Slide Mountain Wilderness Area

Slide Mountain Wilderness Area
IUCN category Ib (wilderness area)
Location of the Slide Mountain Wilderness
Location	Ulster County, New York, United States
Nearest city	Kingston, New York
Coordinates	41°59′55″N 74°23′11″W / 41.99861°N 74.38639°W / 41.99861; -74.38639Coordinates: 41°59′55″N 74°23′11″W / 41.99861°N 74.38639°W / 41.99861; -74.38639
Area	47,500 acres (192 km2)
Established	1985
Visitors	23,000 (in 2003)
Governing body	New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

The Slide Mountain Wilderness Area is, at 47,500 acres (19,200 ha), the largest tract of state-owned Forest Preserve in New York's Catskill Park, and the largest area under any kind of wilderness area protection between the Adirondacks and the southern Appalachians. It is located in the towns of Shandaken, Denning and Olive in Ulster County.

Within those three towns, the Slide Wilderness might be better described as contained within the lands bounded on the north roughly by Esopus Creek and Route 28, the east by Ulster County Route 42 (known in different towns as Sundown Road or Peekamoose Road) almost to the shores of Ashokan Reservoir, the west by Ulster County Route 47, and on the south by Sugarloaf Road and Red Hill Road.

The area's wilderness character is buffered not only by restrictive local zoning and conservation of neighboring private lands but also by bordering on two other large state-owned tracts, the Big Indian-Beaver Kill Wilderness Area to the west and the Sundown Wild Forest to the east.

According to Catskill forest historian Michael Kudish, the Slide wilderness contains the most extensive tract of first-growth forest in the Catskills. Much of the area remained out of reach during the peak years of logging and barkpeeling from eastern hemlock trees, to make tannin for leather production in the mid-19th century and thus remained largely untouched. Indeed, the upper valley of the East Branch of the Neversink, located centrally within the SMWA, is the only completely wild valley in the Catskills. It is possible to look out over it from several points on the surrounding mountains and see no evidence of civilization.