The scene highlighted how divisive the issue has been for the Town of Shandaken, whose economic ''backbone,'' according to the coalition, are the tourists that hurtle down Belleayre's ski slopes every winter. In the Catskill Park's centennial, the resort proposal has become a lightning rod for controversy, reviving old tensions between New York City and the rural Catskills that supply most of its water.

The city and a coalition of groups have criticized the plan on environmental grounds -- primarily its potential to degrade the city's water supply -- while a vocal contingent of local residents and business people praise its promise of economic development.

''For a lot of people, it's not a political issue. It's common sense and it's love,'' said Valerie Linet, a New Paltz resident who helped organize the hike. The hike, she said, was to ''put our feet where our heart is -- to celebrate and talk about the importance of preserving it.''

It also was to give opponents a first-hand look at the steep slopes where Shandaken resident Dean Gitter's development company, Crossroad Ventures, wants to build two resorts and two golf courses on 1,960 forested acres adjacent to the state's Belleayre Mountain Ski Center in the Ulster County town of Shandaken and the Delaware County town of Middletown.

Gitter has promoted the resort plan as a project to jump-start a region long known for its tourism appeal, but depressed by a generation of relative disinterest. He did not attend.

The Coalition for Belleayre Mountain first formed in the 1980s to oppose a state plan to close the ski slopes, Chairman Joe Kelly said. It hasn't taken a position on the resort plan, though several individuals spoke passionately in favor of it Monday.

Its most pressing issue is to upgrade the facilities at the ski slope and expand its slopes from about 17 miles closer to the 25 miles allowed by law. The group sees the upgrades as the key to serving existing tourists and competing with other private Catskill ski areas. It doesn't want the resort plan confused with the slope expansion, an idea long on the back burner, about which the state has refused to reveal its plans.

''We've been working too hard for too long on this,'' Kelly said. ''This mountain has been and is the financial backbone of this area.''

Much tax-exempt land

In a town that has approximately 75 percent of its land owned by the city or state, increasing taxpaying business that provides local jobs is important to many local residents.

''If you're a taxpayer, if you live here, you're getting hit over the head by ever-rising school and property taxes,'' Shandaken resident Gary Gailes said.

Environmentalists have linked the projects because they are adjacent and could have cumulative effects, and because some question the state's ability to remain objective as it considers permitting the Crossroad Ventures proposal next door while it considers expanding its own facilities.

The hikers who climbed the mountain Monday were sympathetic to the concerns of the coalition. But they didn't yield about the perceived folly of the resort plan, which they predict would cause pesticides, sediment and other pollutants to taint the water supply that serves 9 million people, while dwarfing the area's sleepy communities.

''The thing is,'' said James Shearwood, a Kent resident and avid hiker, ''It's so much, so fast.''