Hike #1300; Croton Reservoir to Yorktown Heights

Hike #1300; Croton Reservoir to Yorktown Heights

2/22/20 Croton Reservoir to Yorktown Heights with Polly Delafield, Jack Lowry, Sarah Jones, Professor John DiFiore, Serious Sean Dougherty, Diane Reider, Sue Bennett, Neil George, Annika Krystyna, and Dan Asnis

Group silliness

This next hike would be a point to point, and I think the sixth one in my series to do the entire old Putnam line, which I’d been working on for several years since the first section we had covered out of the Bronx so many years back.

Croton Reservoir view

I had been doing the Putnam line hikes for many years now. I had started by doing the first section between the Marble Hill section of Manhattan up into Van Cortland Park in the Bronx on one of the NYC hikes. On another, we followed the line up into Westchester County, and then headed inland a bit.
A third one took us through Sleepy Hollow and looped us along some of the railroad bed to Rockafeller Preserve area, and then a fourth one covered a section of it in a loop using the Rockafeller Preserve.

Croton Dam Bridge

A fifth hike took us from the Teatown-Kitchewan Trail to the old Putnam line, and then down to where we left off near Rockafeller Preserve. I had done a few other hikes where we used bits of the old rail line, but they were covering what we’d already done.

Funny way to make a sign...electric tape...

There were a lot of different charters in the area, as there always are with these railroads, and eventually the New York and Putnam Railroad completed the line between New York City and Brewster NY in April of 1881. It ran rather closely parallel with other lines, but more inland.
The line was leased starting in the late 1800s, and it became part of the New York Central system in 1913.
It was sort of doomed from the beginning because it didn’t make a direct connection to Grand Central Station in Manhattan, but it did serve towns the other lines did not.

Ridership dwindled into the twentieth century, and some of the spurs from the line were abandoned in the twenties. Passenger service continued until the 1950s when they started to scale it back.
The first section of trackage on the old Putnam line was removed in 1962. From then, more and more of it was scaled back through the seventies and eighties. The last bit of it was abandoned in 1989, save for a short stub of it that serves the Marble Hill station in New York City to this day.
The right of way was sold to the counties to the north at that time and it was developed in sections as a rail trail.
Most of the entire trail is paved, save for the short section in Van Cortland Park, which in my opinion is the best part of the entire thing.
I looked over possibilities and found other area parks I wanted to do. The last time out, we had hiked the entire Teatown-Kitchewan Trail as the first bit of it, but that had lots of little spur trails off of it in the Kitchewan Preserve itself. I wanted to see all of that, so I planned to attach that to the start of the hike.
Also along the way, we would be passing by the Turkey Mountain Nature Preserve.

Croton Reservoir

Since it was such a short distance away, I planned for part of the hike to do the main loop around that, as a side trip, and then we would again return to the railroad grade to go north.
The end, and thus the meeting point, would be Yorktown Heights.
I found a Taco Bell in a shopping center, which of course appeared to be the best option for a meeting point, and we would shuttle to the start from there.
I knew this was going to be a particularly nice hike when I started looking over the route.

Old Croton Dam Bridge

Planning the body of the hikes is always easy. I can come up with between ten and twelve miles like nothing, but trying to figure out the start and end points, and have it be about fifteen miles, can be quite hard.
Fortunately, I found an odd parking area not shown on the trail maps of the area, just on the north side of the Old Croton Dam Bridge over the Croton Reservoir.

Historic marker at Croton Dam Bridge

It would be the perfect place to start, because it really ties together some of the other stuff we had one in the past.
Jack and I used out vans to shuttle to the starting point, which worked out well. The parking area was immediately adjacent to the bridge I had wanted to cross.

Old Croton Dam Bridge

The bridge was odd. It had no walkway at all, and open grate flooring. I was surprised they had this open to public to be able to cross it at all.
This was an historic site from back before the current Croton Reservoir. Just under this bridge, and slightly up stream, the Old Croton Dam exists submerged. This was one of the first really substantial dam created in America.
The dam was built between 1837 and 1842 to provide water for the Old Croton Aqueduct.

1872 engraving of the Old Croton Dam

Back in the 1800s, New York City was growing and they were running out of fresh water to drink. In Manhattan, the main source of water was “The Collect Pond” on the south side.

