2/17/19 Plainview to Huntington NY with Stephen Argentina, Serious Sean Dougherty, James Quinn, Alex Gisser, Craig Craig, Christine D, Cindy Browning, and Jennifer Tull
This next hike would be the next in our Long Island series, and complete the Nassau-Suffolk Greenbelt we had been working on.
Blue Dot Trail in the Manetto Hills
The last hike took us to Plainview, a settlement in the center of the island where some trails all come together including one through the Manetto Hills, and the Walt Whitman Trail. I’d like to do that one in the future as well, but there’s just too much to include into the main series. I want to work on getting across the entire island, and so I do have to pick and choose a bit.
I made the meeting point the Spot N Shop in Huntington. I wanted to have an end point that would be a bit out of the way from the trail, because I wanted to get some of the crappy road walking stuff out of the way for the next hike.
Ropes course in the Manetto Hills
There’s another state park on the Long Island Sound to the north that I still want to do also, but I figured it’d be best to save that for maybe another trip where we head west or something. I haven’t figured that out yet. As of now, my goal is to cover the best of Long Island heading to the east, and continue making our way east.
I offered to pick Stephen up on the way at a railroad station, but he ended up missing the train and running really late.
Blue Dot Trail in the Manetto Hills
I was able to get in touch with the others, and asked them to work out the shuttle to the start point, and then I would meet them there. Fortunately, James was coming and he has lots of room. Stephen and I met them where we had finished the previous hike in Plainview.
When we did the previous hike, we made a loop with the Bethpage Bikeway and the Nassau-Suffolk Greenbelt at the end to add some mileage. We had finished earlier than anticipated, which was why I changed the route of the start of this hike.
Nassau Suffolk Greenbelt Trail
We followed the combined Bethpage Bikeway and Nassau Suffolk Greenbelt beneath the Long Island Expressway, and the bikeway then turns to the left. Nassau-Suffolk Greenbelt goes to the right, and a blue dot blazed trail goes to the right across Washington Ave into the Manetto Hills. The route joins with the Walt Whitman Trail, which goes off into other parks to the east, and then loops back to Nassau-Suffolk Greenbelt.
Archway with ornaments
I opted to do this because it would just be a longer version of the main trail we were to follow, and I figured it’d be a nice way to start off and cover other area trails.
We followed the trail up a gradual hill. The section of the greenbelt to the south has a lot less topography, but the northern part of the island are terminal moraines from past glaciation. That makes for much more interesting and undulating terrain.
Big Tree and James
The trail weaved through woods, and then came to the top of a slope with a fence. Another trail was aligned with it at first, with some kind of triangle markers for mountain bikes. We continued on the blue dot blazes, which turned to the left and followed the fence line for a bit. There was barely any view through it, and then we lost some more elevation to the north.
We skirted an area that looked like a school to the north for a bit, and there was a large ropes course. I did a ropes class when I was in high school, and it was a lot of fun.
Along Nassau Suffolk Trail
This one was much more intense than anything we had, with a lot more wood and wires and such.
We continued on this trail to the north, and soon we intersected with the Walt Whitman Trail, which goes to the east to the West Hills Park lands. I will one day have to connect with that I suppose, but that will be a future one.
We turned left on the blue dot, which also had regular blue blazes from time to time.
Descending to Long Island Railroad
The trail soon crossed a road and then skirted a cemetery property, then turned left until we came out to Washington Avenue again. The trail turns right to follow the road past a church and some residential areas. After passing Harvard Drive, it turns left into the woods again past a house, and then into a swath of woods sandwiched between the development homes and the Northern State Parkway. It got more secluded as we continued.
Descending to Long Island Railroad
Soon, we reached the intersection with the Nassau-Suffolk Greenbelt, on a bit we had done on the previous hike. We turned right on it here, and followed it parallel with Northern State Parkway, along some undulating little hills north of a little industrial area. The trail spat us out then on Sunnyside Blvd near the on ramp to Northern State Parkway. We hung out at the intersection for a bit because Serious Sean and Cindy were meeting up with us there. It didn’t take them long to catch up.
Long Island Railroad underpass
Once together, the trail crossed over the on ramp, and went through a little swath of woods quickly before coming up onto the Sunnyside bridge across Northern State Parkway. I thought it was kind of funny that there was an almost pointless bit of trail through this tiny swath of woods.
On the other side, the trail turned to the right, downhill and into more woods. Just as we entered, a group of cyclists were going by. The hiking trail turned right just ahead, while the bike trail for CLIMB (Concerned Long Island Mountain Bikers) went left. I had a beer out on the road, which they probably thought looked weird.
