Book excerpt: Downstate New York Rock Walks is both a hiking guidebook and a history book, calling attention to some of downstate New York's most spectacular and historic rocks: balanced rocks, perched rocks, rock shelters, talus caves, glacial potholes, split rocks, rock profiles, historic rocks, and massive, larger-than-life boulders. Many large glacial erratics have a history going back thousands of years to when they were moved to their present location by advancing glaciers. Many served as points of navigational reference at a time when the landscape was featureless and heavily forested, and still others were ceremonial sites for Native Americans. Rock shelters and talus caves have also been used for thousands of years by Native Americans and Europeans seeking refuge from the elements. It is important that these amazing natural wonders of stone be remembered and recorded before they are lost to collective memory or destroyed by the encroachment of civilization. Providing precise GPS location information along with length and degree of difficulty for each hike, Downstate New York Rock Walks will appeal to casual hikers, serious rock explorers, historians, geologists, and anyone wishing to explore some of nature’s greatest wonders within the reach of the lower Hudson River valley.