Shawangunk Ridge. Photo by Ruth Peterkin.
Fifty miles from end to end and over 2,000 feet high at its peak, the Shawangunk Ridge is the jewel in our crown, running alongside the Hudson Valley through four counties from the Catskills down to New Jersey. Sculpted by nature back in the Ice Age, its unique ecosystem rests on its very own kind of rock: Shawangunk Conglomerate, a sedimentary mix of sandstone and white quartz bound together by silica.
The Shawangunks (either a full pronunciation with soft vowels or “Shongum” is acceptable; once you’ve met them in person, you can go with “the Gunks” like the rest of us) contain multitudes of wonders. Swamps of several sorts, blueberries, ruins, subtly sparkling boulders that look tossed by giants at play. Dwarf pines twisted into natural bonsai. Five sky lakes clear as the air.
According to the New York Natural Heritage Program, there’s more biodiversity here than anywhere else in the state, including three globally rare ecological communities. The Ridge is our icon, and locals have fought fiercely for its preservation, turning away a proposed Marriott Hotel in the ’80s and a proposed housing development in the early 2000s; of its 50,000 acres, about 40,000 are now protected land.
Sam’s Point Preserve. Photo by Diana Richards.
Left: Mohonk Mountain House. Photo by Ruth Peterkin. Right: Lake Awosting, Minnewaska State Park. Photo by Yiwen Hang.
The Shawangunk Ridge (loving called The Gunks) is the jewel in our crown, running alongside the Hudson Valley through four counties.
In 1869, a man named Albert Smiley purchased a 10-room inn, Stokes Tavern, and crafted the sprawling, stunning Mohonk Mountain House, our very own local castle. Albert had been the principal of a Quaker boarding school; it was his theory that beauty and isolation did humans a lot of good, and starting in 1895, he gathered great minds of the day together to discuss issues like world peace and fair treatment of indigenous folks, starting a tradition that continues to this day in the form of the nonprofit Mohonk Consultations. Mohonk’s land preservation branch, the Preserve, protects about 8,000 acres beyond the 1,200 acres where the hotel sits. Albert’s twin brother, Alfred, purchased 2,200 acres of the ridge and started two more hotels, the Cliff House and Wildmere, beside “Coxing Pond,” which he rebranded as Lake Minnewaska. He’d later buy another 6,725 acres around Lake Awosting. It was Alfred’s property that would eventually become Minnewaska State Park Preserve, which now covers over 24,000 acres.
High Point, Shawangunk Ridge. Photo by Ultima Gaina
This is but the tip of the glacier. For some fascinating and granular Shawangunk Ridge history, check out the works of Marc B. Fried, an intrepid explorer who’s written several meticulously researched books on the subject that can be found within the local library system.
Split Rock at Mohonk Preserve. Photo by Angelo Marcialis
exploring the ridge
Thanks to the awesome glaciers that carved it out and to the foresight of the Smileys, the Ridge was never thickly settled or industrialized. A little logging, a little mining, and some berry-harvesting happened, without leaving much of a lasting mark. But the Smileys did want their guests to get out into the woods and enjoy, and to that end, they constructed a system of carriage roads and footpaths. Within Minnewaska State Park are 35 miles of carriage roads and 50 miles of footpaths. The Mohonk Preserve cares for 70 miles of carriage roads and trails. Built to accommodate horses and buggies, the carriage roads are wide and mostly gentle, great for family hiking and biking; distance runners from all over the world come here to train on them. The foot trails are another story; some of them get wild enough to satisfy anyone’s thirst for adventure, and some of the world’s finest bouldering and technical climbing opportunities can be found here.
From Sam’s Point at the state park’s southern tip, where you’ll find the astonishingly cool (sorry!) Ice Caves and stunning Catskills views, to the Mohonk Preserve Visitor’s Center, where you can learn all about the ecosystem and the work of the Preserve’s Daniel Smiley Research Center, this part of the Gunks offers a vast array of choose-your-own-adventure summer fun. Mohonk Preserve offers five major trailheads, and Minnewaska State Park Preserve has two major parking lots off Route 44/55 and another at Sam’s Point. All fill up quickly on prime summer weekends, so get here early. There’s really no better place to greet the morning anyway.
Sky Top Tower, Mohonk Preserve. Photo by Scott Heaney.