Abandoned Arcady Rd

They built a tannery on the shore of the collect pond which polluted it terribly.
The water wasn’t really potable, and people started dying due to water borne pathogens. A new, clean source of water was needed quickly.
The Old Croton Aqueduct was designed to carry water from the Croton River, losing one foot of elevation just about every miles. Jonathan Jervis, who also worked on the Delaware and Hudson Canal, was behind a lot of this plan as well.

Along the yellow trail

The city of course outgrew the supply of water the old aqueduct could provide, and the New Croton Aqueduct was constructed.
When the New Croton Dam was completed in 1906, the old dam was submerged to a depth of about 34 feet. That dam is the second largest hand hewn stone structure in the world, behind only the Pyramid at Giza.
Today’s Old Croton Dam Bridge, the through truss structure, spans the reservoir at just about the same point as the original Croton Dam does, hence it’s name.
We headed across the old bridge to the south side, where there are buildings for some sort of reservoir management. I’m not sure what it is exactly.

Old stone walls

We had some great views down along the reservoir, including out toward the Taconic Parkway bridges just to the west.
The road to the right on the other side was open to driving, but to the left had concrete blockades and was shut off.
Just ahead along that road, there was a giant sink hole on the left. We went around the barricades and began following the old road up hill a bit. Eventually, we came around more barricades and a few homes. We continued to follow the road up hill a bit more.

Teatown-Kitchewan Trail crossing Big Brook

Eventually, we came to the trail crossing of the Teatown-Kitchewan Trail. We turned to the left and followed it into the woods. I stopped and let everyone catch up, and let them know what we were going to be doing along this hike.

Old bridge site, Big Brook

We didn’t have to go very far on this trail at all before getting ot the first turn off to the left.
The first loop was the yellow trail, which went slightly up hill onto a little knoll, and then cut down hill to the right to join everyone else.
The loop soon passed through some old stone rows, and then weaved back toward the main trail.
The Kitchewan Preserve was formerly a research facility for the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.

Stone walls of Kitchewan Preserve

The 205 acre preserve is now mass of woods with some open field bits and streams, and lined with stone walls. It makes for a really pleasant walk.

Kitchewan Preserve

As we were cutting back toward the main trail, Serious Sean came walking from the other way and going “YO YO YO! SUP” and the like, and fist bumping everybody. I gave him a swig of my beer first, and he moved on with the fist bumps.
He kept on doing this at every one of the little loops, which was hilarious. He was using an Avenza app to show where we were on the trail map, and cutting us off every time we would make one of the tight corners. Each time, I would pass him my beer, he’d sip, fist bump, and move on saying “YO YO YO”. We made our way back to Teatown-Kitchewan Trail and went left.

Kitchwawan Trail

The main Teatown-Kitchewan Trail is blazed a sort of pink, and is most of the way co-aligned with the white blazed Kitchewan Trail, which started at the same point we entered the park.
The name Kitchewan comes from the Kitchwawonks, a branch of the Mohegan tribe. The land was purchased from them by Stephanus Van Cortland in 1683. Around the time of the Civil War, the land was the property of Fernando Woods, US Representative and Mayor of New York City. He was a Democratic southern sympathizer, and even suggested that New York City secede and become independent of the north.

Little Brook Bridge

The Van Brunt family operated a camp of sorts on the property, and they were the ones that donated the land to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden in 1956. It became a county park starting in 1989.
The first loop trail we took was the Chestnut Hill Trail. We crossed Big Brook on a lovely little stone rock hop crossing, and then turned left slightly to reach the start of the red blazed Hemlock Ravine Trail. The area around the brook is said to have been virgin Hemlock, however I didn’t think it looked that particularly huge.

Kitchawan Trail

The trail took us up slope, then to the left along some lovely old stone rows, then back on itself to return to the Kitchawan Trail again. We saw Dan skip the corner below us on the Kitchawan Trail, which I told him ahead of time he could do if he fell behind. Of course, Serious Sean intercepted again.
We headed up hill slightly and entered a beautiful open field area. The trail route was pretty obvious. I remembered Serious Sean Reardon and John Kosar running around like crazy last time I was at this point.

Ledge Trail

We made a left after the fields into the woods on what I thought was one of the unmarked trails, but it turned out to be the blue one, Old Barn Trail. We followed it slightly up hill and farther to the north than the previous ones. Serious Sean intercepted us on that one up the middle of the loop.
I did not notice a barn on this trail, but apparently it does pass a foundation of one. I did note that we went through a stand of Spruces along the way. They were Norway Spruces. What I did not realize was that these were planted around the home of Fernando Wood. The mansion overlooked the reservoir but was demolished long ago.

