Hike #1210; Huntington to Sunken Meadow (Long Island)

Hike #1210; Huntington to Sunken Meadow (Long Island)

3/30/19 Huntington to Sunken Meadow with Brittany Audrey, Stephen Argentina, and Alex Gisser

This next hike would be the follow up to the previous Long Island series one about a month prior, and really an outstanding trip unlike anything anyone else puts together.

On the beach

When I make up these trips, I really don’t expect much of them. They are just a mish mash of stuff I’d managed to string together to get from Point A to Point B. They are not things I would ever consider doing so far away if I were not trying to physically connect these points of other significant hiking trails. There really is no connection between the the Nassau-Suffolk Greenbelt Trail, the first major one in our Long Island series, and the Long Island Greenbelt, a similar natural trail that connects north and south sides of the island.
This one took some time to figure out how I wanted to do it. Sunken Meadow State Park was our goal point. I had to figure out a way of getting out there. I knew I could get on the beach for the latter portion of the hike, which would be great, but I was worried about private lands, and I’m not sure the disposition of people living along the north shore. It comes across as a bit uppity.

St. John's Episcopal Church opend 1907

The rest of the stuff I strung together I figured would be hit or miss, and I’d just try to make it a relaxing day and make the best of it.
This turned out to be pretty easy to do. It was really a fantastic route.
There was the problem of no cars when we got to Sunken Meadow State Park. I was a bit late arriving, and I’d messaged people who were supposed to show, but I could not find anyone there. After waiting around a bit, and finding no one, I figured we would have to Uber.

Huntington's Soldiers and Sailors Memorial

We parked my van in Huntington behind all of the stores off of the main drag in town.
Clinton Avenue brought us out to Main Street. We turned left from there.
Alex had taken the train from Huntington Station, which is actually a separate settlement down from where we were. It was just over a mile up to Huntington where we were, so he walked to catch up with us up there.
When we got to the corner of New York Ave and Main, he met up with the rest of us.

The old town hall

We followed Main Street west, and passed by the lovely St. John's Episocopal Church of Huntington. The handsome English-Gothic Style stone structure was opened in 1907.
It became immediately apparent that we were going to be passing historic structures just about everywhere we turned.
Just ahead, there was a cemetery on the hill, with a handsome old building out in front of it. This was the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial. Originally, it was the town’s library, built in 1892.

Huntington Sewing and Trade School

The structure was first proposed in 1865 as a memorial to the forty townsmen who died serving during the Civil War. The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Association was started in 1886 to raise the money necessary for construction. It was then used as the town library.
The building remained the library until 1958 when that was moved to it’s current structure on the other side of town. The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial building was used by various other offices until 1969 when it became the home to the Town Historian.
The building continued in that use until it fell into a state of disrepair, and it was acquired by the Huntington Historical Society in 2000. It was completely refurbished and re-opened in 2008. It serves as a sort of visitor’s center for the town as well as home of the Town Historian.
Behind the memorial is the “Old Burying Ground”, officially called the Fort Golgotha and the Old Burial Hill Cemetery.
The site was the location of a Revolutionary War fortification named for the site outside of Jerusalem where Jesus was allegedly crucified. The word “Golgotha” derives from the same as “Calvary”, meaning “Skull” or “Place of the skull”.

Building on site of first church

It was a British fort built in 1782 from the wood of the nearby dismantled Presbyterian church. The fort was dismantled and church rebuilt when the British withdrew in 1783.
Across the street, at 227 Main, was the first Huntington Town Hall, constructed in 1910. It’s been out of that use for some time now, and there are plans to turn it into a hotel as per the signs in the front. It appears, in the signage, that the facade and at least most of the main original building will be used, but that a new extension as a hotel will jut off form the back and into what is now only a small parking area at lower level.

Old wooden building

There was a sign in front of the place, an historic marker on the “Declaration of Rights” from June 21st, 1774.
Even before the Declaration of Independence, the people of Huntington were rather rebellious against the crown. As early as 1670, they had stated that “we conceive that we are deprived of the liberties of Englishmen”.
The 1774 document to the King of England read in part “That every freemans property is absolutely his own, and no man has a right to take it from him without his consent . . .”.

