Lake-facing patios, west-shore tasting rooms, the dock at the right time of year. Bring a sweater after seven, even in July.
A bedrock outcropping about a mile up the Escarpment Trail, roughly 45 minutes from the North Lake lot, with an open view down both North and South Lakes and the Hudson Valley beyond. Thomas Cole and Frederick Church painted from this exact ledge; those canvases hang in the Met and the Wadsworth Atheneum now. Go for the last hour of daylight and expect company — this is the most-photographed spot at the lake.
The clearing where America's first grand mountain resort stood from 1823 until the state burned it in 1963, in keeping with the Forest Preserve's forever-wild rules — only the gateposts remain. Presidents and industrialists once took this exact Hudson Valley view from a hotel porch; now it's a short, flat walk from the North Lake day-use lot. Go for sunrise if you can manage the early alarm — it was the whole reason the hotel got built here.