Old stone rows

The trail swung back around and rejoined the Kitchawan Trail where we again turned to the left. We crossed Little Brook on a wooden foot bridge, and then turned left on the yellow blazed Little Brook Nature Trail a little ways to along the stream.
We turned to the right away from the stream, and then left from this onto the red blazed Red Oak Trail, which weaved through the woods to the north, on a hillside skirting the boundary of the reservoir property. I had told everyone to wait up when we got to trail intersections.

Ledge Trail

Still, when we got to the Kitchawan Trail again, everyone turned right on the white blazes rather than left, which is what we had done at every turn prior to this. Fortunately, this was literally the only time we would be turning right on that trail by my plan.
We continued down the trail through the woods, and soon intersected with the orange blazed Ledge Trail on the left. We turned here, and climbed slightly over a very pretty mossy ledge, where Rt 134 could be seen clearly. We skirted the edge of the land, and soon came within view of the Croton Reservoir to the south.

Old quarry areas

There was a particularly attractive stone wall that ascended along toward the height of the land here as well.
I spent some time in here chatting with Neil, who I’d not seen in quite a long while. He had been doing FEMA stuff for a while and is now back in New Jersey for a while.
I think he would make an absolutely excellent employee of NJ DEP, and I asked some friends about what opportunities there are to get his foot in the door on something like that. He definitely has the heart for it.

Croton Reservoir bridge

The trail ended again at the Kitchawan Trail. When everyone was together, we took a little break on the hillside. Dan had made it down to the rail trail already and I told him we would meet him at the bridge over the Croton Reservoir.

Croton Reservoir

We soon moved down hill, and then turned right on the yellow blazed Quarry Ridge Trail, which for a bit of time followed along the power line right of way parallel with the rail bed.
Soon, the trail reached and crossed the old Putnam rail line. We continued to the east, and then reached the intersection with the blue blazed quarry road trail.
I spotted a hole ahead on the left, near the trail intersection, which I believed might have been some sort of mine hole, but now I know it was actually a brick quarry.

Croton bridge

I now know that stone was gathered from this area to construct chimneys for area homes back in the day.
The yellow blazed trail cut past the quarry hole, and then around a large rock outcropping closer to the Croton Reservoir. It eventually weaved its way back around and hit the North County Trailway/Old Putnam line.
Just ahead to the north was the old through style truss bridge that carried the railroad over the Croton Reservoir.
The current bridge replaced an older deck trestle of sorts. It appears that the original line existed before the current Croton Dam was in place, and it was required to be raised after that time.
The bridge is really pretty high. I’ve heard people used to jump off of it into the reservoir, which looks rather unnerving, but I suppose it is definitely deep enough for it. I don’t know if I would like that height.

Historic image of the construction of the current bridge

We took a little break at the bridge, because it’s so cool. The trusses are much higher than a lot of other bridges like this, which makes it look rather unique.

Croton Reservoir

This was the furthest north I had ever been on this trail so far, so everything north of here to me was new.
We continued across the bridge, and then took a little break at a park bench spot before reaching the crossing of Rt 118.
Jack of course had his carbon fiber guitar, and was strumming it along the way.
While waiting here, he played the great Beatles song “Across the Universe” which I’ve sang with him so many times before. We sang it again though we couldn’t remember all the words!

Historic image

Historic image of the old Putnam line bridge over the Croton Reservoir, Westchester County NY. Photo by Edward L. May, posted by NYC expert John Ham. Thanks Shane B. for sharing.

Croton Bridge

After that, we went into the “They Might Be Giants” 1990 hit “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”, which I’ve done with him many times. He started out playing that a lot when he formed his band Gypsy Funk Squad (which was originally called “Not Constantinple”).
We continued from here north across Rt 118 at an angle, and went ahead to a parking area. I did not know it at the time, but this was originally the site of the Croton Lake Station on the old Putnam line.

Croton Bridge

There was a pile of stones and such, with a tarp covering it over for construction along the trail, and the station reportedly used to be just about where that was.

1913 Overman tire endurance tour, at Croton Lake Station

A history sign along the trail said that the original Croton Lake Station was a small clapboard building with only a single door on it, but there appears to be discrepancy in photos.

