Hike #561; Cragsmoore and Sam's Point

 Hike #561; Cragsmoore and Sam's Point

Ice Caves Trail

6/4/11 Shawangunks; Cragsmoore and Sam's Point with "Action Adam" Stevens, Samantha Rose Hernandez, Teun Ott, and Brian Coen

My next hike would be one I had been looking forward to doing for a long time, since Jillane and I had explored the last section of the Long Path to the south. The next one seemed sure to be something incredible. In store were a deep gully followed by rocky promontories and then former commercial ice caves. The pictures in my Long Path book alone made this seem bound to be incredible.

View from our starting point

View from our starting point

Action Adam and Samantha met at my house in the morning so we could head up without getting lost. It was a longer drive than anticipated, but we arrived around ten AM.

We parked on Rt 51 near Cragsmoore NY where the Long Path used to be routed. The spot we found along the road was an incredible view point overlooking the valley below toward Ellenville NY.

Cascade along yellow trail

Along yellow trail

End of the yellow trail

Mountain Laurels in bloom along the abandoned Rt 51 section of the Long Path

Our hike began by following the former Long Path route south, which was right along the edge of Rt 51. Where we parked there was a hot dog cart that had just been set up, and I felt sort of bad for taking the guy's parking, so I bought a hot dog from him and it was quite good.

We continued on the highway to the edge of the guard rail where the old Long Path route was now blazed with yellow DEC discs. We descended on the trail via switchbacks, and cut across some cascades of a nice brook. This eventually led us to the old abandoned route 51 where Jillane and I had walked previously. We turned right following the Long Path's aqua blazes northbound. We continued here as I had done the previous time, and passed where the old mountain road led down hill to Spring Glen NY, a hole in the wall town.

An old stone bridge along old 51, now the Long Path

Cascades along Long Path, Old 51

Ruins along the Long Path, abandoned former Rt 61

The old Rt 51 was certainly abandoned quite some time ago because it was certainly never paved. Where the streams crossed it, there was masonry work and fill to cross with some nice old culverts. We continued on to the site of the old homestead where the trailer Jillane and I checked out the previous time was still standing. It was quite overgrown with vegetation to the point where it was barely visible.

We went over to go inside it again.

Abandoned trailer home

Abandoned trailer home

Abandoned trailer home

Abandoned trailer home

Abandoned trailer home

Mirror in the trailer home

Mirror in the trailer home

Found this at the trailer home

Abandoned trailer home

Stone wall at a former home site along old 51

Weird place for one of these signs, far from vehicular access!

We continued on following the Long Path blazes. We reached the point where on my previous trip I turned back, so we were now on new ground for me. There was a handicapped parking sign to our great amusement attached to a tree on the left, far from where any car could reach it.

Weird place for one of these signs, far from vehicular access!

Long Path in South Gully

Along South Gully

Slight view of the Catskills from South Gully

View from South Gully

The trail on the road soon came out to an access to Rt 51's current alignment. The old road went off to the left for a bit, and according to maps soon comes back to the current place again. The Long Path took us out and across Rt 51, then turned right into the woods near the bottom of South Gully. The South Gully Trail section rises steeply (I've read about 1500 feet) to Sam's Point. We started out on it thinking it would be right along the creek, and although it was nice it didn't do so for very often. It followed in many places old woods roads that were barely recognizable as such. At points the trail was extremely steep. This was by far the best workout of the day.

Falls in South Gully

South Gully

South Gully

South Gully

Falls in South Gully

South Gully

South Gully

After a brutal up hill section, the trail seemed to level out for a little while. This section was quite nice. While we were level I suppose the creek continued to gain elevation. We eventually came to a spot where we were right next to the creek, but not close enough. Moving off of the trail was rewarding in that I found two small falls together with pools at the bases of both. Adam and I couldn't resist getting completely in despite how freezing cold it was. This also gave Teun and Brian the opportunity to catch up.

South Gully

South Gully

More falls in South Gully

Weird sword like rock

Weird sword like rock

Action Crag Adam

We spent a good amount of time here and then continued up the South Gully. There were a few more woods roads along the way, and we could see other small falls below us in the gully when it was visible. For the most part we stayed above it though. As we gained elevation, secondary gullies went off in other directions. The trails split into different woods roads, and we had to take care to follow the Long Path blazes, which made use of the easiest spots to cross over. At one crossing I found a huge piece of rock strangely formed into like a sword or some sort.

We continued making our crossings which kept getting narrower until we came out on Gully Road.

