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boatingonthehudson.com
A
s a life-long resident of themid-HudsonValley, I’ve spent
a lot of time Boating on the Hudson (and Beyond...), hiking,
biking, canoeing, skiing, cross-country skiing, working, tour-
guiding, wine-tasting; you get the picture.
I’ve always been aware of the Hudson’s many creeks—the
Wappingers and Fishkill Creeks have become my “home
creeks”—but to me the Esopus and the Rondout have always
been the Big Guns, each starting high up in the Catskills,
fattening out to reservoirs, and ultimately making a grand
entrance into the Hudson.
Winnisook Lake, in a 2,660 foot saddle west of 4,180-foot
Slide Mountain, the highest peak in the Catskills, is the source
of the 65.4-mile-long Esopus. First heading north, then
swinging around to the southeast, it becomes the Ashokan
Reservoir. It then heads east and scootches around Kingston,
where it turns due north to Saugerties, crosses under 9W/32,
by
Ralph J. Ferrusi