Empire State Trail Again

The Empire State Trail is a 750-mile multi-use trail/route that has two branches like a T through New York. The north-south branch goes from New York City (Battery Park) to Montreal. The east-west branch goes from Buffalo to Albany, largely along the route of the Erie Canal.

I've now encountered it enough times that I'm trying to add up what I've done of it. We did another 2-mile piece today along the Hudson River.

The ice on the river is breaking up and because the air temperature made it over 50 degrees, it created strange moving fog banks that were really interesting to watch.

I loved this spot.

This area is being made into a state park, Sojourner Truth State Park. Marie and I hiked in the area last year, and the jagged edge of the cliff in this picture is where we took pictures from last year.

Coming back, we also saw the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge through the fog. Marie and I hiked that in 2023- link below.

This whole area was noted for brickyards which created most of the bricks that built New York City. These two pictures are part of a factory and smokestack from a brick works.

Here's what I know I've hiked of the Empire State Trail:
about 1 mile to Rondout Creek
2 miles at Sojourner Truth park
2 miles Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge
1 mile Historic Hudson Walkway
about 18 miles from Canastota to Rome, concurrent with NCT
? on Conservation Trail near Buffalo/Niagara (need to compare maps when home)

So total is something approaching 30 miles. I don't really have a goal (they don't offer a patch or even a sticker) but hey... I like making connections

We went to church, hiked, and crashed. I felt like cr*p all day and Marie didn't sleep well last night, so we read a little and napped.

Miles walked in 2026: 74.6

Empire State Trail, Sojourner Truth State park out and back 4.2 miles

See Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge See Conservation Trail See Back to Canals

Falling Waters- Saugerties

 Today we made a true effort to not get tied up in things that HAD to be done. We played our game, and read. We are trying to finish a book this week. We'll make it- only a few pages to go. We talked. OK, we made soup and salad and went to church, but it wasn't an all-out race to accomplish things.

We hiked at a nature preserve called Falling Waters. We were there last summer too (see link below). But this time we hiked both trails. This is the waterfall on an unnamed creek that gives it the name.

The upper trail is mostly smooth and graveled, but the return loop has some pretty good hills as it goes down by the river and back up the bluff.

The river is the Hudson, of course. Always impressive.

Today, we had the time to hike both loops of the trail, so I didn't see this second waterfall last summer.

In the 1800s, cutting ice from the river to ship to New York City was big business. There were huge icehouses that held 10,000 tons of ice. This wall is one of the few remnants of the buildings.

Good botanical find- this is snake fern (or common polypody). Nothing is really sprouting yet. These are evergreen, but it's nice to see patches of anything green.

Bad botanical find. These are the seed pods of the "water chestnut" (not the one you eat in Asian food) that are clogging the eastern waterways. See pix of the plants in the link below.

Tomorrow is my last day here.

Miles hiked in 2025: 35.7

Falling Waters Preserve, Saugerties, NY. Two trails and a little more. 2.5 miles

See Falling Waters Summer 2024

Sojourner Truth, and, and, and...

 This morning we went to Sojourner Truth State Park. It's quite a new park that was put on the site of a former brickyard and cement factory. There isn't a lot there yet, but we saw most of it. Sojourner Truth grew up in this county, Ulster County. Born in 1797, she was slave to a Dutch family. But she walked away with her infant son and sought refuge with an anti-slavery family. They bought her freedom for $20. She then sued her former owner for the freedom of her son and won! She was the first black woman to win a lawsuit against a white man in New York.

She became known as a speaker, abolitionist, and suffragette. She actually attempted to vote in 1872, although she was turned away.

There is supposedly a nice dock at river level, but we chose to take the hike to the other good destination at the park, an overlook of the Hudson River. The elevation of the surface of the Hudson here is only 16.4 feet above sea level, yet it's a 2-hour drive from here to New York City. No wonder the tides have an effect here. The elevation from this overlook was 160 feet.

There are several interpretive signs about the former industries. Clay at the base of the cliffs was used to make the bricks, and the cliffs were mined for limestone for the cement kilns. This small lake is a former quarry.

I also learned more about that really bad plant Trapa natans. I'm going to not use the common name "Water Chestnut" as that makes it sound like the Chinese vegetable (although the seeds of this are eaten in cultures where it is native). It's also called Water Caltrop. This is a mat of it on the Hudson River. Maybe we should be harvesting it and trying to eat it out of existence.

Here's a closer look. The mats are pretty dense. That has to be impacting the ecosystem.

There were also a lot of nice wildflowers at this park. I think they must have been mass planted to be so prolific and concentrated in a former industrial area. It's a mix of Bee Balm (Monarda), one of the wild sunflowers, and a coneflower. They do look great.

We also visited a preserve called Falling Waters (not the Frank Lloyd Wright one- that's in Pennsylvania). This has a nice loop trail and a little waterfall.

More grocery shopping, a little work time, and then this evening we were finally able to start the project that Marie would like to get done. We started staining her new deck. Hopefully we'll be able to finish while I'm still here. We got one coat on most of the railing.

Miles hiked so far in 2024: 354.6.