Upper end of South Gully

We took a bit of a break when we reached Gully Road. The climb was long and tough, and we still were only two thirds of the way to the top. When we finished with our break I powered on.

Ruins on the Long Path

Ruins

Ruins

A smaller ruin

Ruins

Some pottery I found

Old pipe to the building

Junk

Ruins

The trail immediately began a steep climb. It switched back and forth, following lightly tread foot path, then switched to a section of old woods road, then to foot path and repeated a few times. It seemed like it was going on forever, but I started feeling really good doing it.

As I started leveling off nearer to the top, I came across the ruins of a house, which was the last thing I expected to see in this seemingly remote area. I couldn't place where the access to this spot would have been. I walked around to look at the site, and found that it had a water connection, as the pipe was still in the ground. Random pottery was scattered about, and the building had plumbing as I could see the remnants of it from the outside.

I later found that this was one of the "berrypickers shacks". Apparently there was a small village of berry pickers who lived in the area and gathered them for sale. Quite interesting. These berrypicker shacks are throughout the area.

Berry picker shack

I continued on the Long Path which soon took me ou to a gravel road. This was regularly used as a trail, so a few people passed by me. Two guys from Warwick stopped and told me about the berry pickers, and said there was an old house further up the old road I could get into. When Action Adam and Samantha arrived, I asked him if he'd take a jog with me. The two of us ran up the road until we came to the next berry picker shack.

Berry picker shack

Berry picker shack

Berry picker shack

Berry picker shack

Berry picker shack

Berry picker shack

Berry picker shack

Long Path at the top of South Gully

The place was an absolute mess. This one really looked like it was not structurally sound either. It's surprising it hasn't already met the same fate as the previous shack I had seen. We went inside to find an old refrigerator and stove, probably from the 1960s. I'm not sure when this operation closed down, but both of us agreed it was probably around that time, or maybe until the town of Cragsmoore gave up the land. The property is now managed by the Nature Conservancy.

The shack had a second small cottage behind it, probably a living quarters as well because it too had a refrigerator. We continued back to the Long Path as Teun and Brian showed up, and we headed along the trail which turned right onto the old gravel road heading down hill.

Berry picker shack

Berry picker shack

Berry picker shack

Trail sign

A crag below Sam's Point

As we continued down the old road, we passed a couple more of the old berry picker shacks. They were really interesting buildings. I was amazed at the thought of these people living in the scrubby mountain area. In fact, they were just barely into the normal woods, because a short distance away it was quite scrubby with scarse vegetation like Scrub Oak and Pitch Pine.

The road soon reached an intersection in view of a large parking lot and visitor's center. I wasn't about to pay the entrance fee, so we casually walked to the left following the Long Path along another road. The road headed gradually up hill just below the vertical rock cliffs of Sam's Point above.

Long Path below Sam's Point

Below Sam's Point

Cave under Sam's Point

The road led at the under cliff area, and everything looked so tempting to climb. We resisted, but when we came to a small cave I couldn't resist going into it. This hike just kept getting cooler. The roadway ascended a bit to a fantastic view point to the south.

Long Path below Sam's Point

View point south along the Long Path, Sam's Point Preserve

Sam's Point

View in Sam's Point Preserve

View from the Long Path in Sam's Point

View from the Long Path in Sam's Point

We continued on the Long Path as it followed the road away from the cliff to the left. The roadway split, and a side path led to the right out to Sam's Point, so of course were were not going to miss that. There were quite a few other people wandering around this particular location.

Sam's Point

View from Sam's Point

View from Sam's Point

View from Sam's Point west.

View from Sam's Point

View from Sam's Point

View from Sam's Point

Sam's Point

me at Sam's Point

Me at Sam's point

Me at Sam's Point

Sam's Point Preserve

Sam's Point Preserve with a view east

Sam's Point Preserve

Sam's Point Preserve

Supposedly Sam's Point is named after a guy who was being pursued by indians, and rather than be captured he jumped off the edge of his namesake rock. By some miracle, he survived the jump and the rock was named after him. This place was ripe with local legends, and I knew I had to tell Mark Moran of Weird NJ about it. The next thing I discovered opens up for even more weirdness. Around 1987, a group of kids were partying up in the area when their car got stuck. It was in the colder months, and one kid went to walk the five miles back to town. After waiting a while, his friend opted to just walk on themselves. The guy, I think his name was Joe, was never found despite great attempts. There was a massive snow storm shortly after his disappearance so he wouldn't have survived.

