Lake Minnewaska

In addition to all the other craziness last week I also went on a hike with some students from our program for underrepresented STEM students.  It was a really nice day and turned out to be beautiful.  I really need to get up there more often.

We went up the mountain that is right next to town (~5 miles away).  The ridge overlooks town and it is a distinctive shape with an overlook tower right on the edge.  You can see this landmark from pretty much everywhere in town.  This is a view from my just outside my office on campus:

And another one that I took at sunset:

Apparently there is kind of a plateau up there and from the top of the hike we could look back and see the drop, with New Paltz in the background:

And we could see the outlook tower from the other side, which was cool:

(The mountains in the background are a small range that run along the Hudson River.)

Looking in the other direction, over the lake we hiked around, you see the Catskills, which are the next range over.

Catskills up close.  So pretty.

(There is a little swimming hole at the lake.)