As was the case with the Massive Caves, The Chillest Spot in Ulster County is too precious a secret to let loose. Therefore, a series of short video clues that will lead the discerning viewer to the spot have been provided below. It will take some digging, as well as a decent amount of local knowledge, but a reasonably intelligent & diligent person should be able to unscramble them and experience this sacrosanctity. .

Thanks to Caitlin Bercovici for shooting the vine

I’ve never seen more than six or seven cars parked at the entrance-way (as much as there is an entrance-way) at one time. This time around, Brandon, Dave, Andy and myself nosed up to a single vehicle on the knobby dirt road. After a short walk, the path opens up to a giant basin fringed in the distance with verdant crags. A landing pad for helicopters lays to the side, the subject of innumerable government conspiracies.

After the reverberating heat of the basin, the path leads to a brook. This is the path’s end; this spot is too off-the-beaten path to have one.

The group knew the way—sans Brandon, whose local knowledge was understandably limited for someone who had only been in the region a couple years, we were all old heads of the county. We followed the brook until it came to the base of the falls.

For scale, that is the rather tall Dave to the right of the falls.

The trek to the top of the falls is a scramble up a ravine. Again, there’s no path, but you know the route if you’ve been here enough.

The top of the falls: a broad, chunky rock-face smoothed in the places where the water runs. The view is glorious. Two members of the group had fucked up there. Both were seen but not caught—the people that had come upon the copulaters had backed away respectively, and the couples only found out they were seen later. I’m sure the people that had seen them had a story from it, but not much of a story—you saw naked people up there all the time, sunbathing and exploring. It was nature, after all.

What do people do up here? They blaze, they hang out, they bring picnics up from civilization to tide them over, they drink (but not too much…the climb down is hazardous), they swim in the mountain-brisk water, they explore & find the next spot.

Farther up the brook, more secrets: a swimming hole about 50 feet wide, stoppered by a series of trees set atop boulders. It looks like something humans constructed, or at least very muscular beavers, but the brook itself, charged by Irene (the Hurricane Sandy of the Hudson Valley), had placed them there a couple years back.

We were up there for hours. Since only a limited amount of people know of this spot, the people you are apt to bump into are probably people you know, which is exactly what happened.

We chilled and frolicked up there—this place without clothing or mores or structure or cops—until the sun started fading in the distance.

Brandon shooting some stills over the cliff.