34:59] been wonderful so we have a twin focus and and i have had people wait as soon as we opened people

[01:35:06] came to gilboa just all over just a lot of them just to see the fossils this one example is this

[01:35:12] guy it was his 50th birthday and he's from england he says i treated myself to come see the gilboa

[01:35:16] fossils and he said when i got to new york i had no idea that you were three and a half hours

[01:35:21] of but he got a taxi and he came all the way up i just had to be on that day thank goodness because

[01:35:26] i gave him a really good fossil tour and he was just so forever grateful so sounds like something

[01:35:32] a movie would be made of a guy comes to to new york from london to see a gilboa fossil and he

[01:35:40] he has to run a taxi to come upstate and the taxi driver is hanging out he ran in a car i think

[01:35:46] i need a car so they but yeah i've had some really great stories um of people and you meet

[01:35:51] so many wonderful people that i have people the local people that have never even been there and

[01:35:56] there's kids right there's kids of school that don't even know that this is what their town is

[01:36:00] is famous for so that's my job i make sure that every fourth or fifth grade come to the

[01:36:05] museum as a field trip and i really give them a great tour i let them touch all my fossils

[01:36:10] and i i let them um play with dress-up clothes vintage clothes and we had we used to have dig

[01:36:17] for fossils right now we're out of them but um paleo stuffed animals in the gift shop which

[01:36:22] is a big hit and then i let the kids play outside like do croquet and old-fashioned games you know

[01:36:27] that they used to play in the village of gilboa and um then they get to eat lunch under our

[01:36:33] pavilion yeah so now now what the paleo gift set i know what to get stash for his birthday

[01:36:38] please so if you would christ so if you would christ then um what is it we would expect to see

[01:36:45] when we go visit the museum when it's open well you get to come in first to the natural history part

[01:36:52] and you get a short eight minute video of the of a documentary that we did quite a while ago

[01:36:58] before the all these new findings even but it gives you a really good basis of how the

[01:37:02] gilboa fossils were found it tells about winter for gold ring and it shows pictures of the

[01:37:07] village it's only eight minutes long but it's really worth it and then i if i'm there i usually

[01:37:14] share with everybody all my fossils the paintings i did and why i had to remake the whole painting

[01:37:21] after they found new fossil um tree species and that's why i'm doing a new mural right now because

[01:37:29] we didn't have any fish i only had like a long fish that crawled out in my painting so now we

[01:37:34] i'm doing a mural of devonian sea life um right now and it's beautiful uh very colorful and then you

[01:37:41] get to go into history center which is just loaded with a lot of photographs of old galboa

[01:37:46] which which is a treasure and and it was quite a town you know it had um its own hydroelectric

[01:37:53] power plant on the scahara creek with the falls it had some phone systems it had you know a lot

[01:37:57] of hotels hotels and um it was it was quite a significant town and and the people stayed there

[01:38:05] which was it pictures the dam going right through the center of the village and people still stayed

[01:38:11] there till the left so they had to leave finally they and they did burn the town before it was

[01:38:15] filled up with reservoir but this year we're doing something a little bit different i'd like

[01:38:19] to throw out there it's called the galboa naturals and i'm going to be giving hikes

[01:38:25] field trips on saturdays mostly in august my first one is going to be a uh eagle nest drive by that's

[01:38:32] june 8th my stuff yes and then because we have four eagles nests in galboa area and so then

[01:38:40] starting august 3rd i'm doing the fossil tree forest descend descendants hike that's a mouthful

[01:38:49] i'm dr michael kudish there we go from delhi kong and he's going to be my identifier for the

[01:38:56] moss club moss um and he's remarkable i just saw his talk on bogs last week and he's amazing

[01:39:03] and we're going to collaborate and i'm going to show parallel how these trees look like these

[01:39:07] little tiny club moss that you see in the woods some of the trees are identical almost only they're

[01:39:12] just you know 15 to 20 feet high and um and then we're doing native american clay bowls in the

[01:39:19] skeheri creek i have a clay bank that we're going to go dig out and people are going to make them

[01:39:24] just like the american indians did and this is a saturday morning from 10 to 12 these hikes are

[01:39:30] and they're every other saturday in august starting august 3rd then the last one is the

[01:39:35] fossil hike and that's right for the museum we will go up the skeheri creek and i will be there

[01:39:39] on call for identification and then in september we are joining charles ben strotten the state geologist

[01:39:48] at the carol quarry it's going to be a field trip from gilboa but we can meet people there

[01:39:53] i think that's september 21st and then i got bob titus who i see he's everywhere right now

[01:39:59] with this new book but i have him in october i can't remember the date but it's the weekend

[01:40:03] after columbus day weekend that i have him at our museum to talk about oh i can't wait to hear

[01:40:08] about the comparison of the hudson river schools with the paintings they did and

[01:40:14] and cask in the geology so with all of these events coming up or the do you have a calendar

[01:40:21] of events on the website um we do you go to gilboa fossils dot org and i'm the contact person

[01:40:29] there and if you if you email me or contact me i will send it to you or you'll see where it

[01:40:35] says events you click on it and it goes to our gilboa museum website which has all the events on it