The Twin Sentinels, Breakneck Ridge and Storm King Mountain opening the way of the Hudson River

View north toward Minnewaska

Gunks

Gunks

Gunks

Ice caves sign

We left Sam's Point and made our way back to the Long Path, which continued on the road we had been following already. The ridge was scarcely covered with dwarved plants and trees, and a lot of blueberry and huckleberry. They were just starting to come out but none were edible yet.

The road soon came to another fork, and the Long Path went right. We followed, and it soon turned left off of the road onto a foot path. While it was tempting because this route led to Verkeerderkill Falls, we wouldn't really have the time. We continued on the other road as it headed down hill toward the ice caves I had heard so much about. As we walked, there were some great views to the east of the Hudson Highlands, and the Twin Sentinels, Storm King Mountain and Breakneck Ridge which formed a sort of gap the Hudson passed through, were pretty clearly visible. It was amazing to see them from this vantage point.

As the road turned to the north, we had a great view of the Shawangunk Ridge up to Minnewaska State Park. We continued to descend until the road ended at a clearing.

Ice caves trail

Ice caves trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ladder

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Ice Caves Trail

Bridge near Ice Caves

The view directly above the Ice Caves

From the edge of the open area, there was the beginning of a white blazed trail to the right. I didn't know what to expect of this ice caves thing. When I'd first read about it, the description was actually quite vague. It called it a commercial ice caves area, and so for some reason I was thinking in terms of ice harvesting where city people would get their ice for refrigeration and haul it away by railroad or something.

I couldn't have been more wrong; this particular ice cave was a completely natural formation. Apparently this is one of the only places in this part of the US where it is possible to get into an actual fault. While it's not a fault like the San Andreas out west which separates plates, this is one for a secondary plate. As a result of this faulting, the area holds ice year round.

As we began descending the trail, I was surprised to see incredible stone walkways and railings. I suppose since this was once a privately owned tourist attraction they did a lot to develop it. Some of the wood walkways and such we would go on to see did look like they had been down there for many many years.

The trail zig zagged down hill, and soon we felt the cold air coming up from the ground. We soon made our way into a large cave between rocks.

I had been expecting to see some huge open cave like the cement mines of Rosendale NY, but this was something altogether different, and in many ways more interesting. The trail turned left from the cave, and then exited out onto an undercliff area for a bit.

The path in this area even had a series of puncheons constructed to get over wet areas. We passed in and out of small caves for a bit; I was amazed even further when we came to a wooded ladder put onto the rocks so that we could get up. I thought to myself that if we were in NJ there would be no way someplace like this would be allowed to stay open. It was amazing to see a place that was once open to public for something like guided tours just be open as a trail for people to hike to and explore on their own. There were even a couple of areas in the caves that had motion detector lights that were attached to a solar panel on top of the crag! We saw the wires a couple of times and I had thought they were something installed by climbers to make their access easier.

We continued over ladders and along stone steps, then came suddenly to an awesome wooden door. This door was intended to keep some of the cold air inside.

We passed through and got our head lamps out. This darkest section of the caves had some wooden walkways inside of them, probably there for quite some time. Below one of the walkways was a ton of ice.  It took us around corners, and then under some tight spots. We came up another ladder on the final leg of the trail which took us up after stepping on a wad of ice to another great panoramic viewpoint over the Gunks.

We saw the solar panel there, and there were a bunch of kids sitting around. We continued on along the white blazed trail as it led us gradually back up hill.

Storm King and Breakneck come into view once again.

Jude, Sue, and Ira on the Ice Caves road

Old ice caves road

Storm King and Breakneck

View from Sam's Point Preserve

Sam's Point Preserve

Below Sam's Point

Below Sam's Point

The white blazes soon led us back to the north end of the clearing where we first got onto the trail. From here, we continued to ascend back on the same washed out old road we came down on. It was a funny coincidence that on our way back up the hill, we passed into my friends Jude Shabrach, Sue Bickford-Martin, and Ira Rubinstein who were out doing their own hike! Jude had almost come on my hike, but she had already done a lot of what I was doing and wanted to do more exploring. We talked to them a bit about the other placed down in the caves, where I of course knew we'd have to return to.

We continued back to the Long Path and old roads, and followed them back down the way we came past Sam's Point, and then descended the undercliff route down to the intersection near the main parking lot.

Sam's Point Preserve building

Gates along Sam's Point Road

Cragsmoore NY near the fire house

Dellenbaugh Road, Cragsmoore

View west from the ridge on Dellenbaugh Road, Cragsmoore

Entrance to Bear Hill Preserve in Cragsmoore

Cragsmoor Association plaque

View south from Bear Hill Preserve

Bear Hill Preserve

Bear Hill Preserve

Bear Hill Preserve

Bear Hill Preserve

When we got close to the visitor's center, some of the others wanted to go in and see if they could fill their bottles up with water. I didn't want to go in there because for one I brought a gallon with me, and for two we didn't pay to get in, having come by way of the Long Path.

