Minnewaska State Park Preserve
5281 Route 44/55
Kerhonkson, NY
A ridge-top world of turquoise glacial lakes, sheer white cliffs, and waterfalls, laced with 19th-century carriage roads you can walk or bike.
Minnewaska is one of the most striking landscapes in New York, a high world of pale cliffs and impossibly clear lakes set atop the Shawangunk Ridge. The heart of it is Lake Minnewaska itself, one of a handful of what geologists call sky lakes: glacial pools perched on the ridge crest, fed only by rain, with water so pure it takes on a startling turquoise color against the white quartz stone that cradles it. Of the very few true sky lakes in the world, several sit within this one preserve.
Spread around the lakes are sheer cliffs, deep hemlock ravines, and a string of waterfalls, all knitted together by more than thirty miles of old carriage roads and many more miles of footpaths. Those wide, smooth roads are a gift to visitors, because they let a family with young children or a casual walker reach clifftop views and waterfalls that would otherwise take real mountaineering. It is rugged scenery made welcoming.
What Guests Love
- The sky lakes, rare glacial pools so clear and pure they glow turquoise against the white stone
- Awosting Falls and other waterfalls dropping over the pale Shawangunk cliffs
- Miles of smooth, gently graded carriage roads that make easy walking and biking for all ages
- The long clifftop views across the Wallkill Valley to the distant Catskills
Worth Knowing
- A day-use vehicle fee applies, and the popular lots can fill on fair-weather weekends, especially in fall, so arrive early
- The sky lakes are rain-fed and unusually pure, so swimming is allowed only in designated areas and seasons; check the rules before you go
- Distances add up fast on the carriage roads, so carry water and know your turnaround; there are few services once you are on the ridge
- The Sam's Point area with the famous ice caves is a separate section of the preserve reached by its own road, not from the main entrance
Details
Kerhonkson, NY
Learn about Minnewaska State Park Preserve
The sky lakes and the white cliffs
The Shawangunk Ridge is built of a tough, pale quartz conglomerate, and that rock is the reason for everything you see here. Where the glaciers scooped hollows into the ridge top, rain filled them to make the sky lakes, and because the surrounding stone gives up almost no minerals, the water stays extraordinarily clear and slightly acidic. The result is Lake Minnewaska and its sister lakes, their turquoise depths ringed by white cliffs, a color and clarity you simply do not expect from a lake in the eastern woods.
Those same cliffs draw rock climbers from all over the world, for the Shawangunks, the Gunks for short, are one of the premier climbing areas in the country. Even if you never touch the rock, the cliffs are the show: you can walk the carriage roads along their tops for hundreds of feet of exposure and views that run clear across the valley to the blue wall of the Catskills.
Waterfalls, carriage roads, and 35 miles of easy walking
The preserve's waterfalls are among its best rewards. Awosting Falls drops in a broad, graceful curtain not far from the main entrance, reachable by a short, nearly level carriage-road stroll that makes it one of the easiest impressive waterfalls to visit anywhere in the region. Deeper in, seasonal falls like Rainbow Falls slip over the cliffs when the water is running well in spring and after rain.
The carriage roads themselves are a piece of history. They were graded in the 1800s for horse-drawn carriages from the grand mountain resorts that once stood here, and their gentle grades and firm surfaces now make some of the finest easy hiking and gravel biking in New York. All told the preserve holds about thirty-five miles of carriage roads and roughly fifty more miles of footpaths, so you can plan anything from a half-hour stroll to a full day on the ridge.
From grand resort to public preserve
For all its wildness, this ridge was once a fashionable getaway. In 1879 the Cliff House, a grand mountain hotel, was built overlooking Lake Minnewaska, and a second hotel, Wildmere, followed in 1887. Guests came for carriage rides, tennis, and the clean mountain air, part of the golden age of Catskill and Shawangunk resort hotels. Like most of those old hotels, the Minnewaska resorts declined through the 20th century, and the last of the buildings was gone by the late 1970s.
As the hotels faltered, conservationists and the state stepped in, buying up the land around Awosting Falls and the lakes and folding it into what became Minnewaska State Park Preserve. The word preserve in the name is deliberate: the land is protected more strictly than an ordinary park, to keep its rare lakes, cliffs, and habitats intact. What was once a private playground for hotel guests is now open to everyone, one of the great pieces of protected land in the Hudson Valley.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
The Woodstock Inn on the Millstream
Boutel48 Tannery Brook Road, Woodstock, NY
22 miles away|Learn More ›
Things to Do Near Kerhonkson
Mohonk Preserve
About 6 miles
The neighboring nonprofit preserve on the same ridge, with more cliffs, carriage roads, and the historic Mohonk Mountain House rising above Mohonk Lake.
Sam's Point and the Ice Caves
About 12 miles
A separate southern section of the preserve, where deep rock crevices hold ice into summer and trails lead to Verkeerder Kill Falls and wide ridge views.
New Paltz
About 10 miles
A lively college town at the foot of the ridge, with a historic stone-house street, good food, and the gateway to the Gunks.
Wallkill Valley Rail Trail
About 10 miles
A flat, family-friendly rail trail through orchards and fields in the valley below, with a restored trestle bridge over the Wallkill River.