Hackscher Park

On the north side of Main Street, we passed the former Huntington Sewing and Trade School, an interestingly designed structure that served one of the earliest vocational schools in America.
The trade school was established in 1881, and this building was erected in 1905 for it’s use.
Across the street from here was a very handsome, stately, white wooden home. An historic marker read that this was the site of the first church in Huntington, but that it was sold and dismantled in 1715. Nothing was mentioned on the current structure that occupies the site, but it appears to be very old.

Old town hall historic image

We headed across the road to the entrance to Heckscher Park and Heckscher Museum of Art, a lovely early park that was a gift to the town from Industrialist August Heckscher in 1916.

Entering Heckscher Park

“Here coming generations seeking rest
Mid verdure bloom and over arching trees
From nature’s loveliness will draw new zest
New inspiration from the perfumed trees”
- F. W. Webber, July 28, 1916
The poem is located on the epitaph at the entrance to the park, which has a lovely stone archway and path going in.
The park contains a lovely lake and some stone foot bridges and such, as well as an art museum that apparently was to keep Heckscher’s personal donated collection together.

Heckscher Park

We walked through the park, and there were lots of art things on display along the paths. We walked over to a gazebo thing to take a little break, because Alex had already been going for some time he said by the time the rest of us arrived.

Historic Heckscher Park image

Once we were ready to go, we headed down the paths toward the pond.
There were little bridges on peninsulas out to the water, but I was surprised to see some of them completely cut off from access. The park did suffer some issues over the years. It remained open during the Great Depression, and there were problems with the endowments from Heckscher himself losing value during that time, but they’ve managed to keep it in pretty good shape.

Hackscher Park

We skirted the waterfront, then went to the right a bit. There was a large ball field there, with tons of goose shit just about everywhere. Brittany and Stephen were commenting something about how these damn geese were leaving human sized shits.

Heckscher Park

The park was fenced around the outside, but we passed through an opening by the dugout of the ball field, and then continued out to cross the next road, known charmingly as Sabbath Day Path. We then entered our second park of the day, Village Green Park.
We followed along a tree line through this park, and then continued out to cross Main Street. An extension of the park continued parallel with Park Avenue and a brook.

Heckscher Park cutoff bridge area

We followed an odd path parallel with Park Ave, and the meandering little brook had some washed out spots on the trail. It looked like it went under Park Ave earlier than it used to, because there was a sort of trench and even a bridge that’s kind of filled itself in.

Heckscher Park

The pathway came out from this park section next to an entrance road to a municipal building or something, and we continued walking down Park Ave to the south.

Village Green Park

My indented third park to incorporate into this hike was called Hillaire Woods Park. It was off on a hillside to the right of Park Ave, but I didn’t find a way in. There seemed to be easements or something into it shown on Google maps, but we never passed anything that looked reasonable. There was sort of an overgrown retention pond area with chain link fences around it just off the road, which we could have gotten into, but it looked like it would have been a shit show to get through, so we just decided to move on.

Village Green Park

The road walking, which I had been dreading, turned out not to be all that bad after all, and it just kept getting better as we went.

Village Green Park

The historic sites just kept coming as well.
The next point of interest was a building known as “The Arsenal”.
While not really an arsenal, it was of some historic significance.
This was the home of Job Sammis, a weaver by trade, who hid stores of gun powder in his attic prior to and during the British occupation of Huntington in 1782-83.
The home was built in 1740, and is reportedly decorated in period items, and used as a museum by appointment only.

The Arsenal

On the opposite side of the road, I spotted the Kissam House, built in 1795.
This home was built by a house-wright named Timothy Jarvis, and first occupied by Samuel Whitehead Kissam, a Physician from Oyster Bay.
A kitchen addition was added to the main building in 1840, but the main frame is considered to be one of the best examples of 18th century three quarter home plans on Long Island.

