Kent Wrote:

Quote:

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They are going to have to do something eventually as thousands, if not tens of thousands, of outdoor enthusiasts now know Awosting has become state land. Rather than entering Minnewaska through Sam's Point or the 44/55 entrance, they will keep flowing to Awosting through Gardiner, as the path of least resistance, like the incoming tide.

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Regarding access and Awosting, respectfully I believe yours and others fears are being pushed out of proportion especially if you look at other recent examples regarding access.

Over on my our side of the ridge the PIPC did acquire a few years ago the land near Stony Kill Falls that now allows a short easy ½ mile walk from the nearest road to access the highest falls on the Shawangunk ridge. (This previously required a several mile hike decent from the parking area at the main entrance. To date they have put zero improvements as to parking or access. Yes people come and park at the end of the one way dirt road, but the frequency and numbers are very, very low. This is a much more of an attractive and easily accessible feature then Awosting IMHO. In fact the only people that use this access are mostly all locals, not the out of towers. There are a number of other access points all over the ridge that are not publish or made official on PIPC, Mohonk Preserve and Hotel lands. A safe bet would be that 99% of users of these access points are locals. If the park leaves access as it is today, you will see a general decline of people attempting access, not an increase.

From RangerRob in another thread: "...how in the heck are they going to build a huge access point for buses??"
and
"....they can't make changes like that unless it is firmly stated in the master plan."

If I'm not mistaken the Minnewaska master plan was for a specific piece of land and does not necessarily apply to any subsequent additions. I'm not a New York State history buff, but I believe they also sometimes do things despite public opposition and sometimes spend large sums of money despite seemingly having no budget.

That said, I like Smike's observation below.

From Smike: "Over on my our side of the ridge the PIPC did acquire a few years ago the land near Stony Kill Falls that now allows a short easy ½ mile walk from the nearest road to access the highest falls on the Shawangunk ridge. (This previously required a several mile hike decent from the parking area at the main entrance. To date they have put zero improvements as to parking or access. Yes people come and park at the end of the one way dirt road, but the frequency and numbers are very, very low. This is a much more of an attractive and easily accessible feature then Awosting IMHO. In fact the only people that use this access are mostly all locals, not the out of towers. There are a number of other access points all over the ridge that are not publish or made official on PIPC, Mohonk Preserve and Hotel lands. A safe bet would be that 99% of users of these access points are locals. If the park leaves access as it is today, you will see a general decline of people attempting access, not an increase."

This is a good point. If the state doesn't advertise the Awosting point of access then I would be cautiously optimistic about the impact of car traffic in that neighborhood, and such traffic might be a wash with or even less than any traffic that would have resulted from Bradley's proposed development. In hindsight, and taken on the whole, in my view the whole traffic thing at Awosting, is a non-issue, for now.

On 3.29.2011 Kent was interviewed for a half hour on the very topics covered in this thread. Go to mykcr.org to hear the interview. Thanks MPNA