Visitor Center

Not sure where to start exploring the Preserve's 70 miles of trails and carriage roads?

Come to the Visitor Center for recreation suggestions, directions, and information on local wildlife and geology.

Especially for kids...

Take a stroll

The short, self-guided trails around the Visitor Center are  designed to give you a quick and easy introduction to the Ridge.

• The Shawangunk Sensory Trail is a 1/4-mile, easy, level loop. Interpretive stations along the way encourage you to touch, look, and listen to nature.
  
  
• The Weinstein Butterfly Garden along the Sensory Trail attracts a colorful display of wild butterflies. Take a rest and see the flowers that butterflies like.
  

• The LaVerne Thompson Nature Trail is a 1/3rd–mile rolling loop that forks off from the Sensory Trail. A free trail brochure (available at the Visitor Center or start of the trail) leads you along the path’s 16 stops, where you can learn about the plants, animals, and geology of the Ridge.

Check out indoor exhibits

• Get a bird’s eye view of where you are on the Shawangunk Ridge with a three-dimensional topographical model of the region.
  
  
• See frogs, turtles, and other small creatures and visit the Discovery Room to see a mounted fox, rabbit, raccoon, pheasant and more...
  
  
• Be a weather detective at our Weather Learning Station. Guess the age of a tree and learn how weather affected its growth.
  
  
• Read Stories in Stone about the early people to live on the Ridge, from the first Native Americans to blueberry pickers and millstone cutters.
  
  
• Learn why the Visitor Center won a "green design" award and how a GeoExchange system heats and cools the building while saving energy.
  

Interested in renting space for your special occasion or business meeting? See our Hold an Event page.