Kissam House

The Kissam House is also used for historic interpretation by the local historical society, and is open at times for tours and events.
There is a room inside the house reportedly dedicated to Kissam family history.
The barn behind the place was known as the Rogers Barn, built around 1790 and moved to the site from nearby Lloyd Harbor, is believed to have housed British soldiers during the America Revolution.

Silas Wood's home site

Just ahead, there was a stately home on the left side of the road. A sign read in front that it had been the home of Silas Wood, writer of the First History of Long Island.
Wood was far more than that; a Princeton graduate, he was District Attorney after returning to Huntington, and member of sixteenth and four succeeding Congresses from 1819 to 1829. Wood retreated from public life after a failed attempt at the 21st congress, and moved back to his family’s home in the West Hills.

Silas Wood House. George Bradford Brainerd (American, 1845-1887). Silas Wood's House, Huntington, Long Island, ca. 1872-1887. Collodion silver glass wet plate negative Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Museum/Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection, 1996.164.2-1414

Silas Wood died in 1847. The house stood on this site until 1881 when it was presumably torn down and the structure that stands there now was erected. It has the look of homes of that time.

Mirror shot

We continued from there on down Park Avenue through the West Hills, along a lawn of a Jewish temple, and then to a left turn on Dunlop Road.

Tub boy

The road headed gradually up hill for a while. This was definitely the worst part of the hike, but there was no other way through it. It was the best option.

Tub tub tub

Still, there were some interesting things along the way.
For example, someone had put an entire bath tub out along the road, which I of course had to pose for a silly photo in.
Once we got to the top of the hill, we reached Greenlawn Road where we turned left, slightly down hill. In a short distance, we turned right off of the road and into the lawn area of the Oldfield Middle School. We passed through an opening in a fence and then through a line of trees out toward the main school building.

Carpenter Farm Park

We walked down hill through the yards, and there were lots of kids playing sports things or something. We opted to avoid them and just keep to the west a bit more.
We stayed closer to the building, and in the dip as we were heading around, there appeared to be tons of litter blowing around everywhere. Upon further inspection, it wasn’t litter, but rather some kid’s school work that had accidentally blown around everywhere. Nothing was torn out because the three rings were intact.

Freeman's Maple, Carpenter Farm Park

One of these kids out there playing some kick or throw game probably left their trapper keeper open and it blew all over the place.
We went out the front of the school land and then turned to the right briefly on Old Field Road. Directly across is the Carpenter Farm Park, a rather small piece of park land that I figured would be the most insignificant piece we’d pass through. It turned out not to be that really at all, which goes to show we never know what to expect.

Carpenter Farm Park

There were a lot of cars parked along Old Field Road, and using some of the spots in the Carpenter Farm Park’s official parking area on the left. We went through and turned down the trail heading out of the split rail fenced lot.
As we were heading down hill, there was an older woman to the left picking out weeds it seemed. We said hello; something normal like “great day for a walk” or whatever, but clearly she was not used to seeing this many people just wander on in to this park. She was quick to engage with us.

Carpenter Farm Park

We immediately started talking about invasive species. I recognized some of the trees around as Tree of Heaven (ailanthus altissima) and we started talking about those.

Free toys!!!

Then there was multi flora rose.
And various Japanese plants.
She told us all the different things she’s been removing, and then asked if we’d like a little tour of the property.
Of course, this was a great opportunity and we gladly accepted to have a look around with her.
The woman we were talking to, based on the business card she gave me, was Julie Sullivan, and she spends a great deal of hours in the park trying to deal with invasive species. She had just been working on getting rid of lots of invasive vines she had said.

Vacant cabin

She went on to describe how she was de-barking some of the Autumn Olives in the place, and that this was a good way of making them so they don’t grow back. She said with that species specifically, if you cut them off, they will send a message to grow more leaders off of the root system. If you instead only debark the lower end close to the ground, she said, you choke the plant and it does not send the message to grow more. She’s already had a deal of success with this.

Vacant cabin

We turned to the right on a trail, where she was happy to see other volunteers had already cleared off one of the trails and used the dead pieces to line the trail. Just ahead here, there was a large Maple tree she described as being about 200 years old.
I asked if it was a Silver Maple, and she said yes, but it’s also a Red Maple. I didn’t quite follow, and I looked on the ground to tell by the dead leaves. I assumed Silver because the lobes on the leaves are more inlet and narrow, so they roll together more when they dry.

