Turning back time on the Neversink:  There’s at least one Catskill stream where time stands still, if not goes backwards as you wander it, perhaps in pursuit of wild brook trout.  It’s the upper Neversink, actually both branches of this legendary trout water.

One still might be able to find footprints of John Burroughs along the West Branch.  In his essay A Bed of Boughs Burroughs wrote, “It was nearly noon when we struck the West Branch, and the sun was scalding hot.  … The scene was primitive, and carried one back to the days of his grandfather…”

Burroughs Neversink, depicted below can be found somewhere upstream of Frost Valley but downstream of the shadows of Slide Mountain.

Burroughs, West Branch Neversink 11x14 (Sold):

Burroughs was no stranger to the East Branch either.  He wrote this about the twin sister, “The prospect for trout was so good in the stream hereabouts, and the scene so peaceful and inviting, shone upon by the dreamy August sun, that we concluded to tarry here until the next day.  It was a page of pioneer history opened to quite unexpectedly.”  From personal experience, not much has changed here all these decades later.

Tison waters, East Branch Neversink, 11x14: