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Hey, I’m Kelly McEvers, co-host of the Atlas Obscura podcast. And today we’re gonna play something a little different for you. It’s an episode of a new show called The Detour. It’s produced in partnership with Toyota Trucks, and the tagline is: “A podcast about going places that actually goes places.” That’s because in every episode you will hear a literal road trip to a place that is worth a detour. Like they actually get in a car and visit the place. It’s something you don’t often get to hear on the radio or in a podcast, so we thought we’d play it for you today. This is The Detour. Enjoy.

This is an edited transcript of the Atlas Obscura Podcast: a celebration of the world’s strange, incredible, and wondrous places. Check out the video version of this episode on YouTube.

The Shawangunk Ridge. [PLACEHOLDER IMAGE] george.bremer / CC

Sam O’Brien: If I were on a dating show in search of my new favorite rock, what traits should I be looking for?

**Becky Nesel: **No, just like with dating, it’s a very personal thing. And you gotta find your rock in shining armor.

**Sam: **Yeah, my rock soulmate.

**Becky: **Yeah, but really, the more you learn about rocks and the things that you find you connect with, where you were like, ooh, I wanna learn more about that. You kind of follow that like a map until you find a rock where you’re like, whoa.

Sam: I’m Sam O’Brien, and this is The Detour, a podcast about going places that actually goes places. This episode was produced in partnership with Toyota Trucks. Today we’re getting in a Toyota Land Cruiser and heading just a couple hours north of New York City to the Shawangunk Mountains, better known as the Gunks.

I’m here with Becky Nesel. Becky’s a geologist and a science communicator who finds and shares amazing things in nature. She’s lived in the Hudson Valley almost her whole life, and today she’s going to show me what makes these mountains unique, including an incredibly rare ecosystem that might be the only one of its kind in the world.

So Becky, where are we going today?

**Becky: **We’re going to one of my favorite places, called Sam’s Point Preserve.

Sam: How apropos.

Becky: Oh my god, I didn’t even think about that. Amazing. It’s one of the most popular places in the Gunks. It has one of the most incredible views of the Shawangunk Ridge.

Sam: So I have to admit I’m a little ignorant about geology. I love hiking, I love admiring landscapes, but I think I take rocks for granted.

**Becky: **For granite, you mean?

Sam: How do you make people care about rocks?

Becky: Geology is connected to every aspect of our life: conservation, biodiversity, food, engineering, technology.

Sam: And it’s important to the past because they’re super old, but it’s also important for the future, right?

**Becky: **Yes, so we need to learn about our past to know about the future.

**Sam: **You grew up around here. How’d you fall in love with rocks?

Becky: I was really lucky to be in a family where we spent a lot of time outside. We went hiking all the time, we went canoeing, kayaking, camping, and I was always super curious about everything.

**Sam: **Was there one rock that was the rock that made you want to be a geologist, would you say?

Becky: It’s really funny because there was a rock that I did fall in love with that I look back on now and it makes sense looking back, in hindsight. But when I was about five, I have a memory of going up to the Adirondacks with my family, and I remember being with my sister. Were at the garnet mine. I think it’s the Barton Garnet Mine, and we were looking for little garnets. This area is really famous for the garnets.

**Sam: **I didn’t know that.

Becky: So the geology is really cool. Now as a geologist, knowing the geology of it, I’m like, that was cool. But as a little kid, I also thought it was cool because I was like, we are literally pulling these gems out of the dirt, and we were putting them in these little egg cartons. And I remember going back home and me and my sister sitting on the couch, going through our finds and organizing them into the little egg carton spots.

But in general, I just remember being super curious about everything. Why is this lake where it is? Why is this mountain this shape? Why are these rocks this color? Why are there these lines or these crystals and these rocks? Why are they here and not there? So that kind of just was a gradual thing my entire life.

And then, went to college for geology, got my degree. I briefly worked in the construction and engineering industry in New York City, and quickly realized that wasn’t a good fit for me. I really missed continuously learning about rocks and being excited, and I started making videos about rocks.

Sam: Nice.

**Becky: **Bridging the gap of that oftentimes confusing and inaccessible language of science.

**Sam: **Scientists aren’t always very good at translating technical speak into layman’s terms. So what you do is so important, especially for ignorant people like me.

**Becky: **Telling people and showing people how cool rocks are.

Sam: Being among the rocks, right?

Becky: Yeah. Exactly. You’ve never been to the Shawangunks before, right?

**Sam: **I have not.

Becky: The cool thing about the Shawangunks is that when you approach them, they’re more like these crazy cliffs that just kind of pop up out of nowhere, it seems.

Sam: Yeah.

Becky: The Gunks are made up of a sedimentary rock called sandstone. Those sands actually began as ancient rivers that were flowing off of these huge mountains to the east of here about 440 to 420 million years ago. Those mountains were potentially as tall as the Himalayas because of the sheer amount of sediment that has been transported from them being eroded and deposited in the western part of New York. When these rocks were formed, when those sediments were deposited, they kind of filtered out all the other stuff and left behind pretty much only quartz.

**Sam: **Okay.

Becky: That is essentially the only thing in these rocks.

**Sam: **Quartz.

**Becky: **Quartz.

**Sam: **So when someone points at the Gunks and they’re like, what am I looking at? Quartz?

Becky: Quartz and quartz.