Seasonal view at the cabin

She went on to explain that it was in fact both Red and Silver maple, a naturally occurring hybrid. I did not know that these two species could propagate in the wild, but apparently they can. These types of maples are known as Freemans Maples.
As we headed back the other way, there were also two nice old apple trees standing right in the path.
We were told that although this is a “farm park”, it was never really a proper farm, and that the soils were different than others found in similar areas of Long Island.

Edwin and Gertrude Grace Nature Preserve

We were told that this particular farm was more of a horse trotting course than anything else, with the open area dedicated to that.
We headed between the apples and then out into the more open fields. I was going to try to cut through the park to the east to come out on Old Field Road around a corner, but was convinced that we could walk out the back of the property onto Connelly Road and it would be better.
We passed through the fields, and then saw some of the Autumn Olives being worked on.

View in Edwin and Gertrude Grace Nature Preserve

We were brought on an informal path to the northwest side of the preserve, which brough tus to some tarps laid out because they were killing Mile a Minute Vine.

Edwin and Gertrude Grace Nature Preserve

The entire area was also growing like mad with English Ivy. I’ve noticed that on just about every Long Island hike. It’s pretty, and it’s non abrasive, but doesn’t realy belong there.
We were directed to a slope where we could get out to the dead end of Connelly, and said our thanks and goodbyes. Mrs. Sullivan didn’t want to let us go,; she said she could go on talking about this place all day long, and she was right. We gave her a lot of time, but unfortunately couldn’t hang around all day. We had far to go.

View in Phragmites Park

We came out on Connelly and started heading out along that. It was a great choice because there was hardly a vehicle out anywhere.
These road walks continued to be interesting; just a bit earlier, we had heard some music playing in a yard, and figured it was just someone playing something from in their house, but it was some young kid, probably no older than ten, just walking around his yard playing violin beautifully, and stepping gracefuly as those players tend to do. Very unexpected.

View in Phragmites Park

We continued right on Connelly at the next intersection, and then turned right on Makin Place. That short road led us to Old Field Road where we turned to the left.
Shortly, we turned right on Old Hills Lane, and then went left on Sanders Street.
On one of these hills in this area, there were a couple of plastic toy projectile things still in the boxes put out for trash. It had labels on them saying to such and such from such and such. We figured it was probably a Christmas present from some ex boyfriend to some woman’s kid.

Mill Pond section of Centerpoint Harbor

Brittany and I grabbed the things up and took them out of the packages.
They were something that fit over the forearm, and had a sling inside that could be drawn back to shoot something ahead. I tried right away with rocks, but it didn’t work well.

In Phragmites Park

There were little template things on top, three of them, which looked like they were made for snow malls. There was some sort of arctic themed phraseology on the sides of it from which we determined that these things were intended for launching snow balls.
I kind of see them as being almost pointless because I think I can throw a snow ball farther and harder than I could with this little thing. Regardless, it’s a fun looking toy, so I would bring it home to give to my little nephew Jacob the next time I see him.

Betty Allen Twin Ponds Nature Park

We stuck the things on the outsides of our packs and continued on across Centerpoint Road to Albutis Road.
The lightly traveled residential road took us up hill through woods. Our next turn would be into the Edwin and Gertrude Grace Nature Preserve, which supposedly had an access to the right.
As we neared where the preserve entrance was supposed to be, we didn’t see anything but private driveways. I remembered for sure that a map pointed the way in.

Betty Allen Twin Ponds Park

I knew that there was something up. The private driveways all had signs, but there should have been something down there. I decided to take a chance and walk down the private driveway anyway.
Sure enough, only a short distance in, there was a parking area for a couple of cars on the left. A trail went directly into the woods from it, but there were only a couple of blazes on trees that could be seen. It wasn’t anything very easy to follow at all.

