JUST what were we thinking, tackling an eight-and-a-half-mile hiking trail with a mostly hearty 6-year-old and a 25-pound 2-year-old (whose weight magically doubles when he’s napping)? Well, we were thinking that the calendar said spring — despite the season’s early chill, rain and snow — and that our hiking boots were begging to be taken for a walk.
So with a bit of dread (and a loaf of homemade chocolate zucchini bread), four adults — somehow outnumbered by the two children — took off late last month on the engaging Castle Point and Upper Awosting carriageways in Minnewaska State Park Preserve, about 90 miles north of New York City. As we shivered and sidestepped some shaded patches of snow, we marveled at how much colder it was up there than where we’d started out from, the funky university town of New Paltz, about 10 miles east of the park.
We’d been tantalized by the park’s longer trails when we had hiked around Lake Minnewaska twice before. The carriageways go on for miles, to spots with names like Gertrude’s Nose and Coxing Kill, and we hadn’t had the time to follow them then. Now we had the whole day, and plenty of ambition.
We started from the main parking lot, four-tenths of a mile uphill from the entrance, and walked toward Lake Minnewaska, following red trail blazes downhill and to the right. At the bottom of the hill, ice still covered the swimming hole (and the rest of the lake), but we remembered it being inviting during previous warmer visits. Swimming is allowed from mid-June through Labor Day weekend.
We then followed the blue trail, the Castle Point Carriage Road, and without much huffing or puffing we arrived on a ridge of quartzite cliffs that overlook the Hudson and Wallkill Valleys. The stone is 95 percent quartz, and its boxy outcroppings resemble a Cubist painter’s rendition of the Michelin Man.
These gravel roads were built for the horses and carriages of hotel guests in the late 1800s when the Cliff House and the Wildmere hotels drew visitors from Manhattan, and are great for four-across conversational hiking, cross-country skiing, horseback riding and mountain biking.
The view from the top of the world, we can report, is stunning. And the panoramas start early.
The prospect across the Palmaghatt Gorge was the geological equivalent of exhilaration, enhanced by the clear air and bright sun. Turkey vultures stirred the space between us and Patterson’s Pellet, a large boulder left behind on the opposite cliffs by glaciers. (It’s either that or a misdelivered art installation meant for the Storm King Art Center, the outdoor sculpture collection a few exits south on the New York State Thruway.)
We heard chickadees and saw juncos, but, depending on the season, birders can also spot black-and-white warblers, ruffed grouse and towhees, as well as downy woodpeckers and nuthatches.
THE 30 miles of carriage roads and 25 miles of footpaths in Minnewaska State Park Preserve provide hikes that are easy, hard and in between, with intimate views of four “sky lakes” in glacial basins and rock formations that attract rock climbers worldwide. An average of 250,000 people visit the park annually, some in winter, when 20 miles of carriageways are groomed for cross-country skiing.
The preserve is roughly 20,000 acres and was partly created by combining the two hotel properties. The parkland was assembled in sections, starting in 1970, and opened in 1972. The larger portion was added in 1987. The surrounding area was known for producing hand-cut millstones back in the 1800s.
The stingy soils on the glacier-scoured rock here provide footholds for pitch pines. And keep an eye out for “chatter marks,” arcing dents left behind by boulders, as glacial ice bumped them along the bedrock. Given that we were stopping about every 10 minutes to bribe the 6-year-old with treats, there was plenty of opportunity to look for chatter marks.
Along the way we saw the Rondout Reservoir, which provides New York City with water. And there were many ledges along the trail with natural human-scale back rests and some glacier-scoured stone that made ideal picnic table, provided we kept a careful eye on the children and one adult photographer, making sure they didn’t lurch too close to eternity.
Why would anyone choose to be anywhere but here on a sunny weekend day, I wondered, thinking of the full parking lots of the region’s malls that we (thankfully) couldn’t see from up here — the valley below seemed beautifully empty of overdevelopment.
Looking across the park’s gorges from one cliff top to another reminded me of looking across Lower Broadway from one office to another, wondering what sort of activities took place across the air from me. The flat-topped cliffs looked deceptively close, though they would likely have taken us hours to reach.
