The upper Esopus watershed is rugged and 95 percent forested, with 58.5 percent part of the forever wild Forest Preserve and protected from almost all harvest or clearing.: Three different types of forest predominate: montane spruce-fir boreal forest on the higher mountain summits, beech-birch-maple northern hardwood forest with some Eastern hemlock groves that survived the tanbarking area on the slopes, and an oak-hickory forest closer to the stream's banks. The summit of Ashokan High Point, overlooking the reservoir, offers an anomalous pine-oak heath barren.: