Tug Hill Plateau
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Tug Hill Plateau is an upland region in upstate New York in the USA. The Tug Hill Plateau is west of the Adirondack Mountains and is separated from the Adirondacks by the Black River Valley. Although the region is and has traditionally been known as the Tug Hill Plateau since it is flat on top, it is actually not a plateau. Technically, the Tug Hill could more accurately be called a "cuesta" since it is actually composed of sedimentary rocks that tip up on one side, rising from about 350 feet on the west to over 2,000 feet in the east.
The Tug Hill Plateau is part of four Upstate New York counties: Jefferson, Lewis, Oneida, and Oswego.
Tug Hill has 150,000 acres (600 km²) of unbroken northern hardwood forest with many brooks and streams. A vast majority of this area is controlled by New York State. A minority of the area is privately owned. Private owners generally maintain permanent residences in Tug Hill, usually only on state highways or county roads. Sometimes permanent residences are found on secondary roads as well, although their distance from a state or county road is short. Contrary to popular belief, permanent residences have electricity and indoor plumbing. Usually camps in the remote areas of Tug Hill that are maintained during the hunting season do not have electricity and indoor plumbing. The more remote areas of Tug Hill remain mostly undeveloped; thus few roads, villages, and buildings exist in these areas of Tug Hill. The undeveloped areas of Tug Hill are a haven for wildlife. Deer, rabbits, beavers, turkeys, fishers, bobcats, coyote, and the occasional black bear can be found. Salmon, trout, bass, walleye, and waterfowl can be found in the water also.
One interesting feature that is rarely found in today's camps is a second front door directly above the ground-level front door. This door is only used when so much snow has accumulated that the ground-level door can not be accessed. Tug Hill is known for record levels of snowfall. Levels of snow reaching 200 inches are not uncommon, since Tug Hill has a high elevation and its location in relation to Lake Ontario leads to ideal conditions for accumulation of lake effect snow. The hamlet of Montague located on Tug Hill owns the single day New York State record of snowfall with 78 inches (6 feet, 6 inches). Another Tug Hill hamlet, Hooker, holds the state record for annual snowfall. Hooker also received an extraordinary accumulation of snow in the winter of 1976-77, with a total accumulation of 466.9 inches – approximately 39 feet.
