Hike #1412 Altamont to Troy

 

Hike #1412: Hike #5/8-5/9/21 Altamont to Troy NY with Jillane Becker

This next hike would be another weekend trip with Jillane, which would take us to Albany NY. It would tie in to where we finished our last hike in NY, in Troy.

I wanted to go farther away when doing a longer weekend, and try to cover some stuff we'd never done before.

When I try to put together a substantial day, I look for things I might want to do in the future, but also where we could stay overnight along the way. For this one, I found a spot that was pretty close to the Albany County Rail Trail, and then we had a good route mostly on trails that would take us north to Troy.

It was less than ten miles between Voorheesville and Albany it seemed, and so I tried to come up with other stuff to add in for our first day. The second day would be on the Empire State Trail to Troy.

1950

I discovered that the lightly used former Delaware and Hudson Railroad continued to the west from where the trail begins, and I became interested in the town of Altamont.

Just above the town of Altamont was John Boyd Thatcher State Park, prominent park along the Long Path, which I very badly want to complete. 

So, down the road, Altamont was a reasonable jump off point to connect with others things in other ways as well.

DAY 1

We stayed the night before up in Troy at the same place we had stayed previously, and in the morning I got us an Uber to the little town of Altamont where we started looking around a bit.

The name Altamont means "High Mountain", as the village sits at the base of Helderberg Mountain and aforementioned Thatcher State Park.

Although the area was settled in the mid 1600s, the village was not incorporated until 1890. It was a resort town that grew around the railroad after its arrival, and hosts a popular fair that has taken place since 1893.

The railroad was originally the Albany and Susquehanna, which began in 1851. It was extended to Binghamton by 1869, and the convenient route caught the eye of Jay Gould and the Erie Railroad magnates.

The Erie attempted to acquire control of the A&S leading to physical violence, armed militia, and NY Supreme Court action. The line was leased to the Delaware and Hudson in 1870.

A handsome station built in 1887 stands in the center of town and now serves as the community library.

Although the track is not so heavily used at this point in time, it has been proposed that the route from Voorheesville through Altamont and to points west will become very active with much more freight in the near future.

We started our walk past the station and heading to the east, and there was what looked like an old freight depot on the left.

Just a little bit further down was the Altamont fairgrounds with its large single story, open cruciform style Fine Arts and Flower Building, built in 1896. It is a fine piece of standard Agricultural Fair style architecture of that time.

Pretty soon after getting outside of town, the line passes through some very lovely marsh lands.
I had just gotten another phone, another Android with a really good camera, and so I was playing with it a lot and getting pretty shots. 

By the time we got across Brandle Road, the Black Creek was very close to the tracks, and the views were just outstanding. Things were greening up with Spring, and the lighting was just perfect to capture it all.

The Helderberg Escarpment was plainly visible, and with the back drop of farms and wetlands the scenery just continued to get better. We crossed Gardner, Meadowdale, and Hennessey Roads heading east.

Jillane was finding fossils in the ballast along this route, with little shells in them. I sipped my Where The Buffalo Road aged barleywine, and was feeling quite wonderful.

Soon, there was a northbound wye that leads to an industrial area, and then connects with the former West Shore Railroad. Ahead, the line used to connect to the West Shore, but has now been severed.
We came to a deck girder bridge across the Black Creek in the middle of the wetlands and had a nice break. This whole area is part of Black Creek Marsh Wildlife Management Area.

We continued on from here, and the tracks were obviously less used. There were abandoned and cut industrial sidings to the right that had not been used for years. 

We crossed over School Street, and then rather closely paralleled Prospect Street to the east. Some of this seemed to have been recently cleared. 

We came out to the intersection of Main Street and Foundry Road in Voorheesville, across from apparently the historic Voorhees House. This was where the connection to the West Shore Railroad used to be. That line still has double tracks going from left to right at this vantage point.

I had some old postcard images of this site as well as some later ones taken by Patrick J. Cassidu saved to my phone, so I wanted to try to emulate those. Since this was my maiden trip with my newest phone, I wasn't quite used to it yet, and had several of my photos too far zoomed out, so they came out a little weird, but alright.

The old station that used to stand at this site was a handsome one with a pointed turret section. Although the station is long gone, there is now a pavilion at the trail parking lot that is built to emulate the roof and profile of the old station, which is pretty cool.

I meandered around getting lots of photos, and Jillane wanted to get some lunch, so we walked over into th town where we stopped at Jaycee's Pizza Depot. I think she got a sub sandwich there. I actually didn't get anything there and instead sat outside looking at maps and such.

