You've made it to the Catskill Mountains! These mountains were orignally named by early Dutch settlers, and are known today as the setting of many paintings and movies. During the 20th century, this was also a favored vacation spot for people from New York City.

The name Catskill translates to cat creek in Dutch, but why the settlers chose this as the name is still unknown. One possible explanation would be the fact that at the time Dutch explorers arrived in the 17th century, mountain lions were present in the area. This confusion over the origin of the name led to several alternate spellings, including Kaatskill and Kaaterskill.

Today, the Catskills are primarily a destination for recreation. Visitors can go tubing, fishing (with a permit), river canoeing, kayacking, cycling, camping, and in the winter, skiing. For those who favor skiing, the Catskills have five main areas for downhill skiing and snowboarding, as well as 22 miles of trails for cross-country skiing.

In terms of pop culture, aside from being the setting of various movies and paintings, the town of Bethel, located within the Catskills, was famously the setting for the Woodstock Music Festival, which occurred from August 15-18 in 1969. This festival was massive, featuring 32 artists performing for a crowd of over 500,000 people. Despite it taking place such a long time ago, it is still looked at as one of the best music festivals of all time (information courtesy of Wikipedia.com, image courtesy of Daniel Case / CC BY-SA).