On your right, you will pass one of a few bluestone quarries on this short section of trail. The rock was often mined using only simply hand tools, often a hammer and chisel, to break rock from the mountain side.
	The trail leads you into an even aged stand of hemlock trees. One thing to note about this section of forest is how open the forest floor is, with very little undergrowth. This is typical of dense hemlock stands because their needle-like leaves shade out the sunlight year round. Hemlocks were harvested heavily during the early to mid 1800’s. The bark has high levels of tannin, which was used to tan animal hides shipped from South America. The Catskill tanneries helped supply the finished leather used to make most of the saddles during the Civil War.
Just beyond the meandering trail through the hemlock stand, there is a small break in the canopy. You can immediately notice how sunlight has helped to create a vast difference in understory vegetation. This break could have been cause by a blow-down during a bad storm creating an opening in the canopy which then provided adequate sunlight for hardwoods to thrive.
	Back onto the Overlook Rd, you can easily pick out the road because it is well worn, in some areas down to the bedrock. The trail you’re walking is now designated as part of New York’s Long Path. The Long Path is a 330-mile hiking trail that extends from the George Washington Bridge, north to Albany County. There are future plans to extend the trail to the Mohawk River and later into the Adirondacks.