Hike #690; Riverdale/Bronx/Hastings-On-Hudson

 Hike #690; Riverdale, Bronx, Old Put, and Hastings-On-Hudson

3/17/13 Riverdale/Bronx to Hastings-On-Hudson with Frank Meloi, Jason Kumpas, Amanda Murphy, Jaque Melo, Oscar Alvaredo, Chrissy Malvasi, Laura Danforth, Bob Jones, Daniela, ?, Ted Wright, Manasi ?

The group on Old Putnam Trail

Our next big hike would be to kick start a series to cover the entire Old Putnam line, former NY Central Railroad that travelled from the Bronx far up into Putnam County. It was torn up in the seventies I believe, after passenger service was discontinued in the fifties or sixties. I put together a route that would incorporate both the rail trail and the other trails, parks, and interesting points between two stations: Riverdale and Hastings-On-Hudson.We met in the morning at the latter, and took the train south to Riverdale. Jason, Amanda, Bob, Jaque and Chrissy joined us there.

We began by wandering around the station for the views of the Hudson and the NJ Palisades, which were impressive. We had to wait a bit for Jaque to show up anyway. Once she was there, we walked a block up the street from the station to get into Riverdale Park on a nice trail.

The Wave Hill center was close by. We didn't go into this because they charge a fee and it was separated from us by a fence. Another time. There were some nice buildings in view. There must also have been a tennis court nearby, because there were countless tennis balls stuck to the root ball of a fallen tree. It was like the tree grew them.

We continued on the trail and had to come out to Palisade Ave at one point because there were private homes separating part of the park. Still, this was a really nice little trail area. We went back into the woods on the other side, then headed south until the trail once again emerged on Palisade Ave. We then crossed directly into Seton Park, in the undeveloped section on an old roadway. A side trail led off of this and up to the developed section. The piece of park was full of foundation ruins and some really nice giant trees.

In the developed park, we crossed directly to 235th street, hung a left and a right one block north, then crossed Henry Hudson Parkway on a nice pedestrian bridge. We headed a bit east on 235th, and stopped for some food at local eateries. Frank got some crummy wine that was low alcohol, and I had a taco breakfast at a place with a sign reading that their rating for cleanliness was "pending". Still, the taco was AWESOME.

We headed one block to the north from here, then headed out to Riverdale Ave followed by Fieldstone Road. We turned right at this point onto 238th Street. This street led directly to the Riverdale Steps. The steps were something I found on Google, a dramatic dropoff where the street ends and pedestrian stairway descends to the next part of street. I found this to be odd, and something not normally to be considered a destination, but I liked it, so included it.

At the bottom, we turned left onto Irwin Ave, then right onto 240th which became Van Cortland Park south when we passed under the railroad bridge, under which Broadway runs. This was also an interesting scene. Manasi was trying to join us here, and we waited for her but had a miscommunication. We ended up waiting a while, but it still worked out. The two new girls opted to cut out and head home because we were waiting too long, and Manasi was at the wrong corner. We all continued onto the Old Putnam Trail into Van Cortland Park. This followed an abandoned branch of the New York Central Railroad which ended passenger service in the fifties, and different sections ran freight until the 70s I think. It was then turned into a trail way far to the north across Westchester County and into Putnam. I decided this should be one of the trails we'd take on to try to do the entire thing. This would be the first "official" section hike on it, though we walked a section of it before getting to the Old Croton Aqueduct on two past hikes.

In Van Cortland Park, the trail is unimproved and quite beautiful. One would never expect such from New York City. it looks just as abandoned railroads do in my home of Warren County, and it's really not very noisy. The ties were still in place, and the surface was just cinder. It was quite nice. There were ruins of what looked to be an old station at the lower end of the park.

We followed the right of way, known here as Old Putnam Trail, out of the park. Manasi met up with us on this section. At the boundary of the park, it became South County Trailway, entering Westchester County. There was an initiative to pave the trail on through Van Cortland Park, but there's also an initiative to stop that. I agree with keeping it as it is, like an echo of what it was. The pavement would be terrible for runners. We had some wine in  red cups, and moved on.

The cool thing about the South County Trailway section was that it had interpretive signs along the way every place there would have been a station. The first one we got to was Lincoln. I don't remember much of this one, because we were moving by pretty well. The trail closely paralleled Saw Mill River Parkway for quite a while, which was kind of annoying and not the nature experience we'd have liked it to be, but it turned away from there quite a bit which made it doable. We skirted the left side of Tibbets Brook Park, which was nice, on a hillside, and passed Dunwoodie Station site. There were usually maps and photos of the site back in those days on the interpretive signs. I took pictures of each one we passed.

