Jonathan's best friend, Rich and his family, came all the way from Texas to visit us for a week and go on vacation with us. We took them to the Gunks for a day to climb, and another day to hike the Labyrinth trail near the Mohonk Mountain House.
First we rigged up some broken down stuff that didn't work out too well, then I set up a toprope on the Uberfall (just to the left of the main descent, hoping we wouldn't be in the way). Since it was a weekday, we only saw 1 party use the descent route. Rich and his kids, as well as my kids had no trouble climbing up the Uberfall (in fact, it was too easy). I set up a toprope on "Squiggles" (5.4), but Ben (11 years old) got spooked at the crux and decided to quit. Since the toprope was already there, I enjoyed doing something more difficult and climbed "Squiggles Direct", a very balancy 5.10 thin layback crack to some nice face climbing. If you don't get the right sequence of hands on the first couple of moves, it's very hard to get off the ground.
The next day we went to the Mohonk Mountain House. This requires parking in their lot and hiking at least 1.5 miles to the hotel or pay tons of money for a shuttle bus. So we hiked. We did the Labyrinth Trail, a very rough trail over and under boulders, over planks, up and down ladders, and all around a very good time. Jasmine negotiated the trail very well on her own. Ariel needed some help with the many high steps and downclimbs. The trail ends at the Smiley Memorial Tower on the top of Skytop Cliff, a very prominent landmark of the New Paltz area and visible from the NYS Thruway. We took pictures from the top and made our way back to the car. Ariel was ready to poop out for the last mile, but some quick role switching to make her the mommy and me the whining kid entertained her enough to make it a fun hike for the rest of the way back.