So take a break from winter and check out what we have to offer. You'll find an access update, what's been going on recently with the GCC, a bit of word history on the Gunks, plus the debut of The Members' Corner, where you'll find the work of the best and brightest GCC supporters this side of the cliff.

Enjoy the day.

Letter from the Board
Winter may seem like an odd time for a gardening metaphor, but here goes. Many seeds require a period of cold before they'll germinate. This is called stratification.

It's the same for the GCC. With winter in full swing we're taking the time to look inward, do some housekeeping, and set some goals for the year. We still have some mundane tasks to accomplish—getting the bylaws completed, for example—but we're also pleased with what we were able to do this year. Besides staging multiple clean-up efforts in the Preserve, Shevchenko, and Peter's Kill and orchestrating successful slide show events with renowned presenters, we've also been opening doors and conversing with land managers up and down the ridge. The Shevchenko clean-up, for instance, paired us with the Open Space Institute, one of the largest land preservation organizations in the area.

What do we hope for 2004? To keep these activities—and others like them—in full swing. Opening a new crag is of the highest priority. We also plan to better communicate our long-term goals and strategies with our members. We're all on the same side in the fight to maintain existing and open new climbing areas, and the more we communicate our goals the stronger we'll be.

So maybe it's apt we talk gardening in January; after all, it's in winter that we see the garden's true potential, dormant but prepared to bloom. Spring will be here soon enough, and we'll be hitting the ground running.

Access Update
Many of the Gunks' creatures hunkered down for the winter, hibernating until warmer days. And though it might appear the access subcommittee is also following this seasonal trend, this is not the case.

Over these next few months we plan to continue working on a number of projects begun in our first year. Using our recently gathered inventory of climbing areas, we are in the process of identifying the first crag to target in our efforts to gain access. There are several strong candidates and many factors to consider.

Once the selection is made, we will begin the process of devising a plan, specific to that crag. Our goal is to produce a proposal that resembles the current Use Master Plan documents, with which most of the land managers of the properties along the Ridge are familiar. Part of our strategy will be to tap into the resources available through our membership, local experts, the Access Fund, and others to address the impacts posed by climbers. There is a wealth of expertise in our climbing community and we're going to use as much of it as we can. Stay tuned for further updates and calls for volunteers.

Education
Shawangunk or Shon-gum: A Ridge By Any Other Name….
Spend any time up here, and you’ll hear the use of two names for the Shawangunk Ridge. It’s high time to sort ‘em out.

Shawangunk is one transliteration colonial settlers documented, reflecting the Lenape word for a tract of tableland that rises above a creek with a lovely view of the ridge. That tableland was once the location of a Lenape fort, the sight of the Second Esopus War, where the Dutch massacred the Lenape in an effort to rescue captured settlers in 1663.  (The Lenape, by the way, are some of the area’s first New Yorkers, who were living here as many as 6,500 years ago.)

In 17^th-century English deeds, parcels near the massacre appear as Chawangong. In Dutch deeds, the name appears as Schunemunk and also Skonemoghky, Chawangon, Chauwngung, and Chauwanghungh. But two of the earliest parcels between the creek and the ridge are cited with the name Shawangunk—the locative applied afterwards to the creek, the township, and the ridge.

Shawangunk has been translated as “white rock” or, shawan from the Mohegan word for white, and gunk, “a large rock,” which sounds perfect but apparently isn’t. “Southern place,” from the Delaware/Lenape word shawaneu meaning “south,” is one of the accepted sources, though something’s missing there.

In Lenape mythology, Hum Shawaanewaank is the Grandmother spirit associated with the cardinal direction south, and a list of Lenape words containing southern characteristics reveals the shawaneu connection: schawan: smoky air (mists created by warm water moving upstream); schawanammek: shad (fish from the south); schapu: brackish; schwonnak: Europeans (people from the south).

But what of gunk? Lenape sources suggest that unk/unck/onk, frequently preceded by a “g,” means “upland,” or “on the hillside or mountain.” In The Early History of Kingston and Ulster County, N.Y, Marc Fried references E.M. Ruttenber’s History of the Indian Tribes of Hudson’s River regarding those first Shawangunk parcels as meaning “on the hillside, or “at the edge of the mountain.” How about “southern place on the mountain?” Perhaps Shawangunk stuck because both shawan and gunk appeared frequently in Lenape usage.

Now for that other name: Shon-gum. The earliest source for Shon-gum is the subtitle from the 1887 edition of Legends of the Shawangunk. Fried, the New Paltz-raised Woodstock historian Alf Evers, and Mohonk Preserve historians Bob Larsen and Paul Huth all agree on the pronunciation shawn-gum, a vernacular contraction of Shawangunk that became popular among the locals.

There is some debate about whether this was indeed the name used by those with intimate ties to the ridge—the bark-skinners, charcoal makers, millstone workers, berry-pickers—or one impressed upon them by preachers, teachers, and politicians. And unlike Gloucester or Worcester, the phonetic rendering of Shon-gum began making its way into the written record, frequently cited as the original Lenape name. However, Shon + gum appear to have no Lenape equivalents, and none of those early land deeds contain anything resembling Shon-gum.

But spend a day at Minnewaska State Park or the Mohonk Preserve, attend the Shawangunk Biodiversity Partnership’s annual Shawangunks lecture series, or listen to the arguments on both sides for John Bradley’s Awosting Reserve development proposal, and you’ll hear Shon-gum wafting over the discussion. In fact, among academics, rangers, ridge preservationists, and many climbers, this pronunciation seems preferred.

But we must dig deeper, and separate indigenous character from colonial vernacular. Both names reflect the character and history of the place, and both remain active in the daily lexicon of the ridge. Though climbers will probably stick with the affectionately truncated “Gunks,” the full Shawangunk pronunciation may not only be historically accurate but also gives the Lenape their due.

The distinguishing geologic characteristic of the ridge is its radiant bedrock of quartzite conglomerate, a word defined curiously for this discussion “as any mass formed of various sources.” Shawangunk, Chawangong, Chauwanghugh, Shon-gum, Gunks. In sound, they carry the heft of stone. Names with eras, partly distinct but making one, deposited like bedrock in the imagination—they speak the soul of a landscape.

Used with permission from Blue Stone Press.

An Interview with Hank Alicandri
For a lucky few, passion and vocation fuse together. These are generally the people who aren’t lying (to us or themselves) when they say they love what they do. Hank Alicandri is one such lucky soul. As Director of Land Stewardship and Head Ranger, Hank is in his element at the Mohonk Preserve. The sole full-time ranger—the other six are 10-month and weekend rangers—he has been working with the Preserve for 16 years.