This guest post was excerpted from an email written by Rich!

Here are some pics from a day-trip to Minnewaska. Conditions were quite good on this section of trails. The Lower Awosting, Upper Awosting and Awosting Lake Loop are more like woods roads than the kind of gravel carriageways you see at Mohonk. They’re a little bit rougher and a little hillier than the Millbrook Mountain or Castle Point carriageways. But they’re still fairly pleasant and fun to ride, not crazy.

Minnewaska is a fascinating place. The park was actually a little busier for a Friday than we expected. We rode 11 miles, and had a lot of fun. We would have ridden another trail just for a few more miles but Zhanna had wanted to stop at the Mohonk Preserve visitors center before they closed. The last couple of times we were in the area, we missed it by a half hour or so.

You can tell that it had rained hard there recently. Some puddles and wet spots were still evident, but they were mostly drying up nicely and were easily avoidable. There were quite a few people at Lake Awosting and in the water. As you might know, the only way to get there is to hike or bike. Probably half of them had bikes.

Essentially, we rode the loop around Lake Awosting, stopping first at Awosting Falls. There was only one nasty hill on the way to the lake. We both ended up walking a part of it. Maybe Lance wouldn’t have made it all the way, either! It was probably just the fact that we encountered it in the early part of the ride, and also that neither of us has built up a lot of endurance this year yet. We need more hill time! As expected, the scenery was gorgeous. Some really nice views without even having to get up high.