Croton Lake Station

I do not believe there was another Croton Lake Station, unless this was somewhere else entirely. It was on a collection of photos that appear to have been a Putnam line thing.
It’s possible that the original station was destroyed somehow and replaced by the smaller station.
The station was always basically used by hikers and picnic people who would take the train from the city to this point. It was not a regular stop, but rather a “flag stop”, where a flag could be put up to signal the engineer to stop.

Croton Lake Station site

I was surprised to see at the old station site that the trail directly ahead was officially closed. There were chain link fences blocking it. I certainly did not want to be going down hill to walk the highway for who knows how long. There was no one around, and after everyone used the portajohn there, we headed around the fence and soon got out of sight on the trail. It all seemed fine in this section, as it passed through a large cut for a while, then onto a high fill over a small brook. Then we could see why the section of trail was closed.

Old Put

The trail had washed out pretty badly on the south/west side. It had washed out even the pavement. They had erected a fence around the washout at some point, but it had gotten worse to the point that they felt the need to close the trail. There were machines and apparent work going on down below to fill in the problem area.
We simply continued on, and I was able to swing around the fence easily at the other side of the closed area at Birdsall Road. Ahead, the trail looked to be newly paved and was open.

Closed section

Birdsall Avenue was apparently the site of another former station stop known as Croton Heights, which was another flag stop like Croton Lake.

Old Put

It’s possible that the Croton Heights Station was at the next road up, but I can’t be sure.
We continued on a very relaxing section of rail trail heading to the north, parallel with Saw Mill River Road.
We were making very good time. The way I scaled this hike out should have been incredibly accurate. Through the Walkable Westchester trail book, I was able to take each of the loop trails we did and tally the distance of them, plus the distances between sections on Kitchawan Trail.

On the old Put

The rail trail is just as easy to scale off quite exactly, because the google walking directions between points would be very accurate. The last leg of the hike we had to do was a bit more of the rail bed and the loop around Turkey Mountain Nature Preserve, where again I could use the guide book to tally exact trail mileages.
Soon, we reached Croton Heights Road, where there was a modern concrete overpass constructed for the road over the railroad bed. From there, it was only about two and a half miles direct to the end point.

Croton Heights bridge

My plan from here was to climb up from the bridge and go left on Croton Heights Road to reach the Turkey Mountain Nature Preserve, then loop through there.

Old camp ruins

I had a plan for Dan to do a shorter version of the loop up there if he needed to, and my route would be to use as much of the trails up there as possible, with the main loop as well as a lot of looping around.
Annika was hungry and decided that with only a little over two miles left, she would just walk back to the cars. Dan decided to go with her instead of doing any more of the hike. The rest of us continued up to the right from the bridge underpass and crossed over Saw Mill River Road heading west.

Board walk on the white trail

The road skirted the Rock Ledge Golf Course to the left, which looked like it hadn’t been maintained. At first, I thought it was just fields parallel with us.
To the left, there was a gate with metal that read “Sanctuary” on it. It appears to be private land now, but I’m not sure if it is still a course or what. Google maps seems to show it as such.
The road became dirt base from there and continued into the parking area for the Turkey Mountain Nature Preserve. There was a nice kiosk thing to the left.

Climbing Turkey Mountain

The land of Turkey Mountain was owned by the Griffen family from Colonial times until 1917. Four hundred acres of the land was purchased by Lydia Loch and turned into Loch Ledge, a nature preserve.
She tried to sell the land to Yorktown for use as a school, but they refused, so in 1951, she sold 125 acres to the Child Services Leage for Boys out of Queens, New York to operate it as a Summer Camp. The camp was in operation from 1957 until 1964 when financial difficulties led them to close down.

Turkey Mountain view

The Save Turkey Mountain Committee formed the following year to try to preserve the land. Yorktown put in $30,000 toward preservation to match contributions of two other families, and it became a park and educational facility in 1969.

Croton Reservoir and Hudson River from Turkey Mountain

We started by heading directly into the park on the white trail. These trails were marked with circular discs with the name of the preserve on them. Occasionally there were old paint blazes to be seen, but mostly they were all recently replaced by nailed on markers.