Ascending through bamboo
It was an interesting bourbon barrel aged quadruple stout, of a company I don’t quite recall. I wouldn’t buy it again because it was so obnoxiously carbonated. I could barely drink the damn stuff. I had opened one and tried to drink it before, and it was fizzing over like crazy. I had to shake it and hold my thumb over the mouth to try to slowly release the fizz. When I got one of them down to below half and most of the carbonation gone, I opened a second one and had to double fist, and slowly pour the too carbonated stuff into the more diluted stuff in my other hand. It reminded me of a strong St. Paulie Girl, which is a beer so awfully carbonated it makes me want to flip out and throw lettuce.
Nassau Suffolk Trail
We turned onto the hiker only trail to the north, north of the Northern State Parkway, and then cut to the north. Like the previous hike, the mountain biking route and the hiking route are often very close together, to the point that we can hear the sounds of the bicycle cranks, but not often see them.
We continued to cross Woodbury Road next, and crossed over some puncheons and such. We then came out to Jericho Turnpike where Trail View State Park had a parking area directly across.
Nassau Suffolk Greenbelt
I didn’t foresee very many opportunities to stop for food on this one, but there was a Stop and Shop to the left here. We took the opportunity to stop for food over there.
Serious Sean and I went in babbling and pretending to be very old men, complaining about kids and their damned Tick Tock videos and whatever other improvisation came to mind. James was in the bathroom with us when we were going on about it, and some guy walked in all wide eyed and speechless.
Nassau Suffolk Greenbelt in Stillwell Woods
We wandered around the store looking for food. I forget what I got. Probably chocolate or something. I can’t remember. They didn’t really have any good beers in there.
We hung out in the front for a bit, and Sean played some songs and such. I forget what we were singing along to earlier on in the hike. There’s always something.
When we were all ready to go, we headed over to the Trailside State Park parking area, and headed into the woods on the trail. The bike path split again, and occupied the west side of the narrow swath, while the Nassau Suffolk Trail kept to the east side.
Never completed rail bed
We came to a spot with a view through the trees of the intersection with Woodbury Road and Syosett-Woodbury Road. The trail went down and then back up on the other side somewhat steeply. I found it more impressive the topography in this portion of the trail than what we’d done.
The trail went over some upland, and then started to descend again when we got to the route of the Port Jefferson Branch of the Long Island Railroad. This line was built between the 1850s and extended through the 1870s to points east.
Never completed railroad to Cold Spring Harbor
The trail down toward the railroad tracks was really nice. Steps and switchbacks had been added that were quite impressive. We could see the former trail routes with lots of sticks and stuff piled on the parallel with us as we made our way downward. The cycle route joined with the route we were on at some point, and continued down to the dead end of the closed off Whitney Lane. The underpass below the railroad was open only to pedestrians, so we went through, and then immediately turned left and up hill through some thick bamboo.
Never completed railroad to Cold Spring Harbor
We climbed above the railroad and reached a point with some nice steps built to ascend into the Stillwell Woods Park.
Our only newcomer on this hike, Christine D. who Cindy knows from somewhere, had previous commitments and had to cut out at this point. Because it was a long stretch to the next road, and Stillwell Woods would be the most secluded portion of the entire hike, she opted to head back to Whitney Lane and Uber out.
Nassau Suffolk Trail
The rest of us continued to climb and regrouped at the top of a hill where the trail went in a couple of different directions.
Sean and I were singing songs while he played his nice wooden acoustic guitar. I recall somewhere in this area we started getting into a Beach Boys kick. Cindy requested “Don’t Worry Baby”, which we did, and that was followed by “God Only Knows” and “I Can Hear Music” when we reached an open field area that the trail skirted.
Nassau Suffolk Trail
We got into a long discussion about albums we liked by the Beach Boys. Of particular interest have always been the late sixties albums that most people don’t tend to know. Pet Sounds, from 1966, was a very popular sort of concept album that had hits like “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”, “God Only Knows”, and “Sloop John B”. With the exception of “Good Vibrations”, the Beach Boys output from then on sort of waned, but it was all stuff that I liked. The albums “Smiley Smile”, “Wild Honey”, “Friends”, and “20/20” closed out the sixties, and “Sunflower” and “Surf’s Up” ushered in the seventies. Their albums “Carl and The Passions: So Tough” and “Holland” are also favorites of mine.
Rest stop on Nassau Suffolk Greenbelt Trail between Stillwell Woods and Cold Spring Harbor State Park NY
I don’t remember for sure what it was, but Sean pulled out some crazy lesser known song he knew the chords to that I’d never heard played before.
Another of my favorite tracks, and a favorite instrumental of all time, “The Nearest Faraway Place”, was one that Sean strummed some of the chords to as we walked through the ups and downs of the Stillwell hills.
