I was at Mount van Hoevenberg for two days for the final UCI mountain bike World Cup weekend. I didn’t make it over to Whiteface for the downhill races. On Friday, I was a volunteer, and on Saturday, I returned as a spectator.
Why volunteer at ORDA events? It can be fun, and every day that you volunteer, you get a voucher that’s good at any of the ORDA venues.
When my kiddo visits from NJ, there will be free trail passes at the Ho. Same thing if a friend visits and wants to go to Whiteface.
The cat is out of the bag and you’ve seen it in the news: the Catskills are becoming the new Hamptons. Traffic-averse folks shudder at the thought of the New York Thruway increasingly resembling the Long Island Expressway with each passing holiday weekend. I’ve learned to adjust, opting for local outings further downstate that offer a legitimate respite from the throngs of urbanites trekking upstate.
On Labor Day, in search of a quieter alternative to one of my favorite rides in Minnewaska State Park, I decided to keep it local at the Black Rock Forest Consortium. Despite being only 35 miles from my apartment and just a stone’s throw from Victor Constant Ski Area, I’d never visited Black Rock Forest.
In the last days of August, the High Point Carriage Road, a historic 2.8-mile piece of the Minnewaska State Park’s carriage road network, officially re-opened to the public. On September 1, my friend Brian and I set out to explore the new road on bicycles.
We started at the Minnewaska parking area and rode on the Upper Awosting Carriage Road to Lake Awosting. From Awosting, the Smiley Carriage Road would connect us with the new High Point road. Although I’m a frequent visitor to Minnewaska, this was my first cycling trip on the full length of the Smiley Carriageway that was restored a few years ago.
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