[01:40:42] okay and do we have to pre-register for some of these yeah well it doesn't hurt yeah i was gonna

[01:40:48] say these i some of these people that you have uh christin have been on the show and they are very

[01:40:53] popular michael kudish charles van stratton uh dr titus they've all been on these on these the show

[01:41:00] and it there oh good well i there is a charge for this because this is a fundraiser for our our museum

[01:41:06] to keep it weak so we can maintain it so it'll be ten dollars a person right or twenty dollars for a

[01:41:11] family does that include a cider from the cider mill down the road now it doesn't i'm sorry nice but

[01:41:18] um i do i do want people to come at least 15 minutes early because i do have registration and a

[01:41:23] whole a whole harmless agreement a whole harmless agreement yeah yeah they're making me yeah they're

[01:41:29] making me do that you know insurance everybody lawyers up i suppose so before i turn it back to stash

[01:41:35] um let's say i'm out in the area uh one weekend this summer and i want to swing by the museum

[01:41:42] how crowded does it get on a typical weekend oh it usually doesn't get that it's open from 12 to 4

[01:41:49] it's a real rarity if you have that many people that you can't really view the walls and everything

[01:41:54] it's usually in fact it's very slow we're in the middle of nowhere so you know um you they trickle in

[01:42:01] how much time should i plan to spend there when i swing by oh i i would it depends on how interested

[01:42:07] you are in fossils you know what i would give it a good half hour 45 minutes to an hour yeah

[01:42:12] and i would line me up if you if you want the gilboa fossil tour where i personally show you

[01:42:17] all the fossils i found and how i found them and what they mean to me and why i painted them

[01:42:22] in the painting um contact me on that gilboa fossils dot org i'm the cell number and i'm the

[01:42:29] email address and and just to let you know ted uh and and christina piggyback on your stuff

[01:42:34] there's a lot around gilboa that people don't know about i mean there's mine kill falls

[01:42:39] there's inlet falls there's the the whole reservoir there's the upper reservoir you can

[01:42:43] walk around that shows you an amazing view of the northern catskills like there's so much in

[01:42:49] goboa it is it's gorgeous that's like a four mile hike perfect it's flat it's flat and you can

[01:42:55] bike it um new york city reservoir no one's allowed on that yes um the blend on gilboa pump

[01:43:01] storage mine kill state park is is really a beautiful park beautiful and it includes the long pass i

[01:43:09] don't know if you've ever heard of that the long path is a trail that um comes up from george

[01:43:13] washington bridge and goes all the way up through new york state and it goes through scahary county

[01:43:17] and it's one of the most beautiful trails um going just past our museum and cidery um and it

[01:43:24] hooks up to mine kill it ends up at mine kills falls overlook or at the falls yeah and it it's

[01:43:31] it's it's got beautiful um uh just cliffs you're you're up above the creek and and then

[01:43:38] you've got bridges you go through and yeah it's a really nice big trees next year i'm

[01:43:43] going to do one on big trees probably yeah because the mine has so many big um magnificent oaks and

[01:43:49] and they even have a geological slide which i'm going to highlight next year wow is that is that the

[01:43:55] one uh to the north going towards bledham um you go into the park mine kill okay instead of

[01:44:04] even going you don't even go past the um where they used to pay you don't have to pay anymore

[01:44:09] but you don't even go to the pool you don't even pass the pool right there there's a little

[01:44:12] parking lot and it'll say trail to mine kill falls from that end so it's past the mine kill falls overlook

[01:44:20] and you take that trail and you will see not only this gigantic oaks talking about but you will

[01:44:24] come across a slide it's a geological slide oh nice hmm there's something to take dany to tad

[01:44:32] it's gotta go north yeah he's probably done there a few times yeah he's gotta go north he

[01:44:37] gets around so uh you have a gift shop as well you can can you buy fossils yes we do have rocks

[01:44:45] and minerals um gilbo fossils are tough to to find enough that we we only sell little tiny pieces of

[01:44:51] roots and stems but you can if you get one you can say i got a gilbo one in my collection there's

[01:44:57] some real collectors out there that um they pressurize me they want us buy they want to buy

[01:45:03] my styles and stuff and um i i'm pretty hard i did finally i didn't have a urethra which is a sea

[01:45:09] scorpion in our museum and it's a um that's our state fossil is the urethra and so this guy finally

[01:45:16] got to me he had most beautiful urethra and so i traded him a gilbo stump for the first for his

[01:45:22] urethra there are a lot of good books hiking books cat skill books on bob titus's cat skill

[01:45:31] um book is in there his glacier book is in there and there's some history of wooden historical toys

[01:45:39] too i like natural wooden toys for my grandkids amazing so uh yeah christen i think uh that's

[01:45:49] uh about it that we have it wraps it up so uh tad will talk about the stump stash in a little

[01:45:56] bit yeah let's do it oh does that does that flow with it so we'll have christen so tad's got a new

[01:46:02] little thing called stump stash he and and i don't know if that flows in with the stumps of the fossils

[01:46:07] you know we're talking about tree stumps does that flow in with that tad yeah it does if if i if i can