Somehow along the way here, Sean brought up Billy Joel. It’s only appropriate that Joel’s music would come up, as his first solo album’s name was Cold Spring Harbor, where this trail ended. Sean was playing some stuff, but I can’t remember what the first related track was he played.
We made our way to the north through sometimes deeply rutted trails, and soon reached Stillwell Lane. Here, the trail crossed almost direct, then continued on a level grade that switched between fill and shelf on a rather high hill.
Big beeches on Nassau Suffolk Trail
I interrupted our conversation when I realized that this looked like a railroad bed, but I knew of no railroad that ever went up this far toward Cold Spring Harbor.
I ended up doing some research into what was going on in this area, and I believe I’ve found what it was.
The predecessors to the Long Island Railroad had been extended to Syosett, just to the west of us, in 1854. The Long Island Railroad was busy extended eastward around this time period, and charters for different railroads were coming along quite often as I have read.
Nassau Suffolk Trail
Among the projects was a line to connect from Syosett to Northport, and connect with Cold Spring Harbor. A route was surveyed and work was under way in 1867 under corporate powers of the Long Island Railroad. The line was met with opposition from Oliver Charlick, President of Long Island Railroad who disagreed on where the station would be located. All work was abandoned on the extension to Cold Spring Harbor, and the line was built to bypass it to the south, as well as the town of Huntington.
Stones in a tree...
Based on what I have read and looked at, the planned railroad bed is now Stillwell Lane up to where we reached it, and then the grade continues into the park lands to the north. A private driveway may be built on it after the trail turns away a bit. The route even had some pretty nice cuts on it. I was definitely surprised to find such infrastructure built and abandoned. I wonder if my buddy Russ Nelson knew about this rather obscure and forgotten never completed railroad. It might be one of the rail trails he has to add to his list, because he’s for all intensive purposes done every single rail trail in the entire state of New York!
When I’d satisfied my curiosity with mental notes and photography, I returned to my music conversations with Serious Sean.
Nassau Suffolk Trail
Billy Joel’s Cold Spring Harbor album from 1971 was not really a hit record, but it has fantastic tracks on it. The most famous one is without a doubt “She’s Got A Way”, but it’s not nearly my favorite one.
My favorite track from the album is actually one of my favorite of all of Joel’s songs, “Everybody Loves You Now”. It’s the song from the album that actually mentions Cold Spring Harbor.
He resurrected the song, as well as She’s Got a Way and a couple of older album cuts in the 1980s live album “Songs in the Attic”. The song has a good acoustic guitar sound to it, and I was surprised Sean didn’t know of it, so I looked it up on my phone to play it back for him.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/T2zjVszdiXA
Everybody Loves You Now
I can’t really play guitar, but I figured it sounded like kind of simple chord progressions, C, D minor, F, C… the kind of thing that’d be fun to play. Not surprisingly at this point, Sean had the song figured out in a few minutes. By the time we left the railroad bed and got to the bottom of a hill, he was playing and I was singing the song in its entirety.
View toward the bay
We took the trail down and across a foot bridge on a nice little brook next to Harbor Road and took a little break. I believe there were a few other songs here coming up, but I can’t remember which.
The trail continued from here parallel with Harbor Road just barely into the trees, then it turned right and crossed the road to climb somewhat steeply through Beech trees and up to the slopes of what would become Cold Spring Harbor State Park.
While we walked these slopes, Sean got on a Billy Joel kick, and we did “She’s Got A Way”, followed by “Anthony’s Song”, “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant”, “Piano Man”, and some other off the wall ones like “Pressure”.
Nassau Suffolk Trail
The Inner Harbor was now in view, and we could see out to Long Island Sound. There had been a couple of lakes prior to that before, which I thought was the harbor at first, but it wasn’t too far till we actually got to it.
Heading up hill, we passed through a lovely little forest of Mountain Laurels, and the view of the water through the trees was outstanding. It was such a different type of thing than anyone would expect to see on Long Island, I really loved it.
View in Cold Spring Harbor State Park
We crossed Lawrence Hill Road as we were getting closer to the end of the sloped section.
View through the trees
Cindy and Sean were going to cut out early in this area, but I convinced them to stay for the views of the bay.
The trail descended from here a bit, by way of more wooden steps, and ended at a little kiosk with information and such. Sean played “Dear Prudence” here.
From this point, we headed out to the Harbor Road and turned right. We passed the Billy Joel Park and Boat Ramp on the left.
View in Cold Spring Harbor State Park
Just a little bit ahead, we turned to the left into grassy park lands where there were great views out into Cold Spring Harbor. It was a really beautiful little place along the waterfront with unobscured views.
We headed back inland from here, and passed a 911 memorial, a girder with a bit of cement in it. We then passed an historic marker to Israel Ketchum, who was from Cold Spring Harbor. While jailed for counterfeiting, he revealed a plot to assassinate George Washington in June of 1776.
