I went hiking at Sam's Point Reserve in Minnewaska State Park over Labor Day weekend with my husband and two dogs. It was a beautiful day with highs in the low 80s and we piled into the car at 7am, excited to get out there.
Sam's Point Reserve is in the Shawangunk Mountains and you can get some amazing views along your hike. It's also home to Ice Caves, one of the Shawangunk Sky Lakes, and the Verdeerker Kill Falls. On this hike, we hit two of the three points of interest: the Ice Caves and the waterfall. The terrain was challenging despite the distance being a manageable 5-6 miles, but the payoffs kept coming, from a gorgeous sun-dappled fern patch to stretch of narrow trail that wound through dwarf pines growing out of red and green low shrubs against a very blue sky, to the waterfall and the rocky vistas.
We used a hiking guide from Hike the Hudson Valley for our trip and it was amazingly helpful in planning every aspect of the day trip including when to get there (early) and closest address that would come up on GPS. We spent almost six hours out on the trails, stopping for snacks and rest along the way. We had lunch on a rock overlooking the falls.
It was a great way to end the summer as well as kick off another season of going north for hikes and day trips.
