page_title: Winnisook Lake
hierarchical_section_title: Winnisook Lake
caption_attribution_description: Photographed by Daniel Case 2005-11-12
context_page_description: Winnisook Lake is an artificial lake located in Oliverea, New York, United States. It is the source of Esopus Creek and the highest lake in the Catskill Mountains at 2,664 feet above sea level.
  The lake is the private property of the Winnisook Club, which expanded it with a dam so they could have a place to fish. This created some problems with hikers in the past, who would park along the neighboring stretch of Ulster County Route 47 and cross the club's property to reach state-owned Forest Preserve lands and climb the Catskills' highest peak, neighboring Slide Mountain. Crowds of hikers steadily increased throughout the 1970s, causing the club to consider closing what had long been one of the easiest ways to ascend the peak. New York's Department of Environmental Conservation solved the problem in the early 1980s by buying some land to the south of the club and building a new access trail over it.
  The stretch of Route 47 next to the lake has the distinction of being the highest elevation improved public through road in the state.
context_section_description: Winnisook Lake is an artificial lake located in Oliverea, New York, United States. It is the source of Esopus Creek and the highest lake in the Catskill Mountains at 2,664 feet (812 m) above sea level.
  The lake is the private property of the Winnisook Club, which expanded it with a dam so they could have a place to fish. This created some problems with hikers in the past, who would park along the neighboring stretch of Ulster County Route 47 and cross the club's property to reach state-owned Forest Preserve lands and climb the Catskills' highest peak, neighboring Slide Mountain. Crowds of hikers steadily increased throughout the 1970s, causing the club to consider closing what had long been one of the easiest ways to ascend the peak. New York's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) solved the problem in the early 1980s by buying some land to the south of the club and building a new access trail over it.
  The stretch of Route 47 next to the lake has the distinction of being the highest elevation improved public through road in the state.
  The name, one of the few Indian place names in the Catskills, comes from Winnisook, the same legendary figure from whom the nearby hamlet of Big Indian and Big Indian Mountain draw their names.
caption: From northeast corner
exif: {"Image Make": "EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY", "Image Model": "KODAK LS743 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "230", "Image YResolution": "230", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2005:12:04 22:24:15", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "252", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "918", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4605", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "24/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2004:01:09 19:51:26", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2004:01:09 19:51:26", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "9", "EXIF ApertureValue": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "16/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1200", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "900", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "792", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "80", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "36", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}