Atop Turkey Mountain

Soon, we turned left on a yellow trail which went over toward the south side of the preserve.
These trails were very pleasant for walking and had barely any change in elevation along them.
We followed the yellow trail to a green trail that went to the right, and we followed the green trail to the white trail again and went left.
Along the way, there were some foundations to the right, and right on the trail directly. These must have been some of the remains of the Summer Camp that used to be there.

View from Turkey Mountain

We turned left again at the other end of the green trail back to the south again, which returned us to the yellow trail. This is all in a tight area, but I was milking the preserve for all of the miles it had. We turned right on yellow, which took us over a small brook. The white trail crossed the same within sight of this, but did so on a longer boardwalk. The trail turned right to join the white trail ahead, where we turned left and crossed yet another little boardwalk. Beyond, the trail starts the climb up Turkey Mountain.

View toward NYC, Hudson River, and Croton Reservoir

I was told earlier by a friend of John’s, who was going to hike with us for a bit but had other commitments, that the best way to go is up white and down blue trails. He said the white trail is steeper, and its better to get that done on the way up than the way down. I decided to go with his suggestion.

Another view on Turkey Mountain

On the way up, Jack passed his guitar off to Serious Sean, who started playing all sorts of stuff as well until we reached the top. I can’t remember all of them, but I do remember singing along to “Let’s Spend The Night Together” by the Rolling Stones on the way up.

World Wide Stout!

The conversation turned to music, as these things tend to go, and how when the Stone appeared on Ed Sullivan, they were forced to change the lyrics to “Let’s Spend some Time Together”, but when The Doors played Ed Sullivan, and performed “Light My Fire”, they did not omit the word “higher” as requested.
Following this, we sang along to Sean playing “Touch Me”, and then a piece of “La Woman”. There was definitely something that came up after that one toward the top before passing the guitar back to Jack and I don’t recall what, nor can I recall what Jack played next.

On the way down on the blue trail

We paused for a very nice break just below the very top. There were so many people at the top, in several different gangs, so we were better off being down a little lower.
From the top, at 831 feet above sea level, we could see all around, but the best view was of the Croton Reservoir with the Hudson River visible beyond.
The New York City skyline was also visible, but it was too bright, and the cityscape was hard to see. I tried to capture it in a photo, but it’s still hard to see even when studying it very closely. There had also been a view to the east climbing up.

The group

The white trail ended at the very top of the mountain, and the blue one began to make the other end of the loop. There must have been a tower up there at one time, because there was a couple of concrete blocks built into the rocks not far away from where we sat.

John plays too!

It was Polly’s birthday on Monday, so I gave her a bottle of World Wide Stout, which I had been wanting to try forever.
This was not just the regular World Wide Stout, this was the oak aged vanilla world wide stout, which is even less common and more expensive.
When I had gone to the Mountain Valley Liquors owned by Dave English in Washington, they let me know that I had two ten percent off discounts that I’d never used, but they could only be used on a single item.

Wildlife blind pointing to the trail...

I didn’t want to waste it on something crummy, or just some negligible amount somewhere.
I had been looking at the World Wide Stout for a very long time and wanted to try it, but it just cost too much, and the vanilla oak aged variety was only sold by the individual bottle.
Thanks to the kindness of the cashier, I was able to put four of the same vanilla variety in a four pack and get the price for the four pack, and I was also permitted to use both of the discounts at the same time, which made this special variety even cheaping than the regular price of the normal World Wide Stout. I couldn’t turn that down.

Turkey Mountain Nature Preserve

Well, this beer was absolutely amazing. One of the best I have ever tried of any kind.
Dogfishhead really makes some outstanding beers. One of my all time favorites is Old School, which is by the same brewery.
I had everyone who cares about such things have a taste of the World Wide Stout. I’m now aging the other two I’d gotten.
We continued along the blue trail along a bit of a ridge, and then descended at a really steep spot after another view. The trail then got a lot easier and headed back to the south.

Mossy section of Turkey Mountain

We weaved around some nice topography and some big rocks, and Neil and I got way ahead of everyone.
At one point when we were waiting, I was surprised to see John walking up playing Jack’s guitar. I did not know he played at all before, so it was one of those surprise moments again. I didn’t know the first song he was playing, but another one he brought out next, which I can’t remember what it was, I sang along with him on.
We turned to the right when we got to the next trail section, because we were to the main body of trails in the preserve again, and I was going to milk it for more

Big Tree at Turkey Mountain Nature Preserve

The next point of interest was a wildlife observation blind that I could make no sense of. The trails were tightly knit together, and so they came close, but this blind literally pointed from a rocky spot directly at the next trail below it.