Brian and I continued on down the road, and on our way out we saw a sign that read the entrance fee was ten dollars, and they they did not welcome walk ins (they used to when the Long Path came right up the road. Some of the old blazes were still in place as we walked)! We joked that Nature Conservancy was encouraging people to drive cars.

We continued to descend and passes some rather large homes, then a nice pond next to the Cragsmoore Fire Department before reaching the village. We waited when we got to the intersection at the bottom. After everyone got together, we turned left and then continued sort of straight across an intersection in the tiny little town to Dellenbaugh Road. This road led us up hill slightly and to a hairpin turn where there was a parking area for the Bare Hill Preserve (Bear Hill on some signs). We turned left into the preserve, which was a wide old woods road. We talked to a couple young guys with a guitar and a beer, and then continued to the great view point. There were a ton of people up there when we arrived.

Bear Hill Preserve view

Bear Hill Preserve view

Bear Hill Preserve

Bear Hill Preserve view

Bear Hill Preserve view

Bear Hill Preserve view

I had seen this view point on the Shawangunk Ridge to the south of here, from a much lower elevation near where Jillane and I descended to old 52 on the previous trip. The view in some ways was better than Sam's Point because it offered a more up close view of the stuff below you. I often prefer less high up points, not out of fear, but so I can see more detail. There was a guy there free climbing the rocks which was pretty dangerous looking.

I talked to a guy up there for a while trying to get information on where the old Long Path route used to break off, but he really couldn't help me. We took a bread and admired the view for a bit before moving on.

Bear Hill Preserve view

Bear Hill Preserve view

Bear Hill Preserve

Bear Hill Preserve

Off trail in Bear Hill Preserve

We walked back the same trail we came in on, and then followed another at a left fork. It's my opinion that the LP probably turned off where this one had a hairpin turn, but I wasn't looking for it there. Brian had the old Shawangunk Trails map by NYNJTC which showed it, but it was somewhat inaccurate. We descended to the other woods road we came in on and watched for the blazes to the left of us. We didn't see any, so when it was clear enough I used the topo mode on my phone GPS to take us right along the route Brian's map said the LP took. We were okay at first with the bushwhacking, but as we descended it got worse.

Off trail searching for the old Long Path

We soon came to a dense grove of Mountain Laurel which was incredibly tough to get through.

Old Long Path at Bear Hill

Old Long Path at Bear Hill

Old Long Path view

We continued to descend, bullying through the Mountain Laurels and other more abrasive low lying vegetation. I kept heading to the right to get to the border of Bear Hill Preserve which supposedly the Long Path followed, but never saw it. Then my GPS had told me I went too far. I kept bushwhacking back to the south again, seeing nothing. Eventually I came to a steep slope, and on the way down I saw a slight clearing. I had found the original Long Path with blazes still in place, though faded, and the route was somewhat overgrown. I turned right following it, and switched back below. There were some slight seasonal views to the west as I continued.

Old Long Path view east from Bear Hill

Old Long Path route

AAAHH!

Paragliders

Paragliders near Cragsmoor

The path gradually led down hill to Rt 51 next to a guard rail below another pull off. I could see the pull off from the view above, but couldn't recognize anyone's car. I saw a white one and thought it was Jillane coming to pick me up, but it wasn't.

When I got to the bottom, only the last few Long Path blazes were painted out. Some of them were missed alongside Rt 51 as well. I carefullly crossed the highway and walked up to the view point. There were tons of hang gliders and paragliders flying all around over me, taking off from a point just north of where the trail came out. It freaked me out just watching them. It looks like a scary sport.

View along Rt 51 west

View along Rt 51 west

Shawangunk Ridge view

Shawangunk Ridge view

View from the Shawangunk Ridge toward the Catskills

Shawangunk Ridge view

Hang glider near Cragsmoor

Rt 51 with a view of the Catskills

Shawangunk Ridge view

As I reached the overlook area where a lot of people were parked, there was a great view on out to the Catskills further to the north, as well as incredible views into Ellenville NY. The others still had not yet arrived. I called Teun up just as he arrived on the road. I then walked back down to greet them and together we headed back to the cars.

We were all exhausted, but had had an incredible, eventful day, and so we were all happy.

I love caves...Sam's Point Preserve

Sam's Point, NY

Sam's Point NY