![]() Rusk was named by Arnold Henri Guyot after Samuel Rusk, who assisted the Princeton geology professor on what would be the first accurate survey of the Catskills in the 1870s and '80s. The only large private landholding on the slopes is to the southwest. A proposed change, however, would upgrade the lands on Rusk and most of its neighboring peaks into a new unit to be called the Hunter-West Kill wilderness area, while preserving a corridor going up Hunter as the Rusk Mountain Wild Forest (although Rusk would not be a part of that). Much of the mountain is owned by the state of New York, part of its Forest Preserve, and included in what is currently the Hunter Mountain Wild Forest unit of the Catskill Park. The summit ridge leads out to a promontory to the south at the head of the ridge. The south is marked by Ox Hollow, and the ridge to its south that is the most frequently used approach when climbing the mountain. That slope rises up steadily and steeply to the summit ridge. The north face can be glimpsed in its entirety from NY 296 just north of its junction with NY 23A. While Rusk is dwarfed from the perspective of the Spruceton Valley by 3,880-foot (1,180 m) West Kill Mountain, it is more impressive due to a greater rise from the valley floor. ![]() ![]() Its runoff helps feed Schoharie Reservoir, part of the New York City water supply system. The northern slopes drain directly into the Schoharie headwaters just below them. Its southern slopes are drained by an unnamed brook that flows down Ox Hollow into Hunter Brook just above where that stream joins the West Kill, which later drains into the Schoharie. The mountain is within the Schoharie Creek watershed. The range continues to Evergreen and Packsaddle mountains to the west before ending at Lexington. Between Rusk and Taylor Hollow, the col between it and Hunter to its east, there is an unnamed 3,640-foot (1,110 m) summit referred to as East Rusk. Rusk is the highest peak (and the only High Peak) on what Catskill forest historian Michael Kudish calls the Lexington Range, the northern of two that fork off from nearby Hunter Mountain, the second-highest Catskill peak. While there is no maintained trail, a bushwhack to the summit is considered relatively easy, and required for membership in the Catskill Mountain 3500 Club. At 3,680 feet (1,120 m) in elevation, it is the 20th-highest peak in the Catskill Mountains and considered a member of the Catskill High Peaks. Rusk Mountain is a peak located in the towns of Jewett and Lexington in Greene County, New York, United States. Rusk Mountain (the United States) Show map of the United States ![]()
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