It’s been so cold around here lately that, while I wanted to get up to the mountains and take some photos, I wasn’t eager to actually freeze and have frozen feet. So, I did the next best thing: cruised around in the Challenger at some favorite spots for some scenic winter images.
Above is Pine Road in New Paltz, a dead-end street off Butterville Road that provides this nice view of the ridge, Mohonk’s Skytop tower and this huge red barn. The end of the road is a trailhead for the Mohonk Preserve, but I feel like this road isn’t especially well-traveled when it comes to taking photos. I hadn’t been here in a few years, so with a goal of Mohonk + red barn photos in mind, it seemed worth checking out.
While Pine Road may be a little obscure, the Mohonk gatehouse is pretty well known as it’s visible from Rt. 44/55. I [carefully] pulled off the road into some snow and snapped a few of this old structure, which is currently being renovated by the Preserve:
Below the gatehouse, you’ll find this area named Pin Oak Allee, a path of 100-year-old oak trees that led the way from the gatehouse to Mohonk back around 1900. My hands were freezing taking these shots as the wind was pretty crisp out in this open field:
At the end of Gatehouse Road is a small red barn which I’ve driven past a million times but never thought to photograph:
I then went back to three familiar farms on Butterville Road, each with a different feel and design. The first one you come to, traveling north, is this scenic red barn facing Mohonk.
I actually got yelled at by some rude old woman in a pickup truck when I took these photos. This barn is, for the most part, out in the middle of nowhere. It’s on a pretty empty road near a vast field — there’s very little traffic or signs of life besides a handful of homes. I’d pulled off to the side of the road, parking lights on, and evidently that wasn’t cool when this lady passed by. I lived in New Paltz for over four years, and she was one of the rudest people I’ve ever encountered up there.
Here’s a detail of the top of the barn:
This is the view looking the opposite direction, where I spotted a few deer grazing in the snow:
Further up the road is this barn, which — after much Googling — I think is known as Three Suns Farm
And then just further up the road is another big old red barn which houses a few donkeys. This guy heard me outside and stuck his head out to take a look:
Back over on Pine Road, I photographed some horses out in a snowy field:
Finally, I made it over to the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail off Plains Road in New Paltz, where you get this incredible view of Mohonk with a farm and small creek in the foreground. I waited a bit and got some variations with late-day sunlight:
