Hike #890; Sleepy Hollow and Rockafeller State Park Preserve
Our next hike would be a big loop around Sleepy Hollow NY. With the Jersey Perimeter coming close to a close and a little more only to do, I have been really excited to throw some more diverse place outside of the perimeter.
We had done a few hikes in the Sleepy Hollow area, following the Old Croton Aqueduct in two directions and as parts of past Halloween costume hikes. In fact, Ted pointed out to me early on that his first hike with me was one of those a couple years back. We had a good group of people show up at the Philipse Manor train station to start the trek.
View of the Hudson, Tappan Zee Bridge, and beyond from Kingsland Point Park.
From the station, we headed south. The route I had planned was from the station south directly to Kingsland Point Park. There was a walkway shown from this park out to a lighthouse and then proposed to continue on the waterfront south toward Tarrytown. I had high hopes that this would take us on through, and we’d then continue up hill and inland from there.
It worked out worse than I was planning; after we headed into the park and followed the waterfront as best we could, we found that the path to the light house itself was completely closed to public. Even worse, the pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks to Devries Park was also closed. There was a hole in the fence at one point where we could get over it, but it meant going over electrified tracks with third rails. Those are safe to walk along, as long as you don’t get your foot under it, but with such a large group we opted not to chance it.
Kingsland Point Park
The park was worthwhile to walk around anyway. We did have some good views of the Hudson and across at Nyack, as well as the new construction going on with the replacement for the Tappan Zee Bridge.
There was also a weird playground with playground equipment that were made to look like teeth. Very strange.
We had to head back out to Devries Ave away from the station, and take back streets out to Broadway, Rt 9. From there, we turned right to head into town. Here, we crossed the famous “headless horseman bridge”, or at least the site of it. The bridge abutments are still there along the Pocantico River for the structure Washington Irving described in Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which Icubod Crane raced to cross.
We walked south from here into town. Once there, we stopped at the first convenience store we got to because I wasn’t sure if we’d find anything else anywhere along the way. Despite the fact that we were in Westchester County, I had a hike planned that was quite back woods.
After a longer than necessary break, we headed further up the street and across town until we saw the school on the left side. We crossed here and climbed the lawn high above the street, with some nice views of the Hudson and land across on the other side in the Palisades formation.
At the end of the school, we turned left on Cobb Lane a short distance up hill to the Old Croton Aqueduct route. We turned right on this and began following it south. I stopped everyone to let them know how the aqueduct lost a foot of elevation every mile, and how roughly every mile had a ventilator shaft to get oxygen to the water, though many of them have been demolished.
We walked on to the south on Old Croton Aqueduct until we got to Neperan Road. We regrouped here, and I ran down hill to 711 for another drink before we moved on. Once I got back, we headed further up hill on Neperan.
At the top, we turned right and passed a large facility on the hill to the right. This was the complex I had walked through with Gregg a year earlier when we scouted a little piece of this, the next connection section hike to the south of here on the Old Putnam railroad line.
Old Putnam line at Tarrytown Lake
We headed down hill ever so slightly from here on the same path Gregg had taken with me, and we reached the paved pathway at the corner of Neperan and Sunnyside.
We followed the path for a ways, and then the highway that was closely parallel, the same one we had been following, crossed over Tarrytown Lake and the path continued by itself through a bit of a cut. I did not know it at the time I walked through last, but this was part of the right of way of the original Putnam Railroad.
When the railroad was first constructed, it made it’s way through the Pocantico Hills by way of the path of least resistance. This brought the railroad right through the Rockefeller estate.
The railroad, gaining usage, of course did not go over well with the Rockefellers, and so they paid at their own expense to have the railroad moved from the Pocantico Hills to a new right of way to the east of their estate.
The railroad was moved from Pocantico Hills to east of what is known as Buttermilk Hill.
Eastview trestle
Today, the Old Putnam railroad line is the North and South County Trailways, bisected in the middle by some development, and the trail along Tarrytown Lake is a spur of that trail. I had found out after the hike with Gregg that this section of trail along the lake was part of the original alignment.
Even more interesting was the fact that prior to the lake, the railroad crossed an impressive long trestle over the valley. It was apparently faulty and had to be replaced a couple of times. An abutment of this old bridge is reportedly visible still at the north side of the lake, but we didn’t make it that far this time.
Eastview Trestle
I looked for signs of where the railroad might have turned off from the current trail, and did find a grade at lower level than the trail at one point, but this could have been an old road, or perhaps another grade from one of the earlier trestles at the site. The rest of the group got pretty far ahead, so I headed back onto the trail and followed it to the dam at the end of Tarrytown Lake where everyone was waiting. Now, knowing that the railroad once went through, I could see where the trail turned away from the original rail line, a very obvious grade remaining with a stone wall below, heading out toward the highway beyond.
I had to make a decision at this point; looking out across the lake I could see chain link fences that might mess up my plans. I had found several maps of the Rockafeller State Park Preserve, which showed more trails on some and less on others. Some of these trails were shown coming right out to the road on the north side of the reservoir, others showed it only being a loop trail that made no access on a ridge above the northeast side. My plan was to bushwhack up to the trail there if we could not get on the ones below.
First, we tried to walk along the road on the north side of the lake. This was no good. The road was too busy to be walking, and there were too many chain link fences. Where there were gates to what might be passable roads, they were locked. It’d have been easy to get through, but were we supposed to be there? Also, there were two lines of fences, one after the other, and we wouldn’t want to be inside between the two. I decided to have everyone turn back along the lake again, looking to the left up hill for possible entry points.
We found nothing. There were no good ways to enter the preserve here. I stopped to gather my thoughts, and decided it made most sense to head onto the North County Trailway, on the moved Old Putnam line, and just change the hike.
We followed the paved path across the road, past a parking area and then up to the Putnam Line/North County Trailway, where there was a bit of track still in place for interpretive reasons. The rail bed, the part moved by Rockefeller, skirted the east side of Buttermilk Hill. I figured we could follow the trail to the north and just cut onto the preserve at the north side when we got there.
As we walked, someone pointed out that there was a break in the fence up hill from us where a tree had fallen over it. We had a good way in! We headed steeply up hill and entered the preserve at this weird spot. It was the toughest part of the hike. We bushwhacked up hill and parallel with a fence line on the left. Somehow, Justin and a few others ended up on the opposite side of it. I think the fences are more a deer extruder device than anything else. Marcus was in the front, and he had a really good app that showed him exactly where we were on the trails. I simply followed his lead and he told us I believe that we were only three hundred feet off of the trail we were looking for. We had some weedy spots, but we managed to get up to Perry Road.
Most of the trails within this park preserve were woods roads, so most of this was very relaxing. I was happy to be where I was planning to get to, and we had a relaxing stroll along Perry Road heading to the north along part of Buttermilk Hill.
Perry Road Trail
The roads pleasantly weaved around rock outcroppings and erratics, with some seasonal views between trees to the east. We continued on Perry Road to not aptly named Goat Trail, because it was just another woods road of the same width.
View from Raven's Rock Trail
A short distance along Goat Trail led us to a spur trail called Raven’s Rock Trail. I did not know the significance of this site, except that it merited a mention and a side trail to it on the map. The trail was shown as a dead end, but I figured we could bushwhack up to Goat Trail again when we got there. The trail gradually led down hill quite a bit. This one had one giant tree down over it that we had to take the time to climb through. The trail also came rather close to the Putnam rail line, and had I known I might have just opted to stay on it and cut up hill further along rather than do all of that bushwhacking.
Raven's Rock
Where the road ended, there was a sort of dirt or gravel cul de sac and a giant rock outcropping. This was Raven’s Rock. It was impressive enough, and we all got up close to check it out more. It had overhanging sections, and at one time it probably had a view from the top, though this time we didn’t see anything except some nasty thorns.
It turns out this site has more Sleepy Hollow significance than I had thought; the site was mentioned in Washington Irving’s “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” as a creepy rock Icubod Crane rode by after visiting a female teacher he was interested in.
The site also has various other ghost stories and such, including that of an indian maiden who jumped to her death from it, and others that sound familiar to so many other stories I’ve read elsewhere. I wished I’d known the significance to share with the group at the time of the hike.
Again, Marcus mentioned that we were only about three hundred feet away from the Goat Trail, and this time it would be a much easier ascent up to it. We climbed with relative ease to the woods road and turned right.
We continued on Goat Trail until we got to the intersection with Laurance’s Ridge Trail. Here, we turned to the left over a bit of a knoll atop the ridge, and reached the Ferguson’s Loop Trail. We turned right, and then came to another road leading left. There, as well as ahead, is known as some of the Rockefeller Family Trails. We turned right there, heading more up hill on a lovely road lined with stones.
West facing overlook on Buttermilk Hill
The map showed this trail as an out and back, but it actually went through. We went only because it showed there was an overlook up there.
When we got to the overlook, there were signs basically saying not to go to it, to continue to the right on the trail. The road itself passed through a private home. We checked out the view quickly, and some of us continued on. The trail became a foot path with a wood chip surface, leading below any private areas and then back out to the driveway on the other side by a some chicken coops.
I realized here that most of the group was not following me. They decided to stop and have lunch at the overlook. I just waited around by the chicken coops for a while, then continued on following the trail along the road to a bend. Here, the trail went straight and a sign warned not to walk the road because it was an “active driveway” from there. Another path led down hill from this point to Laurance’s Ridge Trail and Buttermilk Hill Trail. Those of us ahead sat down here and waited for the rest of the group to eventually catch up.
We headed to a side trail to the left, which led down to Buttermilk Hill Trail. We took that, then continued into fields out of the woods on Rockefeller Family Trails. These farm roads were much more used by people. There were folks walking around just about everywhere as we made our way through the fields, then right on the Lucy’s Loop Trail. Serious Sean had two dimensional cut out masks of various celebrities with him, and he wore one of Obama and sang “Ooh Child” while we walked. It was hilarious.
We headed down hill from fields into more woods on this trail, and it split in two to make the loop. We kept to the right here.
Pirate Jen and parrot
As we walked, we came across the very weird site of two women, one of them hiking with a parrot. I’d never seen anyone hiking with a parrot before, and we’ve seen some weird stuff. Probably the next weirdest thing I’d ever seen was a guy with a little Monkey at Bushkill Falls PA.
They had the parrot trained to stay on their hand, which was interesting. It didn’t seem to mind the attention at all, and since Jen was dressed up Pirate like, there was an obligatory photo!
Masks
We continued down hill, and the other part of Lucy’s Loop Trail came in from the left. We continued out toward the northeast end of the park from here. When we got to near the end, we had to cut through a fence on a foot path to reach the parking area.
We took a nice break at the lot, because we had to wait just a couple of minutes for Craig to show up. He arrived looking like he was all road rashed up (as part of his costume). I went to do the group shot here, and Sean passed out tons of the cardboard cut outs that we’d use on our faces for the group shot, a hilarious idea!
We headed down to Bedford Road and crossed. The north side of the road had a good shoulder on it, and so we hiked this out to the next intersection, where we crossed and got on the Equestrian Access Trail. The trail closely paralleled the road, then paralleled Rt 117 heading west. We went up and down hill a bit, near some horse stables, then passed under 117 along Sleepy Hollow Road.
The trail went back into the woods after going under the highway, up hill and to a split. There was a short trail to the right that we followed, which only came back to the main trail. The next intersection with trails was known as David’s Loop. We hung a right there.
We followed this to Brook Trail, hung another right, then came to the original right of way of the old Putnam Railroad again. It was lined with rocks and obviously had been integrated into the trail system by the family shortly after it’s abandonment.
Old Putnam Rail line
I really wanted to see this, so we followed the right of way to where the trail turned off and it was severed by Rt 117. The trail then headed down hill, and was known as Peaceful Path.
We followed Peaceful Path back Brother’s Path, which becomes Deer Run Trail at Swan Lake. We opted to turn right here, and follow Deer Run back through the woods. The trail had some old deer extruder fences along the west side, so that’s probably why the trail takes it’s name. This trail took us down to the main parking lot at the preserve entrance. We took a break here for everyone to use restrooms.