Betty Allen Twin Ponds Park

Trails weaved all over the place, but they were really nice. The upload area was dominated by Mountain Laurel with a good hardwood forest towering above. Houses were in view on both sides of this narrow section of the preserve, but no one looked out or questioned us at all.
We made our way out along a slope and ended up at an amazing vacant cabin way off in the woods. This might still be on private land, I’m not sure. It’s right by the border of the property either way. I suppose the locals don’t want it to turn into a party place, so they’ve removed all signage that says that anyone can go back there.

Betty Allen Twin Ponds Preserve

There was a nice seasonal view from the porch of the building, so we took a nice little break there. It’s amazing that places like this, even in a pretty urban area, still exist.
We made our way from here along the trail, and then there was a no trespassing sign on it.
This might have been legit, or it might not have been. Online reviews of the property say that they put no trespassing signs up all the time. I’m no stranger to this with what I’ve had to deal with along the Warren Highlands Trail. I don’t know.

Betty Allen Twin Ponds Preserve

We turned back the way we came to the next trail that went off to the west. I watched the google maps to see if I could put us on trails that were more in the center of the green.

Betty Allen Twin Ponds Nature Park

It worked out pretty well, and we continued on very well worn paths.
At a fork, a trail went off to the right and headed toward a private house. Rather than do that, we kept on the also well worn left path.
Amazingly, despite looking like it was walked daily, this path immediately turned into crap and was more like a bushwhack. It was hard to tell exactly where it was supposed to go through this woods. We did however get a rather nice view of a pond on private land ahead.

Betty Allen Twin Ponds Nature Park

As we made our way along the hill, we definitely got off the trail at one point and got closer to a house. We had to backtrack, and that’s when I saw the first of several wooden posts that were to denote where the trail was.
The posts were in the ground, and used to have something affixed to them, but every one was removed. Probably another move by local land owners to try to keep people out of this park. Still, I managed to follow them.

Climbing out of Betty Allen Twin Ponds Nature Park through barbed wire. Photo by Alex Gisser

We continued along, and the trail got to be more pronounced. It skirted a driveway on the right, and side paths went to private land to our left, but we managed to get out to Fort Salonga Road.
We turned to the right briefly, and then reached the parking area on the left for Phragmites Park.
This park just has a loop in it out to the Mill Pond section of Centerpoint Bay, but I’d never be able to incorporate it into anything else, so I wanted to do that as part of this hike.

Friend horse

We headed into the swath of woods from the lot, and then out along the inlet to the bay from the tributary out of the ponds to the south. This was a particularly beautiful little spot.
We paused here to enjoy the view for a little bit before turning back, and following the trail along the opposite side of the park heading back to the south.
Soon, we got back to Fort Salonga Road, and crossed directly to the Betty Allen Twin Ponds Nature Park, where the trail passed beyond a kiosk and into the woods.

Signs of Spring

We went a ways to a nice outlook over the pond, and the trail split in two directions. We could do a full perimeter of the pond, but I had wanted to exit the park on the east side. There was a really pretty foot bridge I could see nearby that went over the dam, so I figured that would be the best way to go.
We started heading over that way, and there was a guy and a girl hanging out there. The guy had a really fancy camera trained on objects not immediately apparent to us.

The photo of the fish being taken, which was sent to Alex by Thomas O'Rourke

I forget how we struck up conversation, but it turned out a hawk was being observed. It was just up in the trees over the top of the pond.

Northport Rail Trail

We stopped and talked for a bit, and while we were there got to watch this hawk come down for the kill.
It swooped down and picked up a fish, then flew very high up again. The guy got an absolutely amazing shot of the fish being snatched, and then showed us what he’d done. He was nice enough to e mail a copy of the photo to Alex , so he should have a copy of that somewhere, thankfully. I wasn’t quick enough.
The photographer’s name was Thomas O’Rourke. thomasnewyork1@yahoo.com

Northport Rail Trail

There was a dead swan, all gross with feathers starting to fall off of it and such, just below the bridge. Brittany was amazingly interested with this putrid discovery as usual.
We moved on from here across the bridge, and into the woods along the waterfront to the south. Just ahead, another long wooden deck extended out onto the water for a very nice viewing area. We enjoyed the view here of the wetlands again before moving on to the extreme south side of the preserve where a bridge crossed the inlet.

