Dutchess County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 295,911. The county seat is the city of Poughkeepsie. The county was created in 1683, one of New York's first twelve counties, and later organized in 1713. It is located in the Mid-Hudson Region of the Hudson Valley, north of New York City.
Pine Plains is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The population was 2,218 at the 2020 census.
Clingmans Dome is a mountain in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina in the southeastern United States. Its name in Cherokee is Kuwahi or Kuwohi, meaning "mulberry place." At an elevation of 6,643 feet (2,025 m), it is the highest mountain in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the highest point in the state of Tennessee, and the highest point along the 2,192-mile (3,528 km) Appalachian Trail. It is also the third highest point in mainland Eastern North America, after Mount Mitchell and Mount Craig.
The Shawangunk Ridge, also known as the Shawangunk Mountains or The Gunks, is a ridge of bedrock in Ulster County, Sullivan County and Orange County in the state of New York, extending from the northernmost point of the border with New Jersey to the Catskills. The Shawangunk Ridge is a continuation of the long, easternmost section of the Appalachian Mountains; the ridge is known as Kittatinny Mountain in New Jersey, and as Blue Mountain as it continues through Pennsylvania. This ridge constitutes the western border of the Great Appalachian Valley.
Sam's Point Preserve, or Sam's Point Dwarf Pine Ridge Preserve, is a 4,600-acre (19 km2) preserve in Ulster County on the highest point of the Shawangunk Ridge in New York, on the Wawarsing, New York-Shawangunk town line. It is owned and managed by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation after having previously been managed by The Nature Conservancy. Its unique environment features dwarf pitch pine trees along the ridgetop. Located within the park is Lake Maratanza, the highest lake on the ridge, and the Ellenville Fault Ice Caves.
The Taconic Mountains are a 150-mile-long sub-range of the Appalachian Mountains lying on the eastern border of New York State and adjacent New England. The range, which played a role in the history of geological science, is separated from the Berkshires and Green Mountains to the east by a series of valleys, principally those of the Housatonic River, Battenkill River and Otter Creek. The Taconics' highest point is Mount Equinox in Vermont at 3,840 feet (1,170 m); other locally significant summits include Mount Greylock in Massachusetts at 3,489 feet (1,063 m), Lenox Mountain at 2,146 feet and Mount Everett at 2,608 feet.
The Taconic orogeny was a mountain building period that ended 440 million years ago and affected most of modern-day New England. A great mountain chain formed from eastern Canada down through what is now the Piedmont of the East coast of the United States. As the mountain chain eroded in the Silurian and Devonian periods, sediments from the mountain chain spread throughout the present-day Appalachians and midcontinental North America.
The Verdugo Mountains, also known as the Verdugo Hills or simply The Verdugos, are a small, rugged mountain range of the Transverse Ranges system in Los Angeles County, California. Located just south of the western San Gabriel Mountains, the Verdugo Mountains region incorporates the cities of Glendale, Pasadena, and La Cañada Flintridge; the unincorporated communities of Altadena and La Crescenta-Montrose; as well as the City of Los Angeles neighborhood of Sunland-Tujunga.
The Rocky Mountain Front is a somewhat unified geologic and ecosystem area in North America where the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains meet the plains. In 1983, the Bureau of Land Management called the Rocky Mountain Front "a nationally significant area because of its high wildlife, recreation, and scenic values". Conservationists Gregory Neudecker, Alison Duvall, and James Stutzman have described the Rocky Mountain Front as an area that warrants "the highest of conservation priorities" because it is largely unaltered by development and contains "unparalleled" numbers of wildlife.
Beacon Mountain, locally Mount Beacon, is the highest peak of Hudson Highlands, located south of City of Beacon, New York, in the Town of Fishkill. Its two summits rise above the Hudson River behind the city and can easily be seen from Newburgh across the river and many other places in the region. The more accessible northern peak, at 1,516 feet (462 m) above sea level, has a complex of radio antennas on its summit; the 1,595 feet (486 m) southern summit has a fire lookout tower, which was built in 1931.
Fishkill Creek is a tributary of the Hudson River in Dutchess County, New York, United States. At 33.5 miles (53.9 km) it is the second longest stream in the county, after Wappinger Creek. It rises in the town of Union Vale and flows generally southwest to a small estuary on the Hudson just south of Beacon. Part of its 193-square-mile (500 km2) watershed is in Putnam County to the south. Sprout Creek, the county's third-longest creek, is its most significant tributary. Whaley and Sylvan lakes and Beacon Reservoir, its largest, deepest and highest lakes, are among the bodies of water within the watershed.