I was surprised to see this park charged a day use fee. I suppose it’s only for parking because people can enter from elsewhere. Fortunately we were not parked on site or we’d have a lot of necessary dollars. From here, we headed into the woods on Nature’s Way, a narrower but easy trail heading through woods. This was at the request of Marcus, who told us the large glacial erratic on a short spur trail was worth seeing. He described it as an unusual rock that “had no business being there”, so it sounded all good to me.
Glacial erratic
We got to the side trail and turned right, where there was a sort of outdoor classroom in front of the rock. Marcus mentioned it would be easier to climb from the back. Of course, we’d have to get on the thing. I went up first, no surprise followed by Justin. A few of us all went up including Serious Sean, also no surprise. Yie and others soon followed, but by that time some of us were already on our way down.
We followed the path to Old Sleepy Hollow Road Trail, an actual former public road route, perhaps one followed by Icubod Crane in the stories, back toward Sleepy Hollow itself. We crossed a road and then headed across Pocantico River on a bridge. Beyond, we reached Pocantico River Trail, still just another woods road, turned left, and then right on another woods road known as Eagle Hill Trail. This took us gradually up hill through a saddle between two higher points, then passed intersections with a couple of other trails. We continued ahead, and soon reached Gory Brook Road Trail. We turned left here, then right onto Witch’s Spring Trail, another up through woods on a hill. This woods road led us to a right on Spook Rock Trail, which went up to something called “Spook Rock”. I thought might be impressive because it was noted on the map, but I think it was actually a small rock where the trail turns.
After going around the corner we reached Big Tree Loop, more woods roads, and began following that gradually down hill and along a bit of a shelf. We continued right at the next fork where Pocantico River Trail went down. We went up parallel with some nice stone work and around a corner to reach the Old Croton Aqueduct once more. We could see Sleepy Hollow Cemetery from right there. We had made it to very near the end.
Pocantico Weir on Old Croton Aqueduct
We came out next to one of the old stone weir structures that was intended to drain the aqueduct if overfilled or if repairs were needed. Weirs were usually located at strategic locations such as where a large river passes beneath. We began to cross the high fill of the aqueduct, first going back to see if there was a way into the cemetery further up. I figured it’d be easiest to just go in the way we’d gone in in the past. This did not work out well.
As we reached the gate, at 4:30 on the dog (which was closing time), the gate was already locked. Signs clearly said it was open until 4:30, and this was our way out. The fence was slightly open, so we opted to start going in. Unfortunately, a cemetery guy in a car was there and said something about damaging the fence. We told him we just wanted to pass through, and that we were parked on the other side of the cemetery. Certainly he locked the thing up before 4:30 because we were well within sight of it before then. Serious Sean had already thrown his pack over, and so the guy got out of his car to hand it back to him. We figured he might be nice enough to let us pass through, but he wasn’t. He closed the gate early, and even though we were parked just on the other side he chose to endanger the group and directed us to follow the Old Croton Aqueduct all the way out to the next highway and turn right. This was wrong too, because we could cut down earlier than that. Further, Jillane had seen a hole in the fence farther back. We could have gone back around it, but we’d certainly have problems if we were caught in there after this guy finding us. He even asked if we’d like to deal with the local police. He just wasn’t having it. We decided to just continue on the aqueduct route back to town.
We reached a spot where we were above Douglas Park and headed down hill from there. We were then able to walk out to New Broadway, then down Crane Avenue to Anderson Ave, and down Gordon Ave. This took us to Broadway, which we followed to the north, toward the cemetery again.
There were tons more people going into the cemetery at this time. At first I felt pretty miffed at the guy for throwing us out with such a big thing going on, but then we saw that it was a wedding.
On the corner of Pierson Ave, there were two girls selling hot apple cider, so we all stood there and bought some. It was a nice way to end the hike for sure. I strengthened some with some schnapps which made it even better. We then walked north to Palmer Ave, which took us back down to the Phillipse Manor train station to finish up.
This was a really great and relaxing route for the Halloween hike, and I’m really glad we got to explore more of the area. I look forward to doing more in that preserve in the future, but for the time being I had to step back one last time and look at the remaining pieces of the NJ Perimeter I needed to get done for the next Sunday, for that would be the last hike in the series. I already hiked the day before this one, and I had another full day coming up on Tuesday. This was going to be a busy, busy week.
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