Northport Rail Trail

I didn’t want to fully loop back around, because the plan was to go out the east side. I figured we would just cut off trail and get out to Stony Hollow Road.
This didn’t work out as easily as I’d intended. There was a chain link fence blocking me from getting to the road. The others went back to the north to go around it, but my stubborn ass had to go across it the way I’d intended. I found a dead tree partially leaning through, and had to grasp the barbed wire on top in order to pull myself over.

Northport Rail Trail

Once I was across the fence, we simply had to cross over Stony Hollow Road and continue gradually up hill on Laurel Hill Road. This was another rather crappy road walk, but it went faster it seems than previous ones did.

Northport Rail Trail

We continued along these back streets with light use until we got to the intersection with Orchard Court.
There was a sort of farm property at the intersection that had horses behind the fences. A sign read to feed them carrots only, which we didn’t have, so we didn’t feed him anything. Still, the big brown horse that came up to greet us was quite gentle and friendly. He seemed to really enjoy the attention and being pet.

Northport Rail Trail

We turned from here off the road and along a sort of woods road directly adjacent to the farm.
I had intended to take an official side trail in to the Northport Rail Trail, but this route we followed was accidentally the wrong way. No matter, it took us to Northport Rail Trail a bit further south from where I initially intended to get on it.
The Northport Rail Trail has a rather interesting history that ties in with the Long Island Railroad history from the previous hike.

Northport Rail Trail

This line started as part of the Hicksville and Syosett Railroad in 1868. The main line was extended east from a mile south of Northport to Port Jefferson in 1873, which reduced the original main into Northport as just a spur or branch line.

Northport Rail Trail

This happened as a result of another argument between railroad magnate Oliver Charlick, who was the man responsible for bypassing the towns of Cold Spring Harbor and Huntington due to similar arguments.
Basically, it seems that Charlick screwed the town of Northport by keeping the main line outside of town, and the town would never have the opportunity to grown being off of the main drag for the railroad. The passenger service to Northport only continued until about 1899 when the station closed.

Northport Rail Trail

The line remained open for freight traffic through much of the twentieth century, but it soon was no longer needed for service with no industries. It was considered for a time as part of the route of proposed Babylon-Northport Expressway that was never built.
The line was abandoned in 1978, and then dismantled by 1985.
The first section of the Northport Rail Trail opened for use in 2007. Unlike so many other rail rails, this one is not overdone, and remains basically a natural foot path rather than an abomination of pavement.

The rail bed on the car wash entrance

The rail bed was mostly in a not so deep cut through this section. It made for a really nice walk. Eventually, we came out on Elwood Road at the exit to Champion Car Wash. The access road was built right of way.
We walked on up the road and passed the people working. They must have thought we looked nuts as we went by the car wash building, which was right on the track bed, and continued around the right side.

Car wash rail bed

We crossed back over Fort Salonga Road again on the other side at the car wash entrance, and the railroad bed goes into a plaza parking lot with some meat themed grocery store ahead. We continued on the rail bed route through the lot, and then tried to decide on where we would stop to eat. There was a pizza place in the strip mall, so we decided to go for that. It was about the easiest thing to get to. The place was called Mama Mia of Northport, and it was quite good.

The place had quite an impressive selection of slices to choose from. I didn’t want to stuff myself too badly, but there were really a lot of great choices. I recall I settled on a slice of spinach and mushroom with ricotta and fresh mozzarella, as well as a slice of I think a chicken and bruschetta thing. It was great.|
After this, we continued where the rail bed would have been out to Church Street. From there, there was no good way through because it was fenced off.

Northport Station, 1915

Instead, we turned to the right and then headed to a mini mart to get more to drink.

Northport Station, 1914

There was nothing particularly good that I wanted, so I instead purchased two Four Locos. I wanted to have something to relax on the upcoming beach section with, and that was the only reasonable choice, sadly.

