The Ramble and Lake are two geographic features of Central Park in Manhattan, New York City. Part of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux's 1857 Greensward Plan for Central Park, the features are located on the west side of the park between the 66th and 79th Street transverses. The Ramble, located on the north shore of the Lake, is a forested area with highly varied topography and numerous winding walks, designated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation as a protected nature preserve. It was designed as a "wild garden" away from carriage drives and bridle paths, in which to be wandered, or to be viewed as a "natural" landscape. The Ramble includes several rustic bridges, and formerly contained a small cave. Historically, it has been frequented for both birdwatching and cruising. The serpentine Lake offers dense naturalistic planting, rocky outcrops of glacially scarred Manhattan bedrock, small open glades, and an artificial stream (the Gill) that empties through the Azalea Pond, then down a cascade into the Lake. At the northwestern corner of the Lake, the ground rises toward Vista Rock, crowned by a lookout and folly named Belvedere Castle. The western shore includes the Ladies' Shelter, the southern shore contains a waterfront porch called Bethesda Terrace, and the eastern shore contains the Loeb Boathouse. Geography Ramble The Ramble is one of three main woodlands in Central Park, the others being North Woods and Hallett Nature Sanctuary. The Ramble covers , and contains a series of winding paths, as well as outcrops, rustic structures, and several bridges. The Ramble is designated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation as a "Forever Wild" natural preserve, which prevents any future redevelopment of the site. During construction, the park's most varied and intricately planted landscape was planted with native trees such as tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica); American sycamore; white, red, black, scarlet, and willow oaks; Hackberry; and Liriodendron. These trees were arranged to create a colorful tropical effect. These coexisted with some American trees never native to the area, such as Kentucky coffee tree, yellowwood, and cucumber magnolia, and a few exotics, such as Phellodendron and Sophora. Smaller natives include sassafras. Aggressively self-seeding black cherry and black locust later came to dominate the Ramble. A 1979 census of the Ramble's trees, taken by Bruce Kelly, Philip Winslow, and James Marston Fitch, found 6,000 trees, including 60 specimen trees