Minnewaska Mountain Houses 1898 [Illustration: The Wildmere House] [Illustration: The Cliff House] Lake Minnewaska IS located on the summit of the Shawangunk Mountains, ten miles southwest of New Paltz, in Ulster County, New York. New Paltz, a station on the Wallkill Valley Railroad, is eighty-eight miles (about three and one-half hours) distant from New York; nine miles west of Poughkeepsie, on the Hudson, and fifteen miles southwest of Kingston. N.Y. This lake, which is fed by springs and is very deep and clear as crystal, is held in a strikingly picturesque, rocky and well-wooded bowl, rising one hundred and fifty feet above the lake on the eastern side and sixty feet on the western, and from either edge the rocks tumble precipitously down to the Wallkill and Hudson River Valleys on the one side, and to the Rondout Valley on the other. Minnewaska is now widely known as a summer resort: _First_. For the remarkably bracing and restoring quality of its atmosphere. It being on the crown of a ridge, dew seldom falls. The drainage of each house is away from the lake and far down the mountain side, and the hills all around are covered with resinous pine forests. _Second_. For the remarkably select character of the guests who frequent the place, a large portion of whom return year after year. _Third_. For the wonderful and unique combination of the grand and the picturesque in its scenery. Awosting Falls Within a mile of the lake are these picturesque falls, above sixty feet high; and about half a mile lower down, the same stream falls over one hundred feet by a series of pretty cascades. [Illustration: Awosting falls] [Illustration: The Wildmere] [Illustration: Awosting Lake] The Great Crevices About three-quarters of a mile distant are a series of wonderful rents in the mountains over one hundred feet deep, some of the fissures being open to the light and others covered. Millbrook Mountains One and three-fourths miles from the lake are the Millbrook Mountains, where the cliffs are in some places perpendicular, and in others over-hanging the rocks five hundred feet below. The views here are remarkably grand and impressive. The Palmaghatt Still nearer, in a deep glen of the mountain, is the Palmaghatt, where is a large forest of massive primeval hemlocks. To all these and many other strange and picturesque places, good walks have been constructed, and a large number of covered seats and summer-houses (about ninety in all) have been built. Three drives have been built recently to Millbrook Mountains, Kempton Ledge, and Beacon Hill. Awosting Lake