The Hudson Valley has a secret ridge with 1,000 climbing routes and ancient forest trails

The Gunks: New York’s wild ridgetop escape

Ninety miles north of New York City, the Shawangunk Ridge breaks out of the forest in long white walls of rock. Most people driving through the Hudson Valley never look up.

But if you know where to turn off Route 299 outside New Paltz, the Mohonk Preserve spreads out before you — more than 8,000 acres of cliffs, forest, streams, and sky.

Whether you clip in and climb or just walk the old carriage roads, the ridge pulls you in. And it tends to keep pulling you back.

New York’s largest nonprofit land preserve

The Shawangunk Ridge runs nearly eight miles through Ulster County, and the Mohonk Preserve covers most of what you see from the top.

At more than 8,000 acres, it holds the title of New York State’s largest nonprofit nature preserve. You get cliffs, forests, open fields, and cold-water streams all in one place.

The pale white ridgeline is the first thing that catches your eye and the last thing you forget. Nothing else in the lower Hudson Valley looks quite like it.

How the Smiley family saved the ridge

Back in the 1800s, the Smiley family started buying up ridge land here. They built mountain resorts and kept the land intact for generations.

Then in 1963, they set up the Mohonk Trust to make sure the ridge stayed protected. By 1978, the trust had become the Mohonk Preserve, run as a nonprofit with support from members and donors.

The whole story is a case of private land ownership that worked out well for everyone who loves the outdoors.

Why climbers have been coming here since 1935

Climbers call this place the Gunks, shorthand for Shawangunks, and they’ve been making the trip for nearly 90 years. Fritz Wiessner put up the first recorded climb in 1935.

Hans Kraus joined him soon after, and together they mapped out many of the classic routes still in use today. Climbers from around the world now come to test themselves on these walls.

That kind of long, unbroken history is rare in American climbing, and it shows in how seriously people take this place.

A cliff built differently than any other

The rock here is hard quartz conglomerate, one of the toughest cliff-building materials you’ll find anywhere. What makes the Gunks different from other climbing areas is the direction of the cracks.

Most cliffs crack vertically. Here, the cracks run sideways, which creates roofs and overhangs that jut straight out over your head.

That geometry is what drew climbers in the 1930s and what keeps them coming back. More than 1,000 routes run across the ridge, from gentle beginner lines to technical sequences that push the limits.

Watch climbers hang upside down at the Trapps

You don’t need a harness or a rope to get the most out of the Trapps.

This long cliff wall is the most popular section of the Gunks, and a wide carriage road runs right along its base.

You walk the road, you look up, and somewhere above you, a climber is working through a horizontal crack or dangling off an overhang. The whole scene plays out above you for free.

It is one of the best stretches of walking in the Hudson Valley, and the show going on overhead costs nothing.

Seventy miles of old roads built for a slower pace

The carriage roads at Mohonk didn’t start as hiking trails. Workers originally built them to carry guests to the old mountain resorts up on the ridge.

More than 70 miles of those roads and trails still wind through the Preserve today.

They are wide, smooth, and easy on your feet, which means anyone can cover real ground here without fighting roots and rocks. Walk them, bike them, or run them.

The pace is yours to set, and the terrain rewards every level of effort.

The loop that shows you both sides of the ridge

The Undercliff-Overcliff Loop is the route most people come back to talk about. Undercliff runs along the base of the Trapps, with the cliff rising directly above you.

Overcliff takes you to the other side, where the land opens toward the Catskills and the Clove Valley. The whole loop stays on carriage road, so the footing is steady throughout.

You can walk the full circuit or split it in half if you want a shorter day. Either way, you see the ridge from two completely different angles.

Bonticou Crag rewards the bold and the cautious alike

Bonticou Crag is the white rock knob that stands out from the ridgeline like a fist. From the top, you can see the Catskills, the Wallkill Valley, and the ridge rolling out in both directions.

Getting there takes some work. The standard route up the crag is a real scramble through a rocky slot, hands and feet both in play. If you’d rather skip that, a gentler footpath gets you to the same views.

One note: watch where you step on both routes, because snakes use these rocks too.

Hawks and hawks and hawks at Millbrook Mountain

Millbrook Mountain carries one of the highest cliff faces anywhere along the ridge, and the trail to the top gives you Hudson Valley views in every direction. What a lot of people don’t expect is the birds.

Peregrine falcons hunt off the cliff edge, and on the right day you can stand at the top and watch hawks working the thermals below you. Loop options run from short to a full-day outing.

The trail mixes forest footpath with carriage road, so the terrain keeps changing as you go.

More than 1,400 species call this ridge home

The Preserve has been a center for nature study for over a century, and the numbers back it up. More than 1,400 plant and animal species live here.

Peregrine falcons nest in the cliff walls and hunt the open air above the carriage roads. Dwarf pitch pines, which are rare, cling to the rocky ridgetop in twisted clusters.

Forests, ponds, and streams fill the land between the cliffs. Whatever season brings you here, something on the ridge is doing something worth stopping to watch.

The ridge in every season stays open and alive

Spring brings rushing streams and mountain laurel just starting to bloom. Summer means shade under the forest canopy and busy cliffs overhead.

Fall turns the entire Hudson Valley ridge into a wall of red and orange.

Winter opens the carriage roads to snowshoers and cross-country skiers who often have the trails to themselves. The Preserve runs every day from sunrise to sunset, year-round.

There is no bad time to come. There are only different versions of the same ridge, each one worth the drive.

Explore the Mohonk Preserve in New York

To get here, head to the Shawangunk Ridge near New Paltz and Gardiner in New York’s Ulster County. The Visitor Center near Spring Farm is a good first stop.

Staff there can set you up with trail maps and help you pick a route based on what you want to do.

You’ll need a day-use pass to access Preserve land, and climbing or biking requires the right access level, so check the official website before you go.

The West Trapps and Spring Farm trailheads each open up different parts of the ridge.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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