Clove Mountain is located in Union Vale, Dutchess County, New York, rising to an elevation of 1,398 ft (426 m). It is the town's highest point. It marks the southern extent of the Taconic Mountains and its bedrock is metamorphic, composed of rocks like schist, phyllite, and metagraywacke. Flora and fauna on the mountain are consistent with those found throughout the broader New England Uplands. Rattlesnakes are commonly found on the mountain.
Black Mountain is a mountain located in Washington County, New York, of which its peak is the highest point. Isolated from the rest of the Adirondack Mountains by Lake George, Black Mtn. has the seventh highest topographic prominence of all the mountains in New York. Black Mountain also has the highest elevation of any of the peaks which surround Lake George and offers unobstructed views of the lake from its summit.
The South Taconic Trail is a 21.3 mi (34.3 km) hiking trail in the Taconic Mountains of southwest Massachusetts and adjacent New York. The trail extends from Shagroy Road in Millerton, New York, north along the ridgecrest of the southern Taconic Range and the border of New York and Massachusetts, and ends north of the Catamount Ski Area on Massachusetts Route 23 700 feet (210 m) east of the New York border in Egremont, Massachusetts. The Appalachian Trail, which traverses an adjacent ridgeline in the same mountain range, parallels the South Taconic Trail 3 mi (4.8 km) to the east. The trails are connected to one another via shorter trails.
Berlin Mountain is a 2,818-foot-tall (859 m) prominent peak in the Taconic Mountains of western New England and is located adjacent to Massachusetts's border with New York State. It is the highest point in Rensselaer County. The summit and west side of the mountain are located in New York; the east side lies within Williamstown, Massachusetts. The mountain is a bald, notable for its grassy summit and expansive views of the Hudson River Valley to the west. The 37-mile (60 km) Taconic Crest Trail traverses the mountain. Several other hiking trails approach the summit from the east. Much of the upper slopes and summit are within protected conservation land. Historically the lower slopes of the mountain were farmed heavily throughout the 19th Century. In addition to agriculture, there are several remnants of charcoal kilns located on the mountain that produced fuel for iron smelting.
Alander Mountain is a 2,241-foot-tall (683 m) prominent peak of the south Taconic Mountains; it is located in southwest Massachusetts and adjacent New York. Part of the summit is grassy and open and part is covered with scrub oak and shrubs; the sides of the mountain are wooded with northern hardwood tree species. Views from the top include the southern Taconic Mountains, the Hudson River Valley including the Catskills. Several trails traverse Alander Mountain, most notably the 15.7 mi (25.3 km) South Taconic Trail, which passes just beneath the summit.
Thompson Pond in Pine Plains, New York is a 75-acre (30 ha) 15,000-year-old glacial kettle pond at the foot of 1,403-foot (428 m) Stissing Mountain. It is the source of Wappinger Creek, a tributary of the Hudson River that drains much of Dutchess County.
The geology of Massachusetts includes numerous units of volcanic, intrusive igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks formed within the last 1.2 billion years. The oldest formations are gneiss rocks in the Berkshires, which were metamorphosed from older rocks during the Proterozoic Grenville orogeny as the proto-North American continent Laurentia collided against proto-South America. Throughout the Paleozoic, overlapping the rapid diversification of multi-cellular life, a series of six island arcs collided with the Laurentian continental margin. Also termed continental terranes, these sections of continental rock typically formed offshore or onshore of the proto-African continent Gondwana and in many cases had experienced volcanic events and faulting before joining the Laurentian continent. These sequential collisions metamorphosed new rocks from sediments, created uplands and faults and resulted in widespread volcanic activity. Simultaneously, the collisions raised the Appalachian Mountains to the height of the current day Himalayas.
Mount Morris is a 3,117-foot-tall (950 m) mountain located in Adirondack Mountains of New York. It is located in the south-southwest of the village of Tupper Lake in Franklin County, and is "the highest peak immediately east of Tupper Lake." It is named after the town in which it was then located.
The geology of the State of New York is made up of ancient Precambrian crystalline basement rock, forming the Adirondack Mountains and the bedrock of much of the state. These rocks experienced numerous deformations during mountain building events and much of the region was flooded by shallow seas depositing thick sequences of sedimentary rock during the Paleozoic. Fewer rocks have deposited since the Mesozoic as several kilometers of rock have eroded into the continental shelf and Atlantic coastal plain, although volcanic and sedimentary rocks in the Newark Basin are a prominent fossil-bearing feature near New York City from the Mesozoic rifting of the supercontinent Pangea.