A couple of trains went by during the short period of time we were at this former West Shore Railroad crossing site.

We moved on from this point onto the rail trail. The Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail was developed on the old rail line in 2010 after having been abandoned since the 1990s.

The trail through here was lined with art at first.
We crossed Voorheesville Ave and continued to the east, across Vly Creek. Just ahead, before crossing State Farm Road, it looked like an earlier right of way veered off to the right and had once crossed the road to the south a bit, then returned to the current alignment.  I thought I saw what might have been another old alignment ahead on the north side of the trail, but I'm not sure. There was a new development being built in that area, so if there was anything, it's surely pretty disturbed now.

We passed through woods and crossed Hilton Road where there was an old farmstead. The homestead looked to be abandoned, and there was a handsome old barn to the north.

In one of the more odd expenditures we'd seen along trails during the pandemic, this trail had hand soap dispensers affixe to the railings along the side of the trail.

In the next section, we came across an old farm bridge overpass. This was a girder structure that looked to be a former turntable, repurposed as a bridge. I had seen this in a few other places, most notably back home in Walters Park in Phillipsburg, used as a foot bridge, and along the Bel Del Railroad just south of Milford. Apparently turntables make pretty good bridges, but most people don't look at them as having been such.

We continued to the east, crossed Upper Font Grove Road, followed by Font Grove Road, and started to enter the more developed area of Slingerlands.
Pretty soon, we crossed over New Scotland Road heading east, and then reached the historic Slingerlands Station on the right, which has been well restored.
This first train station was built in 1864, after the railroad was already established. It was a combination freight and passenger station. The station was moved to its present location in 1888 and rehabilitated as a freight only station, and a grand passenger station opened that same year on the same side as the present day fire department. I tried to line up the exact former site based on distance of the road in historic photos.

1962 Slingerlands

The village of Slingerlands was originally known as Normanskill, but was changed for the prominent Slingerlands Family that first settled in the area in the 1790s.
The nice community even attracted the wealthy including Charles Hammond, the Director of the northern division of the Delaware and Hudson, who built his Victorian home overlooking the station.

There was more art along the trail through this area, and we paralleled Kenwood Avenue for a bit as we continued to the east. That road moved off and we passed beneath Route 140, Cherry Avenue.

We paralleled Hudson Ave and crossed James Street heading east as we entered the next town, known as Delmar. This town apparently took its name from the railroad, and had a station stop near Adams. We continued on and took a break at Bethlehem Veterans Memorial Park. There was a Stewart's shop adjacent to this, and I think I went around to get us drinks and snacks.

It was getting dark at this point, and we continued to the east across Rt 443 on a bridge. Ahead, we crossed Elsmere Ave, which was another station stop, but later on in 1899.
Elsmere was suggested as a station name by a D&H executive that lived locally, after the novel "Robert Elsmere" that was published in 1888.

We continued through the dark to the east. The trail took us closer to the Normal Kill, and then soon crossed over it by way of a big through truss bridge. 
Once across, it wasn't long before we passed beneath the bridge for Interstate 87, and then the bridge for Route 9W.
Here, we carefully climbed uphill away from the trail to the north. Once we got up part of the steeper part, we cut into adjacent woods on a meager footpath, and then up to the edge of 9W above.

It was kind of sketchy to do this in the dark, but we managed.
We crossed over the 9W bridge to the south, and then made our way to the Comfort Inn Glenmont-Albany South.
The place had both a pool and a hot tub, so I made use of that and felt quite relaxed, although Jillane didn't want to go in. I suppose being pregnant, it probably wasn't such a good idea getting in the hot tub anyway.
I think we ordered food for this night, but I don't remember what it was.

DAY 2

We got up to no good breakfast again because of all of the covid craziness. Everything was just bag breakfast to go with crummy snack stuff and a piece of fruit in it.

We headed back out the way we came across the Rt 9W bridge, but in the light were treated to a splendid view over to the Rt 87 bridge and the rapids on the Normal Kill below.

We headed to the edge of the bridge, and it was much easier going down than it had been climbing up in the dark.

We descended to the trail again and continued to the east. The trail was much busier on this morning and in this area. A little side trail led to the right and onto the edge of the gorge where there was an excellent view of the big Norman Kill Falls.