Hillside with laurels
There was another interesting building in the park near the corner that looked like it could have been a little old school house or something. I couldn’t find any information on the site.
We continued from here to walk up Main Street to the east. I figured that we could stop and get a bit to eat because it wasn’t even 3:30 yet. We’d moved along at a really good pace with hardly any breaks, so we got most of the distance done fast.
View in Cold Spring Harbor State Park
We went to a couple of little spots, but they all looked too fancy for the likes of us.
Nassau Suffolk Greenbelt
One of them was ready to take us in, but the menu was showing that a simple burger was $18. I’m low on funds right now, so I certainly can’t be paying something like that for a burger. So, we continued on along Main Street, which took us up hill and out of Cold Spring Harbor, past a golf course, and then headed back down hill toward Huntington.
On the way, we passed the First Church of Christ Scientist. James and I particularly found this to be funny and strange, because we’d never seen anyone refer to Jesus as a Scientist.
Nassau Suffolk Trail
It turns out this is a worldwide denomination affiliated with Christian Science, where members attempt to showcase the healing powers of Jesus and find modern day examples of Christian healing. The denomination may have less than 100,000 members remaining worldwide, and this church appeared to be closed now.
The congregation has dwindled and the building we saw was for sale, and their congregation is reportedly using another church’s space at different times.
Cold Spring Harbor
A bit of sadness comes over me when I see this vacant looking places of worship.
Nassau Suffolk Greenbelt
I’m not sad because people have lost their faith, but more so because they have lost their sense of community and positive congregation. It is stark contrast to me that we have such unity and congregation regardless of faith and the fact that we are not gathering in a physical temple. People are losing themselves because they’re losing one another, and the religions which used to hold people together through fear or faith requirement have fallen out of favor.
Nassau Suffolk Greenbelt
Religious documents have always been like government documents, so completely engorged with mundane lingo that the great messages contained within them are lost in the pulp of it all.
“Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
The redundant Revelations 21:3
View of Cold Spring Harbor
The Bible is completed stuffed with wordage that the good messages it tries to convey are lost in nearly constant reiterating how important it is to have faith and believe.
“To answer before listening — that is folly and shame.” Proverbs 18:13
A master can highlight the phrases and save these tomes from obsolescent oblivion, but the church has very few champions who will question past interpretations, and denominational leaders are too rigid to break irrelevant traditions that have no true relation to the words contained within.
Vacan Church of Christ Scientist
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Romans 8:18
Earlier in the day, when we passed beneath trees full of ornaments, there was one that stood out to me with simply the word “hope”.
This is a word that often repels me. It’s love/hate relationship, because I feel far too many people rely on hope.
End of Nassau Suffolk Greenbelt
They get so hung up on their desired result that the disappointment in failure is all the more debilitating. Often, hope turns people to faith and prayer, and can be the catalyst for either abandoning or fully embracing religion.
On the other hand, there should be a recognition that hope is there. It’s never too late. It’s always worth it, whatever it is. A lack of hope will feed just as easily into deep depression and despair.
Nassau Suffolk Greenbelt
The answer is finding balance with hope. Don’t get drunk and then hung over on it, but don’t hold back from having a drink either.
Hope
Just as some have problems with substances, many have problems with hope. I think that’s why I see people in line buying lottery tickets in the morning on my way to work, every single day. A scenario has played out mentally too often.
We continued through town, and passed a big statue of Christopher Columbus. We usually see these in towns with a large Italian population, but Huntington was settled by the British. It was actually part of the Connecticut Colony until 1663 when the British took control of New Amsterdam and renamed it New York. It then became part of New York. Huntington was actually the location of the last British outpost during the American Revolution.
We headed down the main street and looked for places to get some food. We went into a couple of them, but they were jam packed and the wait was at least a half an hour for our group to get seats.
Cold Spring Harbor
I don’t remember which bar we ended up going in. I think it might have been Sapsuckers? Just can’t quite remember.
Cold Spring Harbor
We sat in there for a while, and it was a nice little place. Most everything in the area was pretty pricey, but it was pretty good. I had a burger with mushrooms, and then ended up eating other people’s table scraps as usual.
Once we were done, it was only a short walk up Wall Street to the Stop and Shop parking area where we finished out our day.
It was really great to connect to the north shore of Long Island, and to complete the first major trail there. At this point, there are a few choices of what to do next to get to the next major trail, the Long Island Greenbelt.
In Cold Spring Harbor
I’ve found a good on line map that gives directions, and I have purchased the regular guide maps from the Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference. We’re ready to go:
https://www.hikingproject.com/trail/7017917/long-island-greenbelt-trail
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