Ski Season Packed with Flurry of Fun

The 2008-2009 ski season is off to a successful start, with several big storms pounding the Hudson Valley and making skiers --and ski resort owners -- very happy, indeed.

Belleayre Mountain celebrates the holiday season with $25 lift tickets on Christmas Day, December 25, 2008, and a Hanukkah Candle Lighting Ceremony on Sunday December 28, 2008. The The Holiday Training Camp begins on Monday, December 29, 2008. This camp is a great way for intermediate skiers and riders to get back into shape for the winter.

Reservations are required. Sign up online or by calling 845-254-5600 x2474.

For the second consecutive year, Hunter Mountain and neighboring Windham Mountain are joining forces to offer the Wintercard. The cooperative deal allows for four total days of skiing and riding -- two at each resort -- for $129. That's just over $32 per day. The Wintercard is the result of a partnership with Greene County Tourism. Hunter and Windham are the two largest ski/snowboard resorts in the Hudson Valley and Catskills region, and offer a total of some 100 trails. So there's something to appeal to any levael between them.

And don't forget Plattekill, where there's skiing by day and after the chairlifts close. It's a wonderfully friendly family-owned ski and snowboard resort with some great downhill runs. Such as the double-diamond Freefall, which feels like it ends at the plate glass window of the Plattekill lodge. Slam on the brakes, please! I did.

Photo courtesy Windham Mountain

October is New York Wine Month

New York Wine Month will run the entire month of October, with more than 115 restaurants and 150 wine stores throughout the state participating to showcase New York wines. With the harvest is in full swing, this is a great time to celebrate the bounty of New York as a wine-producing state, especially the wines of the Hudson Valley, which has been growing wine grapes since 1677, when the French Huguenots planted vines they brought with them from Europe.

One of the best places to sample New York State wines -- actually three of the best places -- is Vintage New York, a wine store and tasting room, that carries only New York State wines, from the Finger Lakes and Long Island in addition to Hudson Valley wineries. There are two locations in Manhattan -- in Soho, at Broome Street at the corner of Wooster, the other on the Upper West Side, at 93rd and Broadway.

The third Vintage New York location is in the Hudson Valley at Rivendell Winery in New Paltz. Stop off at the winery for a tour and a tasting either before or after touring the historic Huguenot Stone Houses downtown, some of which date back to the 1600s.

Help Clean up The Hudson River

Join Riverkeeper, TEVA Footwear and Keep Rockland Beautiful this Saturday, July 26th, to help get the junk out of the water and away from the beautiful shores of the Hudson River.

There are two ways you can help -- actually three, if you count making a donation to Riverkeeper, the #1 protector of our beautiful Hudson River.

Grab a trash bag or two and meet at the Piermont Pier in Piermont for a 10:30 a.m. start to pick up trash around the pier and nearby, too. To sign up, contact Heartie Look -- what a great name! -- at hlook@riverkeeper.org.

If you have a kayak or a canoe, you can help clean up the river while you paddle from Nyack to Piermont. This mid-river clean-up starts at Nyack's Memorial Park at 9 a.m. Contact Manny Polloni from American Terrain Outdoors Store to sign-up -- manny@americanterrain.com.

The Hudson River is the heart and soul of the Hudson Valley. Help keep it clean. See you there?

George Washington Slept Here

George Washington did more than visit the Hudson Valley -- he lived here for the last six months of the Revolutionary War, and for six months after what he called the "cessation of hostilities".

Gen. Washington commanded the troops from a brick farmhouse in Newburgh, on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River. The house was owned by the Hasbrouck family, for whom the nearby village Hasbrouck Heights is named. Appropriately, the name of the street where this house is located is Liberty Street.

It could be the most patriotic thing you do this Fourth of July weekend -- besides flying the American flag, of course -- to visit the house now known as Washington's Headquarters State Historic Site. It's a museum about the Continental Army's activities in the Hudson Valley, plus an art gallery that's mostly portraits of Revolutionary patriots -- only Hudson Valley patriots, no Boston Patriots, with or without football helmets.