We continued east and passed through a pretty big rock cut, and then continued to cross over Pearl Street/Route 32.
The trail continued on the rail bed a little bit ahead, and then cut hard to the left from it. The right of way continued through weeds to a junction with the still active line ahead. The rail emerged on a parking area on Rt 32. We turned right here and started walking that north.
I had walked this stretch before, when we did the 63.4 mile hike in a day from Albany to Kingston. I had used the stretch of road down past the lot after turning onto it from McCarty Ave to the north. 

This time, we wouldn't be going that far to the north.
The Empire State Trail follows along the west side of the Hudson through this area and picks up the Mohawk-Hudson Hike and Bike Trail.
This somewhat new extension went to the right along the tracks and a side road parallel with Interstate 787.
When we reached Church Street, the trail turned to the left and then went directly beneath Interstate 787.
A train went by on the tracks to the right as we wandered this route beneath the highway. 
This was just such an interesting route. There was so much stuff to see.

There was a beat up old house to the left of the highway, which remained on a bridge over top of us. It had all sorts of furniture and such at outside by it.
The trail continued directly beneath the highway as far as John Street where it turned to the right.
At this area, we spotted a beautiful abandoned church.
This was the long abandoned St. John's Catholic Church.
The church was constructed in 1903-08 when its congregation had outgrown the original church, built in 1829, and still stands although altered.
The church, designed by Charles Ogden, was closed in the 1970s and served other brief uses, but has fallen into great disrepair.
In 2019, it was announced that the old church would be sectioned off into affordable housing and studio apartments, altering the inside but retaining the appealing historic facade.

I suppose with the covid crap happening, some of the plans that might have been in the works for this beautiful building may have fallen by the wayside.

We couldn't just pass up this building, so we walked over to it and then all the way around it. I did see one hole in the chain link fence and an opening where I probably could have gotten in, but I didn't want to chance it or leave my backpack out in the open.

After going all around it, we headed back onto the trail which turned to the east out to the Hudson waterfront.
Dutch Apple cruises offer river tours in this area, and I was totally down to go on one, but it would have put us much later. We looked into it but decided against doing it this time.

In the same parking access area was an old battle ship, the USS Slater, a Cannon-Class Destroyer Escort, laid down in 1943.

The ship served during World War II, and was transferred in 1951 to the Hellenic Navy in Greece, under the Truman Doctrine, and renamed "Aetos" (Eagle).
The ship was retired in 1991, and Greece donated it to the Destroyer Escort Sailors Association.
It was moved to New York City and 1993, where it was docked next to the USS Intrepid. It was moved to its permanent home at the Port of Albany in 1997.
The Slater is one of only 12 Destroyer Escorts still in existence, and the only one that retained its wartime configuration. It is now a museum ship open to tours, which I was interested in taking, but we decided against this at this moment as well.

The trail continued north from here, parallel with Quay Street, and then beneath the Dunn Memorial Bridge.
The trail turned right away from the highway when we approached the Corning Preserve. There was a beautiful amphitheater area as well as well as a foot bridge that connected the trail to downtown. 

In view along the walkway to the west was the  SUNY Admin building, which was originally Delaware and Hudson Railroad Corporate Headquarters built between 1914 and 1918. It seemed like another little fitting piece of history since we had just spent more than a day hiking that route.

We continued ahead, and came back out to the edge of Quay Street again, and passed beneath Amtrack's Broad Street Bridge over the Hudson.

Then, in an open parking area before the Corning boat ramp, we reached the original eastern terminus of the Erie Canal.
This was a big deal thing, because I had really wanted to try to follow the entire Erie Canal one day, which would bring us here.
Heading north from here, we would stay on the Mohawk-Hudson Trail, which is I guess the official Erie Canalway Trail, but it does not follow the canal itself.
From here, current Erie Canal boats flow up the Hudson River and pass through the lock on it by Troy, then head north of Cohoes to pass through the new incarnation of the canal. The original Erie Canal went onto Water Street and then present day Erie Blvd heading north. I'd like to walk that one day, but it's not top of my priority list.

Signs read that via the Empire State Trail it was about 145 miles to New York City, and 360 miles to Buffalo on the Canalway Trail. I feel like that's doable.
We continued north, parallel with the interstate, and then into an area historically known as Patroon's Island, or at least it used to be an island. It has now been connected with the main land. The same has been done with nearby Breaker Island.
We passed through a wide meadow, which was full of dandelions ready to let loose their seeds. 