MMM SLICES

We headed out from there and started walking up Laurel Avenue to the north. The original Northport train station must have been in this area.
When the line was extended to Port Jefferson, the area that became known as East Northport still named their station simply “Northport”, even though there was already one bearing that name in Northport proper. It sounds like another jab from that railroad magnate.

Spy shop!

There was an historic marker at this point that denoted some of these streets as the historic Washington Spy Route, another historic tour driving route that has to do with the American Revolution. It seemed funny that there was literally a “spy shop” for hidden cameras and crap like that just ahead on the right. I’ve never seen such a store anywhere in the past, and this place kind of gave me the creeps with all of the crazy crap I’ve had going on over the past couple of years. We continued past here to the north.

Science and god, lovely together

We passed another of those Church of Jesus Christ Scientist places, which is a branch or something of Christian Science. The first time we’d seen one of these was in Huntington the previous Long Island trip.
We passed in front of Laurel Avenue School to the right of us, and continued north to another little settlement where we turned right on Main Street. I think this was more the original settlement of Northport.

Fuchs Pond Park

We made an abrupt left turn from Main Street onto Norwood Ave and continued walking north.
It was another rather long road walk as far as those are concerned, but there wasn’t really another good way of going about it.
We walked down a hill, and there were actually quite a few other people walking this road, even with baby carriages, so it wasn’t like it was too terribly narrow or unsafe. We followed this down to the inersection with Waterside Road, and a trail entered woods along that directly across the intersection.

Fuck Pond Park

The trail continued just barely into the woods from the road on a natural surface. It was a great little route to take to the north to the Fuch’s Pond Park.
Apparently this part is officially called the Alexander G. McKay Preserve at Cranberry Hill County Park, but for the purposes of this journal I shall continu e to refer to it in such a way that I can continue to engage in annoyingly vulgar mispronunciations.

Fuchs Pond Park

We continued around the east side of the pond, which was delightfully pretty. We made our way over a bit of a knoll and along an inlet area where next to a bridge was some kids art.

Rules by kids

Apparently these were contest winners by kids making rule posters for the park. There were no camp fire ones, and one said no hiking at night, which was kind of funny.

Turtles on logs

We passed by a lot of turtles on logs and followed along the edge of a stream as we made our way to the north. There was a sort of utility clearing that was the next leg.

In Fuchs Pond Park

The land was originally named for Sophie and Bertram Fuchs, the last land owners before it was renamed for a county politician who saw the project through to completion.
We continued on through to the clearing above the park, and turned to the right.
There were surprisingly a lot of people walking this utility clearing, walking dogs and such. I was surprised to see so many on this and not so many elsewhere.

We continued to the east on this greenway route, and then skirted the edge of the Crab Meadow Golf Course. We followed this until the golf course ended on our left, and a trail entered the woods parallel with it.
This was the Makamah Nature Preserve. I’m not sure what that means, but it used to be referred to just as Crab meadow. It was acquired by Suffolk County for preservation and recreation in 1973.

Utility path

Here is a map of the preserve:
https://www.suffolkcountyny.gov/Portals/0/formsdocs/parks/Maps/MakamahTrailMap2.pdf
We followed the first bit of trail into the woods, but didn’t stay along the extreme perimeter. I didn’t want to get too far out there and be kind of stuck.
There were blazed trails out there, with the longest one I think being white. When that one was going well out toward the waterfront, we continued to the east a bit more. It took us down hill, and then toward some of Jarome A. Ambro Memorial Wetland.

Fresh water at Makamah

As we descended, we could see that some of this area had been dammed, part of earlier industrial ventures to the area. That kept water to our right fresh, and to the left salty.

Fallen tree, trail between

We could hear Spring Peepers very audibly coming from the fresh water section of this, while the section out closer to the north shore with it’s phragmites and such was pretty much dead quiet. It was an interesting place to be.
I figured we would have to backrack to the south a bit and make our way out to the next road in order to get all the way to the north shore, but there was a terrific causeway that took us between water sections.