**Sam: **Quartz and quartz. Okay. A lot of quartz.

Becky: Yeah. It also has this incredibly rare ecosystem. It has this forest of dwarf pitch pine trees.

**Sam: **What are dwarf pitch pine trees?

Becky: Trees that are stunted versions of pitch pine trees. These trees are such resilient plants that they can thrive here where a lot of other plants can’t. They are also rare to the Shawangunks.

**Sam: **Are they only at Sam’s Point?

**Becky: **Yes. They’re growing on a ridge of this very rocky, thin, poor soil.

Sam: It sounds like they get the short end of the stick because they don’t have a place to get deep roots.

Becky: They are really cool, resilient little guys. Because of their resilience, they’re able to not only survive but thrive here. All of these trees here are growing in this. That does not look like roots can be healthy here. But somehow these trees are. They’ve adapted to a fire ecosystem where for thousands of years natural fires have occurred and been able to open up these certain serotinous pine cones, they’re called. Certain ones only open up with fire and there’s resin on them that can only go away with fire.

**Sam: **Born of fire, like a phoenix.

Becky: Yes. I love that so much.

**Sam: **This is like a pitch pine graveyard a little bit. But amidst the graveyard …

**Becky: **Amidst the death, we do have hope. Now we have seedlings of new dwarf pitch pines, and hopefully they will be here for hundreds of years, if not more.

**Sam: **This isn’t a tree to be messed with. And I have newfound respect for this tree. Not only does it grow in inhospitable conditions, but it just very clearly means business.

Becky: They are just such a symbol of being resilient in the face of really difficult circumstances. And something that’s really true in humanity is resilience.

Sam: I love that. It makes me think of an old, tiny but badass grandma.

**Becky: **Yeah.

**Sam: **My grandma was 4’11, had eight kids, and she went through it. Don’t underestimate these tiny people.

Becky: These trees also show me the importance of not being alone and being in a community of other people and letting other others take care of you, and you’re not just one silo.

Sam: Yeah.

**Becky: **You’re in an ecosystem of other organisms, just like these trees.

So we are going up these steps to the main attraction, the main view here at Sam’s Point. I love this staircase because we’re just going up between two walls of rock.

So there are these flowers that I’ve been seeing popping up here. And you know how I was talking about how some plants can grow in little pockets of soil?

**Sam: **Yeah.

Becky: I think I saw some pearly everlasting. And they’re these wildflowers. I think this is one of them here. They grow in very thin pockets of soil. And since there aren’t a lot of other plants that can do that—but they don’t have much competition with each other—they’re able to thrive here. Much like the dwarf pine trees.

Sam: Yes!

Becky: Yeah, so I have so many amazing memories hiking here in the Gunks. I’ve been to the Gunks in every season, a lot of different parts of my life: before college, during college, when I started learning about rocks, and then started seeing these in a whole new perspective.

Are you ready to see the magnificent view of Sam’s Point?

Sam: Let’s do it.

That’s gorgeous! And this is your backyard?

**Becky: **Yeah, pretty much. I just feel like at the end of a long day of walking around and moving so much, sometimes it’s nice to just sit and soak it in.

Sam: Just having all that context makes me appreciate it even more. It’s stunning. I will never take rocks for granite again.

Becky: One thing I’m really passionate about is how important geology is when it comes to biodiversity, ecology, conservation, taking care of land and preserving it to make sure that these ecosystems stay intact.

And so an ecosystem like the dwarf pine ridges, it’s really rare, and not only is that interesting, but it’s really important when it comes to studying other places on the planet and knowing what places on Earth are resilient because in the era of rapid change in climate that we’re currently living in, we need to know what places have a resilient foundation.

Sam: That was amazing.

**Becky: **Would you say it rocked?

**Sam: **I would say it rocked.

Becky: I love how rocks just bring out that childlike wonder in people, even if they don’t know anything about them. If they’re just going on a hike like that and they don’t know anything about the geology, that wonder is still there.

**Sam: **Yeah.

Becky: And so I know that’s like a human thing that’s already in us, and what I do is kind of just like pull it out.

**Sam: **Bring it out.

Becky: Bring it out more.

**Sam: **I respect the rock now. They’re old and they’re essential and they’re connected to everything. And I’m going to take what I learned today, and you know, I’m obviously going to tell my friends and family on our next hike. And hopefully not mess it all up, but share some of the things I learned, or I’ll send you a text or something and be like, Becky, did I get that right?

**Becky: **I’ll send a voice memo.

**Sam: **Yeah.

Becky: Hi Sam’s family! This is the lesson. So let’s go sleep for 10 hours.

**Sam: **That sounds good. I’m going to go to sleep and dream of rocks.

**Becky: **Me too, every night.

Sam: That was *The Detour *in collaboration with Toyota Trucks. We took the Toyota Land Cruiser for Adventure in the Gunks for a few reasons. It can handle almost any terrain, it has the power to tackle steep inclines, and it has tons of space for all our outdoor gear.

Listen and subscribe onApple Podcasts,Spotify, and all major podcast apps.

The people who make The Detour include Doug Baldinger, Hazel Lubbock, Elvis Metcalf, Johanna Mayer, Emily Yates, Linda Llobell, Michael Barnett, and the entire Superfilms team. This audio adaptation was made in partnership with the Atlas Obscura podcast team, which includes Kameel Stanley, Manolo Morales, Amanda McGowan, Casey Holford, and Luz Fleming. Our theme music is by Sam Tyndall.