Kaaterskill Clove

Kaaterskill Clove is a deep gorge, or valley, in New York's eastern Catskill Mountains, lying just west of the village of Palenville and in Haines Falls.

Within just half a century, however, deforestation had set in, and the tannery industry collapsed, lacking the trees it required.

Palenville reinvented itself as a tourist town, building several boardinghouses and proclaiming itself the home of the fictional character Rip van Winkle.

In particular, artists of the Hudson River School painted the Clove: examples include Asher Brown Durand's 1849 painting Kindred Spirits, depicting fellow artist Thomas Cole, Jennie Augusta Brownscombe, one of the founders of the Arts Student's League had a studio there with Hart and poet William Cullen Bryant, and Sanford Gifford's 1862 work Kaaterskill Clove in the Catskills.

Most notable was the construction of the Rip Van Winkle Trail, now Route 23A, which wound its way up the clove from Palenville to the hamlet of Haines Falls.