The thing was more of a human watching blind for creepers than anything else.
We continued south a bit more, and weaved around in a looping fashion through some rocky outcroppings and then back to the parking lot where we had come in.
I think at some point John played the Temptations song “My Girl” and I sang along with him.
Further along the way, Jack and Sean played and sang one of the Motown song covers they Rolling Stones did. I don’t think it was “Just My Imagination”, but I can’t remember exactly which one it was.

On the trail

We started heading back down Croton Heights Road toward the railroad bed again, and we checked out an enormous tree on the way. Once at the bottom, we regrouped at the bridge underpass before moving on to the north. Annika and Dan were texting me wondering how much longer we would be. I let them know it was about two and a half miles further to the north.
John still hard Jack’s guitar, and he started playing “The Lunatic” by Pink Floyd during out brief pause.
There was a ball that everyone was kicking around on the trail, which I think Sarah brought with her. Kirk was going crazy on kicking one of them on the Connecticut hike that it has become a thing now, and everyone was joining in on it.

Silliness on the trail

A lot of the group was starting to get hungry. There was one place we could have stopped for lunch potentially before Turkey Mountain, but I missed the turn when I was distracted by the washout section.
We crossed Revere Drive at grade, and then moved ahead to another nice spot where there was a bench. We decided to take a break there.
During this time, there were even more songs coming out. I don’t recall what all of them were, but I do remember there was some Tom Petty. I think Sean played “Refugee”, and then “American Girl”. I did my best to sing Journey’s “Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin’” but my voice was pretty shot from singing stuff all day, so Sean said he’ll remember to bring that out early in the day one of these days.
We continued on north from here, and Sean held onto the guitar to bring out several more numbers including some stuff by Steve Miller Band.

Kickin the ball on the trail

I recall him playing “Jet Airliner” and tried to sing some harmonies on it. He also did “Serenade” which I was able to harmonize on some.

Group silliness

We continued north and passed under another concrete culvert that was built after the railroad was abandoned, which took us beneath Old Country Way.

Break time

Beyond there, the rail bed took us out onto a low fill over a swampy area that was quite pretty. We entered town when we saw a circular patriot garden to the left.

Group silliness

We soon came really close to Underhill Avenue, and then crossed over it after its ninety degree bend.
There was a manicured park area just ahead from here, and we cut over to the left to reach the Yorktown Shopping Center where we had parked.
I was an idiot for looking over that way, because I didn’t even notice that the historic Yorktown Heights train station is still standing just to the right of us. I’ll have to be sure I get some shots of it on the next section I do beyond this point. It’s really quite a nice structure.

Underpass

When we got to the lot, everyone kind of congregated together. Annika and Dan had aited for us to get back.
It was decided we would get something to eat somewhere, and after some discussion, the Yorktown Coach Diner was selected to be the best place.
I didn’t have to bother driving over there. We mostly all just walked to get there across the lot.
I had a Chicken Fiesta dish it was called on the menu, which was quite delicious but not as filling as I’d hoped for.

Over the wetlands

We hung out at the diner for a while, and when it came time to decide who was going to drive Jack and I back to our vans, no one seemed very open to it.

On the trail

I had sort of volunteered Dan to take us back, but he all of a sudden disappeared and left us there. It was probably because I told him I was going to take my pants off in his car, and I did exactly that the last time I was in it, so he didn’t want me in there again.
Fortunately, Serious Sean and Polly were still there to get us back there. It’s really not a far drive on this one.
At this point, I have only one more hike to complete the old Putnam line I believe. It looks like there is no more than 17 miles remaining to get to the terminus in Brewster.

On the trail

From there, it appears that there will probably be only three hikes necessary to connect from Brewster to Hopewell Junction where we had recently completed the hike from Poughkeepsie. That route is to be trail beside active railroad.

In Yorktown Heights

These hikes fit into a much larger series we have been working on, known as the Empire State Trail. Even the stuff we are doing out onto Long Island is actually very close to that route. With three more hikes, we’ll have done all of the Empire State Trail pretty much from New York City all the way through to Rosendale NY. There are several missing bits in the Hudson River valley, but it all looks like it will be quite interesting to continue with it, and there are countless more little parks worth the side trips just like we did on this one. I hope to at least complete the Putnam division by April.

HAM