THE CATSKILL GEOLOGISTS BY PROFESSORS ROBERT AND JOHANNA TITUS - Headward Erosion and its Art Part One

CATSKILL - Have you ever noticed the little red cabin at the top of Plattekill Clove. It’s the first house on the left as you reach the top of that very steep highway. It belongs to the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, and they have frequently loaned it out to artists and writers during the summer months. What you probably do not know is that it was once an annex of a boarding house called Grand Canyon House. We were told that the writer, Jack London, stayed in this cabin. We have never been able to confirm that, but we do know that Hudson River School artist Richard William Hubbard did visit. We know that because we have identified a painting that he did right there.

That painting is entitled “The Top of Kaaterskill Falls, Autumn.” He did at least two versions of this image, dated 1866 and 1867. Take a look at our first illustration. It’s a detail from the 1867 version; it’s from the lower half of this work. You can see the whole canvas on our facebook page “The Catskill Geologist.” We took one look and knew instantly that this was not Kaaterskill Falls. And we knew instantly that it was not even Kaaterskill Clove. The lip of this falls in no way, even remotely, resembles the top of Kaaterskill Falls. In the full canvas, Hubbard painted a very sizeable clove stretching off below and beyond, but nothing as large as Kaaterskill Clove. You see, we’ve been there; this painting shows the top of Plattekill Creek just behind and below the little red cabin and just above Plattekill Clove as we described it in our most recent columns. We know this. We have been privileged to stay at the cabin and we have, of course, explored all around it. We went back, just to be sure, and took the photo that is our second illustration. The match cannot be missed. The boxy shape of the canyon at the very top of the falls is most unusual. And it is clearly seen in both the painting and in the photo. This is the very peak of the headward erosion that we talked about last time. Everything downhill of this location is steep whitewater cascade. Everything upstream is a very short, low-sloped or even flat lying brook.

The top of the painting cannot be seen at this location. Hubbard’s painting is a composite. He sketched the upper half somewhere else and then added it to the lower half of the final image. Let’s do the same – sort of. We’ll come back next week and view the whole painting. Keep in mind that last week’s column along with next week’s are centered around a single theme. That is the headward erosion of a mountain stream. As happens so frequently, the local geological history has created a landscape, and that landscape has inspired the art.

Contact the authors at randjtitus@prodigy.net.” Join their facebook page “The Catskill Geologist.” Read their blogs at “thecatskillgeologist.com.”