A National Parks Service Forest Ranger takes you step by step on a guided tour of some of the most rugged wilderness terrain in the northeastern United States-the high peaks of the Catskill Forest Preserve-as well as guiding you to some of the more accessible and better trammeled sites and scenes of "Rip Van Winkle Country." The author, a conservation professional, has taken an interdisciplinary approach, drawing the latest information from geology, forest ecology, meteorology, wildlife biology, geography, economics, and history to offer a well-rounded picture of the Catskill Mountains as the hikes rise to the sky through levels of rock strata and ever-changing forests. The goal. as the author states, is for the reader to experience the hike and see the Catskills as "a natural historian, not a tourist," and to see not just the present, but the past as well... and maybe even the future. "Book Two: The Central Catskills" includes: Mount Tremper, Overlook, Ashokan High Point, Slide, Giant Ledge, Panther, Cornell, Wittenberg, Belleayre, Balsam, Haynes & Eagle, Big Indian, Peekamoose, Table Mountain, Dry Brook Ridge, Balsam Lake, Doubletop, plus the trail-less High Peaks.