We found a ball along the way, which we kicked around most of the hike on the Old Put. Oscar at one point kicked it somewhere out of reach, and was going to leave it until he found out that the group had given the ball a name...though I don't remember what that was.

The trail crossed a bridge over Yonkers Ave with a ball field below us to the left, and people playing. People could watch the game from up on the rail bed, which was sort of neat. Beyond the bridge, there was this weird motel that looked like sort of a morgue. We joked about what kind of place could be run in seemingly an undesirable area. It was certainly just a reused old industrial building. Beyond this point was the former Bryn Mawr station and neighborhoods. We paralleled Dunwoodie Golf club, and headed through a sort of shelf and cut around pleasant residential areas.  The trail headed a bit east, then north again with a neat spot where it came close to the NY state throughway. There were some nice rock cuts on the line here.

Beyond this point was a spot with some stores below us to the right, and the former Nepperhan Station site. Jaque had a family event to get to, and so cut out here following roads to return to the stations. She fortunately made it back okay. Some of the group went down to the stores to use the restrooms at Dunkin Donuts and get some snacks. Frank and Laura headed pretty far ahead of the rest of the group, and my phone was dead from trying to get in touch with people earlier, so I couldn't catch them. Fortunately, Oscar pulled Frank's number off of his facebook account and was able to get in touch with him. He and Laura stopped at some sort of diner or something ahead.

We crossed an odd bridge over Rt 9A just after rejoining Laura and Frank, and passed the Grey Oaks station site. We continued from here on to the former Napera Park station site. The railroad once again closely paralleled The Saw Mill River Parkway, and at this site there was the remains of a gate where an entrance used to be. On the right there were some wooden remnants and ruins of where the station was. We checked this out for a bit. I should have continued into the woods, for their was an abandoned bridge over the Saw Mill River off to the right, but we were too caught up with the station site.

We continued from here further north to  pass former Mt. Hope station site, and then beyond to the former Chauncey Station site. Oscar and I checked out ruins at this point that had badly rested through remains of some I beams in concrete foundations. When we reached the next road at Chauncey, we turned left to leave the "Old Put". We crossed over Sawmill River Parkway at a traffic light, and continued to a hillside beyond. There was a steep off trail ascend where I gave everyone the option of going up or heading around to follow the roads on a longer route. Everyone wanted to head up hill.

We scrambled over rock outcroppings and crossed an abandoned paved former road, and reached Ogden Ave at the top. The road we would have walked to reach this site would have been Danforth Ave. I wonder if the namesake was a relation of Laura's?

Once on Ogden Ave, we took a group picture into a mirror, then immediately cut off of the road at a sharp bend into some woods only to find a trail by accident! The trail had an Asian name, but I can't remember what it is. I took a picture of the sign. There was abandoned car along the route which we of course had to check out. We followed the trail to an intersection, where we went left on an overlook trail. Sure enough, we got a nice seasonal overlook into the Saw Mill River valley, and there were some ruins of what appeared to be old tower footings. The trail led slightly down hill from here on a different colored route into a cleft in the hillside. Originally, I intended to come into Hillside Park beyond by way of an access trail from what is called the "Childrens Village", but that wasn't necessary with this good trail system.

The trail led down hill and soon reached the Fire Hydrant Trail and Algonquin Trail. We turned left on Algonquin and headed down hill. There were still huge blow downs from the previous storms, but the treadway was moved to around them. The trail entered Hillside Woods Park, and there was an abandoned bus along the left side of the trail, with "Magic Bus" painted on the side. The trail continued to the south side of the park, skirted some homes with connector trails to streets, and we started passing more people. We turned to the west and made our way on another trail out to the Hillside School and Hillside Park. We crossed the parking lot and school yard, then picked up the Chemka Pool Trail, part of the Hastings Trailway. This nice little trail had some good seasonal views as it left the school yard and descended through some woods out to Farlane Drive. We crossed the road and then followed Chauncey Lane parallel with another park called Reynolds Field. This contiguous tract of open space led right on to the Old Croton Aqueduct. We turned left on the aqueduct trail, and followed it south from here to Washington Street after crossing 9W. There was a neat old church and cemetery to the right of the trail I hadn't noticed on my previous trip through this section.

We descended on Washington street rather steeply, and rolled golf balls down it as we walked. At the bottom, we turned right on Southside Ave, which led us right back to where we were parked. Jason, Amanda, Chrissy, and Manasi had to get the train back pretty much right away. A few of us went out to have a bit to eat at an irish pub, in celebration of St. Patrick's Day of course, just up the road. A great way to end quite an interesting hike!