[01:46:14] find it i don't know what happened to oh now now tad screw it up he's doing everything here it

[01:46:19] is here it is we just do a little technical glitch here at the uh whatever studio as we call okay

[01:46:27] so this is a new segment i came up with this morning first question for stash are you ready

[01:46:35] no cheating no cheating no googling no asking your spouse or any of the domestic pets

[01:46:41] what is the origin of the word fossil i should have like some you have some theme music here yeah

[01:46:52] i'll throw something in there christen do you know what the answer is don't don't shout it out

[01:46:57] you christen is shaking her head she doesn't know you can't stop get your hands get ease he's

[01:47:03] got his hands on the keyboard okay do you know do you have some kind of engraved in time no no

[01:47:12] no well the fossil fossil comes from the latin word fosas which means having been dug up

[01:47:24] i got i got a smile from christen i'll take that as a word i knew i should it's obviously

[01:47:30] as if as if the uh greeks had any fossils i got some thunder lining here now see

[01:47:38] i gotta pick up the tempo then okay question number two is a true false so stash you got a

[01:47:44] 50-50 shot of getting this one correct are there marine fossils on mount everest well that's a good

[01:47:57] question i would have questions i would have to say that marine fossils on mount everest i would

[01:48:03] have to say true but nobody cares because they just go to the top and then back down well it's not

[01:48:08] whether they care or not but isn't it if there are i'm not giving the answer yet if there are

[01:48:13] how do they get there it's like was the water at one point that high that it was was at the top

[01:48:18] of mount everest is that what you think stash yes because i am wrong you're completely wrong

[01:48:23] there are marine fossils on mount everest is the water wasn't that no it was tectonic plates pushed

[01:48:30] out to push the mountain up so too went the fossils okay but you still you got the answer

[01:48:37] correct so we're gonna give you those points so i third our third well first of all stash you

[01:48:42] having a good time you like this new segment final question go you're not going to tell me

[01:48:47] whether you like it or not i do i like it i'm christian should be answering this yes all right

[01:48:51] i don't think of that if it's not about gilboa i don't know well you might this is a new york state

[01:48:57] question is there any scientific proof that dinosaurs once roamed in new york state false

[01:49:09] false false i haven't seen anything yet i think there is some but it's it's not

[01:49:16] devonian their way they're much younger than devonian period and we usually find the devonian period

[01:49:22] but then you've got the whole police-assign era where they found mastodons buried in like a host

[01:49:28] falls or in so you do have overlapping of different types but the dinosaur oh people always think they

[01:49:35] find dinosaur footprints but actually it's usually something made by the glacier or water

[01:49:41] well according to doctor i'm sure they did yeah what yeah according to dr google

[01:49:49] yes the google fossil fossil dinosaur tracks were found in rocland county

[01:49:56] oh wow for 210 million years ago wow dinosaurs yeah i get that i get that asked a lot of questions

[01:50:06] about dinosaurs and i don't know that much about them around here so that's great information you

[01:50:11] learned two things where the word fossil came from and that they're scientific as evidence and

[01:50:17] they were on mal-everest yes christian make sure you copyright this when you say this at the at

[01:50:22] your uh your little the exhibits and stuff you say this was from inside the line the

[01:50:27] cats go by the podcast yes we get a we get a plug i'm just kidding um but the funny thing is tad

[01:50:32] you talk about uh fossils up on mal-everest i was up on a 10 000 foot mountain in uh canada where i would

[01:50:40] find fossils some tracheids and stuff like that that was really amazing that i would be stepping

[01:50:45] on something and it's an old fossil of a seashell or something like that so all right so christian

[01:50:52] thank you once again for joining us one last question we do a thing called post hike bruising

[01:50:57] bites what do you like to do what would you like to get the eat or drink uh in the area of the cats

[01:51:03] goes that you would suggest someone to go to after visiting the goboa site oh definitely go to the

[01:51:09] rock upstate it's upstate rockland um cidery awesome yep and yeah they have great all all different

[01:51:16] kinds of local um wine beer and you know it's not just hard cider or regular cider but i they

[01:51:23] have the most fantastic music and it's usually free unless they have like a a blue vessel or

[01:51:28] something where they have several bands um it's usually on saturdays from three to six and it's free

[01:51:34] sweet i'll plug them in here and we'll get we'll get them hooked up so all right so christin

[01:51:39] thank you once again i'd like to give a big shout out to the monthly supporters and the monthly

[01:51:43] sponsors really appreciate you guys supporting the show uh thank you everyone who is still

[01:51:47] listening to the show really appreciate it thank you christin for joining us tonight it was

[01:51:51] awesome to learn about the fossils i can't wait to go back uh to the goboa fossil museum and maybe

[01:51:56] explore a little bit more spend a little bit more time there uh and i thank you so much

[01:52:01] anytime christin all right have a good night christin and uh we'll talk to you later thanks take

[01:52:06] care bye hi everyone i just want to thank you for listening to the show if you enjoyed

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[01:52:38] you gotta just keep on living the cat skills man

[01:52:43] and i'd be i wake it wake it wake it