History of Skiing at Mohonk (Update)

When I posted a history of cross-country skiing at Lake Minnewaska and Mohonk Mountain House a few weeks ago, I was pleased, yet frustrated. Pleased because I felt that it was a good piece, but frustrated because it was a bit one-sided. There was precious little information available about Mohonk.

After several weeks chasing down blind alleys, someone referred me to Mohonk Mountain House’s archivist, Nell Boucher. She kindly shared her knowledge, filling in many gaps about the dawn of time – er, skiing – in Ulster County. For example, the alpine operation at Mohonk started much later than I’d previously thought. Mea culpa: instead of brushing my error under the rug, I prefer to come clean.

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Memories: Skiing Minnewaska and Mohonk

I wasn’t around for the very beginning of skiing at Lake Minnewaska. But in 1980 or ‘81, when my best friends introduced me to skiing, they dragged me to Lake Minnewaska on a wicked cold January day. Back then, you had to arrive bright and early. The parking lot would fill up quickly and you were out of luck. “Don’t go, it’s too popular.”

Millbrook Mountain

The lodge was in the old Wildmere Hotel. Perched on a cliff overlooking Lake Minnewaska, Wildmere had been a graceful example of the grand nineteenth-century wood frame resort hotel. But by 1980, it was a tumbledown shadow of its former self. It had been closed to lodgers, most of the furnishings auctioned off. Pieces of old furniture blocked staircases because the upper floors were unsafe.

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Upper Hudson River Watershed

Hudson River Watershed MapThe Hudson River was named for Henry Hudson, the English explorer who sailed up the waterway in 1609 for the Dutch East India Company. It’s 315 miles long and flows from north to south through eastern New York State.

The official source of the river is Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy, however, the waterway is known as Feldspar Brook and the Opalescent River, until it reaches Henderson Lake, above the old Tahawus Iron Works.

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