Just ahead, we approached the Patroon Island Bridge, a deck truss structure carrying Interstate 90, built in 1968.
We got undereath the bridge and looked off at the Hudson, and Jillane noted that the bedrock all beneath the structure was full of all sorts of amazing fossils. 
We continued north from here into a more secluded feeling section of woods, and came to the former site of Al-Tro Park. This park operated on Patroon's Island from 1906 to 1909, and featured band concerts, acrobats, performing lions, vaudeville shows, a four thousand seat amphitheater, a miniature train ride, and more. 

The paved trail actually followed a short bit of the grade once taken by the miniature railroad.
The name Al-Tro Park was taken from Albany and Troy, being the two close towns.
Through the twenties there were other amusement parks that operated at or near this site as well. 
One of the next islands up was home to a race track.
We continued along the trail in a very pleasant wooded area. There were often good views out onto the Hudson, and quiet back woods sections where there wasn't a lot of public.

Soon, we reached the Troy-Menands Bridge, a through truss span over the Hudson River completed in 1932. We passed beneath it, and then took a sweeping path uphill to walk across the bridge.
I would have liked to continue following the trail on the west side, but it doesn't continue all that much further to the Schuyler Flats. I figured there would be more interesting stuff on the Rensselaer County side of the Hudson, and I think I ened up being right.
Once we got across the bridge, Forbes Avenue goes uphill to the right. I had thought I saw an abandoned house on areals on the road that would be cool to check out, so we went up.

Sure enough, the house was up there on the left. The road was totally loaded with all sorts of illegal dumping. A horrible mess.
When we got to the house, Jillane decided not to go in, but I headed up and went through the rear of it. 
I looked all through the collapsing building's first floor, got up to the second, and then was shocked by another guy that walked around the corner.I apologized, at first thinking I might have barged into the home of a man who was living in poverty, or was squatting due to the same. He said he was just looking around too, but his demeanor has me guessing he was indeed squatting there or doing drugs.

We headed back down the road and then down along the edge of the bridge to reach King Road, along the edge of the former New York Central Railroad tracks.
The tracks were still technically active, but didn't look very well used at all.
Off to the left, along the Hudson, were some more ruins I had wanted to check out. We could see them clearly from the bridge when we were crossing.
We made our way into some old concrete structures, and then there was a metal pier going out onto the Hudson to the left of them.
I went out to have a look and found mangled metal, pushed from probably when the river reaches flood level. Quite an interesting little spot.

We followed along what must have once been a railroad spur, and then headed out onto the access road again. There was a shanty that would have been for a guard, and a chain link gate that must not have been closed in many years.

We turned a bit of a corner to find a huge complex of abandoned buildings on the right.
This was apparently some of the ruins of the old Burden Ironworks. 

Founder Henry Burden immigrated from Scotland and had worked in the Townsend and Corning Foundry of Albany where he invented an improved plow and made other improvements.

Burden moved to Troy in 1822 and became Superintendent of the Troy Iron and Nail Factory. He eventually became the sole owner and improved upon automations that made it very profitable.
At this site, he created the world's largest and most powerful water wheel which operated on the Wyanants Kill adjacent to the factory. 

The water wheel ran continuously night and day for about fifty years until its abandonment in the 1890s. It collapsed some twenty years later.
We made our way all through the buildings from the wide open doors. They had long floor plans and high, truss supported roofs. Some of the buildings were completely collapsed, while others seemed to still be in pretty good shape overall.
On the outside areas of foundations there was some pretty impressive graffiti as well. 
One of the buildings had an entire section of its roof support trusses completely collapsed, probably more due to a weakness in the outer walls than in the roof itself. It made for an intense scene.

We continued ahead out of the building to the north, along Industrial Parkway, and then came to the historic office building of the Burden Ironworks, built in 1880 and now serving as a local museum.

It had a rail car that had a giant pot for molten metal on it parked on a piece of track out front. Of course, the museum was not open as we went by because pretty much nothing was during the covid crap.
We exited the parking lot for the museum to the right, and then continued walking north on the former New York Central Railroad tracks. This took us into the much larger and more developed section of Troy. It was still a bit depressed compared to the sections of town we had seen on our last visit, but that made it more interesting.

The next major bit of industrial history and architectural beauty we came across was the Fortress of Shoddy.

Built in 1902, this was originally the United Waste Manufacturing Company Building as a storage facility for wool and cotton shoddy. Shoddy is cloth made from reconstituted wool and cotton, one of America's earliest examples of recycling.
The negative adjective "shoddy" originated from the negative opinions of the somewhat inferior fabric.
The Fortress here was affiliated with the mills of Cohoes NY, the Harmony Mills, which we had walked by on our last trip to Troy. This building had the grandiose level of prestige that those mills had for certain. We continued north on the tracks and there was a former junction site to the right where tracks continued to the east through town.