Makamah Preserve

I asked a couple along the trail if in fact this trail went on through to Makamah Road, where we needed to be, and they confirmed.
We made our way out to this point, and simply turned to the left on the road.
The road is not a through route, and is therefore not too terribly busy, so it was a nice walk.
We headed out, with good views over the wetlands to the left, and soon reached Geissler’s Beach Park, where we headed to the waterfront. We immediately could see right across toward Norwalk and Bridgeport, CT.

Makamah Preserve

There was an old dock ruin going straight out from there, which looked prety good with the rotten wood and all. We took a little break here because it was so nice.

Wetland view

To the west of us, we could see power plant stacks or something on the hills that we’d been seeing from different angles for hours.
From here, the remainder of the hike was to be nothing but a relaxing walk on the beach. Access looked good all the way down, so my only concern of not being able to get on through was gone.
This area was originally part of the Louis F. Geissler Estate starting in 1929. Geissler was a pioneer in the record industry, who created what were then known as “sound cabinets”.

Geisslers Beach

This area was during the American Revolution the site of British Fort Salonga.
Colonial forces arrived one night on the beach at Crab Meadow and overtook the fort

Former docks at Geissler's Beach

We started heading west along the beach shortly. There were a few people hanging out that we chatted with about where we’d come from and such.

Da beach

We even passed a couple of guys with big fat tire bikes going along the beach. I walked in the water a bit, which felt pretty good on my feet. I was wearing my Merrills I’d gotten from Dan Trump, which are excellent shoes, but make my feet sweat too much.

Geissler's Beach

After a little bit, we were skirted a golf course known as Indian Hills Country Club. The beach disappeared to a rocky coast for a short bit, and it required that we climb up on the rocks to get by. Stephen and Alex followed the golf cart paths just above the rocks, but Brittany and I saw that the bikes got through pretty easily below, so we just did what they did and were out pretty easily. The beach continued after just a short bit, and we were able to continue easily to a section known as Fort Beach. I assume this was Fort Salonga site.

Rocks and beach

The area of Fort Beach had a small tributary flowing out to the ocean steadily, with lots of beautifully colored little stones and shells scattered everywhere. Beyond, the hillsides started growing in height, almost like cliffs along the beach, as we approached our end point at Sunken Meadow State Park, also known as Governor Alfred E. Smith State Park.
The entire last section was just relaxing to me. I didn’t want it to end. When we caught up with Stephen, he told us we had already done about eighteen miles.

Sand cliffs and water

I was hoping to continue on and do some of the back woods trais in Sunken Meadow State Park. Since we had to Uber out anyway, I figured why not do more?

Stephen is tired

We continued walking the beach after the park start, past the pavilion area, past lots one and two, and then on toward whee there is a little peninsula. I figured we should at least do that as the end cap for the day.
I think only Alex and I were into continuing any further. I really didn’t feel at all tired.
We pushed on toward Lot #3, and I was getting ready to just do that little peninsula. Even if Stephen and Brittany didn’t want to, Alex and I could just knock it out real quick and we’d start beyond that next time.

On the beach

Just then, I realized that my phone was running pretty low on power. I’d already put it on Airplane Mode to save power, but it was getting to the dangerously low level. I didn’t have my wall charger that I usually have with me in my pack, and I didn’t have my charger battery packs to bring it up to power enough either.
We had to get back inland and get the Uber out before I lost power.
We headed in to Lot #3 and sat down near the restroom areas while I tried to figure out how to get into my Uber app. I still haven’t quite figured out my smart phone deal yet, but I’m getting better.
I got a hit almost immediately. An Indian fellow who lives nearby caught my call and accepted even though we had passengers, and were able to get all the way back for about twenty bucks. Not too bad at all.
We did take a couple of wrong turns because the guy’s own app wasn’t working right.

Sunset on the beach

A woman waited, totally annoyed that I was in the car looking up directions from the start. While I was still trying to power my phone on after it’d died, she came over and knocked on my window asking if I was going to move. She sat in her car periodically honking at me, which really just made me want to take even longer. That was just rude.
So many people literally care about nothing but their own circumstances.

Fini

I have one more Long Island hike queued up and ready to go before the warm season starts. It’s more than I thought I would get on the schedule for this year, but like all of the stuff, I’m absolutely loving it all.

HAM