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Working to save the ridge
By Dan Shapley,
Poughkeepsie Journal
Sunday, November 13, 2005

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Photo at above link
Edward K. Goodell, foreground, executive director of the New Jersey Trail Conference, joins Minnewaska State Park Preserve Manager Mike Krish, right, and West Hudson North Trails Chairman Larry Braun on a trail near Stony Kill Falls in the Town of Wawarsing.
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It's a story that has the aura of a creation myth: Alfred H. Smiley leaves for an excursion from his Poughkeepsie home and becomes enchanted with a sky-blue lake set amid bone-white cliffs.

Excited, he and his twin brother, Albert K. Smiley, purchase 310 acres around Lake Mohonk on the Shawangunk Ridge near New Paltz, at $91 an acre, and then operate a hotel resort that emphasizes an intimate experience of nature for its guests.

Now, 136 years later, Lake Mohonk and its historic mountain house remain in the Smiley family, and more than 36,000 acres of protected land in ''the 'Gunks'' draw more than half a million visitors every year to the stunning cliffs, waterfalls and sky lakes of the Shawangunk Ridge.

The latest addition to the public preserves - most notably the Mohonk Preserve, the Minnewaska State Park Preserve and the Sam's Point Preserve - is expected in spring, when the Trust for Public Land and the Open Space Institute say they will close on the $17 million purchase of the 2,500-acre Awosting Reserve.

Housing is a challenge

It won't be the last addition either, if groups are successful. They aim to add another 10,000 to 15,000 acres to state preserves on the ridge. The effort is well financed, but still up against skyrocketing real estate costs, as the ridge is eyed for upscale homes, like the 350 units proposed in 2002 for the Awosting Reserve.

''Years ago, we thought that building a house on the top of a ridge was impossible. The essential nature of the market has changed. These are now prime building sites,'' said Bob Anderberg, general counsel for the Open Space Institute.

''Ulster County is no longer a sleepy backwater. Our view is that Ulster County is going to experience significant development pressure over the next 10 to 15 years. What will it look like?'' he said. ''Large developers are done in New Jersey. So the developers come over the state line to Orange County, and now Orange County is being built out.''

Public outcry against hotel, condominium and communication tower development led to the creation of the Minnewaska State Park Preserve and the Sam's Point Preserve. The recent ''Save the Ridge'' campaign was inspired by a proposal to build homes and a golf course on Awosting Reserve, primarily in the Town of Gardiner.

Parks expanded

Much of the expansion of the parks has been less contentious and less public. Some of the purchases would surprise the average hiker, who most likely views all the forested slopes of the 'Gunks as parkland. The forested slope in view southwest from a scenic overlook on Route 44/55, for instance, was only recently purchased by the Open Space Institute.

''You look out and you think it's all protected, but the flanks are vulnerable,'' said Cara Lee, director of the Nature Conservancy's Shawangunk Ridge program.

The drive to keep the 'Gunks green owes a great debt to the late Lila Acheson, heir to the Reader's Digest Foundation fortune. A big contributor to open space preservation since 1983, the fund dissolved in 2001 and $260 million was split evenly between the Open Space Institute and Scenic Hudson.

The institute used its portion to start an endowment, the earnings from which it uses to purchase land and conservation easements, primarily in the Adirondacks, Catskills, Shawangunks and Hudson Highlands.

Since 1984, the institute has protected 19,000 acres in the 'Gunks. Much of that land will be sold at or below market value to New York, so it can be incorporated into state forests or the Minnewaska State Park Preserve, which pays local roperty taxes. The Mohonk Preserve, New York-New Jersey Trails Conference, Nature Conservancy, Trust for Public Land and other groups also buy land to expand existing parks and preserves. Eleven towns with land on the ridge have also banded together to boost preservation efforts.

Landscape may change

''The pressure we have now for development, particularly for subdivisions, is incredible. There is no question in my mind that our landscape five years from now will be significantly changed from today,'' said Town of Shawangunk Supervisor John Valk Jr., chairman of the 11-town Shawangunk Mountains Regional Partnership.

''Our challenge is to provide for this growth in a manner that preserves those open space resources which are most vital to the basic character of our region,'' he said.

The additional land would expand trail networks open to the public, including the Shawangunk Ridge Trail that traverses the spine of the ridge, and the 330-mile Long Path, which runs from the George Washington Bridge, through part of the 'Gunks and the Catskill Mountains, to Albany.

A purchase several years ago opened up a new trail - not yet officially accessible to the public - into the back end of Minnewaska, where the 87-foot Stony Kill Falls spills over a tall cliff.

''It's our idea that it could be another entrance into the park,'' said Ed Goodell, executive director of the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference. ''At the very least, it's a beautiful falls.''

While park manager Michael Krish likes the idea, there are many layers of bureaucratic approvals necessary to make it happen - and there's a need to reckon with the cost to taxpayers of maintaining a third public entrance. ''It would be a fantastic opportunity,'' Krish said. ''Are we going to do it? I don't know.''

Crossing state boundaries

The dilemma is emblematic of an emerging issue: how to manage state forests and parks after the state takes ownership of new lands.

Geologically, the ridge continues into New Jersey and Pennsylvania as the Kittatinny and Blue ridges. Beyond preserving land for recreation, the ridge is home to numerous endangered and threatened species and its vast tracts of intact forest provide habitat for species like bobcat and the weasel-like fisher, which only survive in deep forests.

''The whole thing is protected except for a patchwork of gaps in between High Point, New Jersey [near the New York border] and Sam's Point [near Ellenville],'' Goodell said. ''That's been our focus.''

For now, groups are focusing less on the future management of land than on the protection of it before it is developed.

Standing along the Stony Kill, where it spilled over bare white bedrock above the falls, Anderberg looked out toward Overlook Mountain in the Catskills and gave perspective to this chapter of the century-old story the Smileys started in 1869.

''We're at the edge of a true wilderness,'' Anderberg said. ''Our grandchildren will come here and see the same thing we're seeing.''