Picture of the Week - North-South Lake

Below is a panorama image (click for full-size) of North-South Lake near Catskill, NY.  The picture was taken from a place called Sunset Rock (also called Bear's Den) off the blue escarpment trail (a highly recommended hike along the edge of the Catskill escarpment).

Between 1824 and 1963, there was a famous hotel called the Catskill Mountain House on the cliffs to the left of these lakes (there were actually several hotels in the area - all long gone now). 

View from the Mountain House by W.H. Barlett (1836)

During the latter half of the 19th century, the Catskill Mountain House was visited by the rich and famous who traveled up the Hudson on steamship and to the hotel on rail or a horse and carriage.  If you want to learn more about the Mountain House, there's a great book The Catskill Mountain House by Roland Van Zandt.  This area was also made famous by the Hudson River School group of romantic landscape painters.

A View of the Two Lakes and Mountain House,

Catskill Mountains, Morning by Thomas Cole (1844)

Catskill Mountain House by Jasper Cropsey (1856)

It's neat to stand on such a beautiful spot with my digital camera and feel a connection with these artists who stood there 150 years earlier with an easel and paints and try to immortalize the same scene.