Cloves

Platte Clove Falls

I don't know any place in the country that has cloves as part of their geography other than the Catskills. To me it is one of the features of the terrain that make the hills mysterious and formidable. 

When I went to the Platte Clove AIR orientation two artists who were from the area were talking about walking up the clove from Saguerties to the top and that they only knew one person who succeeded climbing it the whole way.  

Steep Terrain

I could see the challenge when we walked down to look at the waterfall below the cabins where the artists in residence stay.

Alf Evers in his chapter on cloves writes about them as somehow connected to Hell.  I can't imagine climbing from the base of the mountain the top.  The water runs down the cleft cut between two mountains which seem to be having a pushing match to claim the same space.  The stream cools the conflict down but it doesn't end the battle and it makes it tough going for any hiker.  Marcellus Hale would know how to get around in the hills and know the particular kind of Hell which is so different from the hot sand hell and dunes in the Mideast.  No water to cool the war.

Platte Clove AIR Cabin

The trails that lead through the Catskills must have been forged years ago by the Native Americans and I can't imagine they were ever improved upon.