Sam's Point Preserve, or Sam's Point Dwarf Pine Ridge Preserve, is a 4600acre preserve in Ulster County on the highest point (2289ft) of the Shawangunk Ridge in New York, on the Wawarsing, New York-Shawangunk town line. It is owned by the Open Space Institute and managed by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation after having previously been managed by The Nature Conservancy. Its unique environment features dwarf pitch pine trees along the ridgetop. Located within the park is Lake Maratanza, the highest lake on the ridge, and the Ellenville Fault Ice Caves.HistoryThe name derives from a story that a man named Sam, pursued by Indians, jumped off the cliff to avoid capture and miraculously survived the drop with the trees breaking his fall. Roads throughout the preserve were built as fire roads in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps.The land was once owned by the nearby village of Ellenville to protect its watershed and partly by a company which offered tours of the ice caves. The Open Space Institute, working with The Nature Conservancy bought it with assistance from the Lila Acheson and Dewitt Wallace Fund for the Hudson Highlands, after the village considered selling the land to developers.