At 1.2 miles in, we hit Kempton Ledge, and at about three and a half miles, Castle Point, just a 900-foot gain in elevation from Lake Minnewaska, and the park’s tallest point, at about 2,200 feet. There are no castles there, and no solid memory as to how it got its name, but it is certainly a regal spot, looking across the mile-wide gorge and, on a clear day, all the way to High Point in New Jersey.
On the way, we peered into vernal pools, which appear only in the spring. Since they cannot support fish, they provide a safe nursery for frogs and salamanders, but it was too early to see any eggs.
We headed down from the cliffs, passing under Battlement Terrace, crossing through an entirely new ecosystem (taller trees! soil! mountain laurels! hemlocks!). We hit the Upper Awosting Carriageway, which led us to distant and cliff-side views of Lake Awosting, the largest of the park’s sky lakes. Near the path to the left that went to the lake, we lingered by a large rock wall that dripped with icicles and with maroon and green mosses.
We passed hikers with dogs (six-foot leashes are required but were not much in evidence) and baby joggers.
Around Mile 7, we were serenaded by a duet of a mosquito-like 6-year-old asking “how much longer” and the basso continuo of a deep-voiced 2-year-old, who has taken to repeating that he is “drinky” when he wants water. But the final descent back to the lake was peaceful, thanks to that patron saint of parents who invented Tootsie Rolls and 20 Questions.
In our two previous visits, the red trail around Like Minnewaska, a two-mile hike with just a taste of cliff views, was delightful. The trail moseys through woods and has views from the remaining gazebo of a dozen that used to charm visitors to the Cliff House. Most other hikes in the preserve branch from this trail.
On the drive south from the park, we saw rock climbers scaling the cliffs along the highway, their bright shirts like early blooms on the cold rock faces. The Shawangunk Mountains have 500 routes on 300-foot quartzite cliffs.
We had worked up a mountain man’s appetite, and were well fed at the Mountain Brauhaus, back at the intersection where Route 299 ends at Routes 44 and 55. The Brauhaus has fancier entrees than you might expect from a roadhouse that is more than 50 years old — macadamia-encrusted Alaskan halibut with puréed mango sauce ($24), for example, though the children somehow managed not to like their grilled cheese sandwiches. The range of beer on tap was impressive — try the Spaten Oktoberfest ($3.75 for an 11-ounce mug) or the Franziskaner Hefe-Weiss, an unfiltered wheat beer, in a big fluted glass with a slice of lemon for $5.75..
And after our meal, as we tugged off our hiking boots and buckled everyone into the car, we decided that Minnewaska had been about the prettiest hike we’d ever done on the East Coast.
VISITOR INFORMATION
MINNEWASKA STATE PARK PRESERVE is about 90 miles north of New York City, in Ulster County. Take the New York State Thruway North to Exit 18 toward New Paltz, following Main Street (Route 299 West) through town, across the Wallkill River, to the end. Take a right on Routes 44 and 55, and follow signs to the park. The park opens at 9 a.m. year-round; closing times vary from 5 to 9 p.m., depending on the time of year. Admission is $6 a car. Information: (845) 256-0579; www.nysparks.state.ny.us/parks.
The Mountain Brauhaus restaurant sits at the junction of Routes 44/55 and 299 in Gardiner; (845) 255-9766.
If you want to make a weekend of the Minnewaska State Park Preserve, there is a range of places to stay. The Mohonk Mountain House (1000 Mountain Rest Road, New Paltz; 800-772-6646; www.mohonk.com) has rooms starting at $445 a night, double occupancy, and includes three meals and most recreational activities (and its own array of hiking trails). The six-year-old Minnewaska Lodge (3116 Route 44/55, Gardiner; 845-255-1110; www.minnewaskalodge.com) sits at the base of the Shawangunk cliffs, and rooms start at $209 on weekend nights May through October. The four-year-old Super 8 Motel of Highland (3423 U.S. Highway 9W, Highland, 845-691-6888; www.super8.com) is six miles east of New Paltz and has rooms for $80 a night on weekends.