We crossed the Poesten Kill, a small creek, and another former rail bridge site of wood support was in ruins just to the right of us. Just beyond that, the main line used to cross the same with an intact bridge. That line continues abandoned through town, and further up becomes the Uncle Sam Bikeway. The right of way is abandoned for many many miles north of Troy, but none of it is trail beyond there as far as I know.
We continued on the tracks straigh ahead, which do not go on that much further. They terminated at former industry site in Troy, and there was an old freight depot building of brick construction to the right.

We got on River Street and continued north past lots of interesting architecture, like an old furniture factory that seems to have been nicely rehabilitated.

We reached Division Street and crossed over onto a sidewalk that remained low when a ramp went up to Ferry Street and crossed Congress Street Bridge I think it was.
Completed in 1969, it replaced the 1913 swinging bridge that actually lined up with Congress Street. The current structure is on the original ferry location and lines up with Ferry Street.
We continued beneath the bridge on the walkway, which was lined with all sorts of artwork about equality and peace, as well as a lot of quotations. It was pretty nicely done.
Once on the other side of the bridge, we continued on more walkway parallel with the ramps.

In this area, we came upon a historic marker dedicated to Uncle Sam, the patriotic old man image we have all seen in different locations with the "I WANT YOU" pointing finger.

Before visiting Troy, I had not been aware that "Uncle Sam" was a real person. I probably had heard the history of him before, but until I had a physical connection to the city of Troy, it must not have stuck in my mind at all.
Samuel Wilson gained popularity during the War of 1812 when he was meat inspector for the American Army. He also served as farm guard and butcher for the Continental Army during the American Revolution.
Wilson was also a prominent brick maker.
"Uncle Sam" became synonymous with the United States by the time of the Civil War.
This is why it is so important to make my physical connections to these areas, because I would not have been able to recite any of this information otherwise. I have gained a respect and connection I would never have felt for not only the City of Troy, but for this American signature that everyone has seen, but few understand the history that goes with it.
Just ahead we walked through a very odd area with tall apartment buildings that appeared to be totally empty.
I was later told this was sort of "the projects", originally built for returning veterans but then used as low income housing. It was strange to see so many buildings and so much space vacant.

All of the lower windows were boarded up. It just looked totally out of place.
We continued north toward River Street and Congress Street, where the earlier bridge had been.

On the corner was the Charles A. Brown & Company showroom and warehouse for knit products and, shirts, and underwear, built in 1888 (the year of the historic photo).

The Romanesque style six story brick structure changed hands but was still used for the same purpose for many years to follow.

The original building on this site burned in 1867.

We looked in through the windows of the building and it looked like stuff was still going on, although pandemic stuff has shut down a lot.

The earlier Congress Street Bridge built in 1913 once crossed the Hudson adjacent to this building before re-alignment in 1969. The approach pony truss is visible in the older shot. We headed down to the river from here and followed along the parking lot on Front Street to where the pathway of Riverfront Park started. We continued on that upstream along the Hudson.

Soon, we could see the Green Island Bridge, constructed in 1981 between Green Island and Troy Troy NY. We had walked across that bridge on the last hike we did into Troy.

Buildings like these in Troy were featured in the films.

It was the 4th crossing to occupy the site, starting with the wooden Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad bridge in 1832. A second wooden bridge was built after the first one burned (and took 75 acres of Troy with it) in 1862. The third was a metal truss structure built in 1884.
Flood damages claimed the third bridge in March 1977.
We continued along the waterfront and passed by the former city hall site that was demolished, and buildings like the Rice Building off to the right on River Street were in films like "The Age of Innocence" and "The Time Machine", and was the place where "Twas the Night Before Christmas" was first published.
We walked under the Green Island Bridge, and I had wanted to get something to eat at Brown's Brewing Company, but we were just barely too late to get in before their closer.

We just continued walking the waterfront from here back to the hotel where our car was parked to finish off this trip before heading home.
I was really happy with how the trip turned out and how much we saw, as well as how much I learned about the area during and in the time following. I had now walked all of the tidal Hudson Valley from its mouth at the bay all the way to the Mohawk River, and that to me is pretty cool. It's yet another little milestone that I didn't need to announce, but feels pretty good.