It was in this house that Gen. Washington rejected the idea of becoming king after the war. It was here that he created and awarded the Badge of Military Merit, which later became the Purple Heart. And it was from here that he posted letters to State Governors that influenced the writing of the Constitution.

Another important bit of history about Washington's Headquarters State Historic Site -- in 1850 an act of Congress named Washington's Hudson Valley headquarters as the very first National Historic Landmark. How appropriate for the first President of the United States.

Award Winning Hudson Valley Wines

The Hudson Valley Wine Competition has produced some winners to sip and savor.

These wineries are Gold Medal winners --

• Millbrook Vineyards and Winery was the top winner, for its 2006 Cabernet Franc. This fragrant red received awards for Best in Class, Best in Show, and Best Hudson Valley Wine.


• Benmarl Winery, for its 2007 Seyval. Benmarl also won Best of Class and Best White Hybrid for this light, white that's perfect for summer.


• Millbrook also garnered gold for its 2007 Tokai Fruilano, which named Best of Class and Best White Vinifera.


• Adair Vineyards received the award for Best Fruit Wine for its 2007 Peche.

Grapes have been growing in the Hudson Valley since 1677, when French Huegonots planted the vines they brought with them from Europe. That means the Hudson Valley has been producing wine for a couple of hundred years more than California.

Hudson Valley wines -- yet another reason to visit the Hudson Valley.

New Museum About the Legendary Woodstock Concert

The most famous thing in the Hudson Valley in the last 100 years probably was the three-day music festival and love-in simply known as Woodstock. More than a half-million people came to visit, hang out, listen to rock stars including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Richie Havens, and party.

Next year, 2009, is the 40th anniversary of that legendary concert, and the town of Bethel is getting ahead of the celebration by opening a new museum that memorializes the entire decade of the Sixties, not just the 1969 Woodstock whatever-it-was.

It was the Age of Aquarius, psychedelic clothing and drugs, an unpopular war in Vietnam, and the civil rights movement. During The Sixties, we cried over the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, and glowed with pride when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

It's all there, in the Museum at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. The museum is part of a $100 million center with a 15,000 seat outdoor performance space, at the site of that huge field on Max Yasgur's farm where the Woodstock festival took place.

But, it will surely become known as the Woodstock Museum. Take a trip back to the Sixties, including a 21-minute clip of the music festival, plus clips of other news events, the fashions, the politics, and the emergence of a new group of musicians from England. The Beatles.

The Woodstock museum -- Just one more reason to visit the Hudson Valley.

Happy 125th Birthday to the Brooklyn Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge opened to the public on May 24, 1883, linking the city of New York with the city of Brooklyn (years later Brooklyn became part of the new, unified New York City).

It is an icon of engineering, and, simply, one of the most beautiful bridges in the world.

So, you must be asking -- what does the Brooklyn Bridge have to do with the Hudson Valley? Plenty.

Its architect, John Roebling, built the bridge with cement from Rosendale, in the Hudson Valley. Rosendale Cement also was used to build the base of the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument in DC, and the wings of the US Capitol building.

Roebling was injured during the 13-year-long construction of this bridge, and the job was finished by his son, Washington Roebling, who married a girl from Hudson Valley.

Emily Warren's parents operated Warren's Tavern in Garrison, which opened in 1761 as a stagecoach stop. Today, it is the Bird and Bottle Inn. Restaurant downstairs, charming bed & breakfast upstairs. Many guests request to stay in "Emily's Room".

The Brooklyn Bridge -- so much a part of New York City -- is one more reason to visit the Hudson Valley.

Visit the West Point Museum

The West Point Museum contains one of the world's largest collections of weapons, flags, uniforms and other military artifacts, from ancient Egypt and Roman times through today. An excellent reason to visit the Hudson Valley.

Look for items from some of the most famous graduates of the United States Military Academy, which is the official name of West Point, including the generals

• Dwight David Eisenhower,
• George S. Patton,
• Robert E. Lee,
• William Tecumseh Sherman.

There is an exhibit of items from the NASA space program, and sections on Native American weaponry, Revolutionary War flintlocks, even a 1916 Dodge Brothers car used by officers in World War I.

The West Point Museum is open daily.

West Point is one of the most famous and most popular sites to visit in the Hudson Valley.