Overlook trail at Sojourner Truth State park, 1.7 miles. Falling Waters Preserve loop trail, 1.8 miles

See Saugerties Lighthouse

Saugerties Lighthouse

  There are 8 remaining lighthouses along the Hudson River. More than 24 were built from 1826 to 1921, coinciding with the rise in night use of passenger steamboats. This is Saugerties Lighthouse, built in 1869 to replace an earlier light at this location from 1835.

This is looking down the Hudson River toward New York. I'm not sure I've ever taken a hike before where you had to check the tide table before setting out. The Hudson River is actually a tidal estuary, affected by the tides as far north as Albany. At the trailhead to this short walk, the tide table is posted with the days and times that the trail is underwater!

There are two items of note here. First is the bouy with something on top. It's an osprey nest. If you look closely, you'll see a baby's head.

Squint even harder, and you'll see a bridge just to the right of center. That's the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge that Marie and I walked across in March 2023.

I learned a new plant, but it's a bad one. This is Water Chestnut, Trapa natans. It was brought to the US in 1884 by a plant collector. Of course it escaped into the Hudson River. It forms large mats that clog waterways. Animals do eat the large seed pods.

This is a fun plant, but I haven't seen it for a while. It's Dodder, Cuscuta sp., a parasitic plant that looks like someone draped orange silly string over other plants. It has to tap into the vasuclar system of another plant for nourishment. It will sometimes bloom, and I have pictures of that from back when my pix were 35mm.

Also, we saw what appeared to be an ordinary squirrel. However, on closer inspection it appears to have been crosed with a lemur. Just kidding, but I don't think I've ever seen one with stripes on its legs like this.

In other news: We sent for our FLT 50 and FLT Branch Trail patches. We bought paint. If it ever stops raining (not constant, but enough to keep things wet), we have a DIY project to do.

The reason I'm blogging late is that one of Ed and Marie's very shy kitties (two rescue cats) decided to sit on my lap for a long time. Previously, (like for several years previously) she has not even let me touch her. The other cat won't let anyone touch him. I mean, when a shy cat parks on your lap, you just can't get up and blog.

Miles hiked so far in 2024: 351.1.

Trail to Saugerties (NY) Lighthouse and back, 1 mile

See Sort of a Foodie Day

Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge

  We did something so interesting today that I have to blog about it instead of the Flower Show. Even though there was a really stiff wind, we walked across the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge. A pedestrian lane has recently been added. You were never allowed to walk or even bicycle across it before. It's now part of the Empire State Trail, which I was on briefly last May. See Back to Canals.

The traffic was loud, but the ped lane is separated with a concrete barrier, so you feel safe enough.

This is a bridge across the Hudson River. The new thing I learned today is all wrapped up with what I thought I learned yesterday. The mountains that I said were the Shawangunks are not. The ridge you can see along the right side (west) of the river in this picture are the Gunks.

Amtrak runs down the east side of the Hudson.

On the return walk, well, WOW! There were the mountains I showed you yesterday, way too far north for the Shawangunks. These are part of the Catskills. I believe it is Overlook and Plattekill Mountains (3136 feet and 3500 feet), but after yesterday's epic failure at identification, maybe you shouldn't trust me. I'm pretty sure this time, though. That dark blue ridge you can just see above the guardrail is Blue Mountain.

Anyway, we walked almost 3 miles. The real challenge was that the wind made it difficult to even stand up on the return walk.

See Loving the Mountains

Sunrise from the Train

  Marianne from the Toledo area was a total trooper, agreeing to take me to the train station at 2 in the morning. I caught a quick nap on her sofa before we headed out. Our friendship began because of the trail, but discovered we have many more things than that in common, including trains.

The train was full, which is sort of interesting in its own right. This is the Lakeshore Limited from Chicago to New York and Boston, with a split at Albany. I got on in Toledo and got off in Albany. The first time I took this train was in 1975, the same year Amtrak established the line. I took toddler Steve and went to NY to see my mother. We had an entire train car to ourselves. That sure wasn't the case today.

I've taken this route four times, that 1975 trip, then once in the 1980s, and once in 2002, and today. This is the first time it's ever been full when I rode, and it's also the first time that it was pretty much on time. The worst was in the 1980's when I had to sleep on the floor in the station in Rochester and wait for 12 hours because there were mechanical problems.

Anyway, I managed to get a couple more hours of sleep on the train. My seat mate went to get breakfast at about sunrise, which was great for me, because I was able to scoot over to look out the window. The sunrise was spectacular with mammatus clouds lit from below. Even through the crummy train windows the pictures aren't bad. This color is accurate.

Sunrises and sunsets have to be just about the most ephemeral sources of beauty in our lives. It was still looking nice about 5 minutes later, but then the sun actually rose, and all the glory faded.

It's a long way across New York State, by train or car. Train was a great option for this trip. I didn't have to drive. The price was less than I would have spent on gas, and it didn't take much longer. I can't really do that 17-hour drive in one day any more, although I used to. And we were just going to park my car at Marie's house and only take one vehicle to Philadelphia, so there was no reason I had to take the car.

I packed enough food. There was a cafe car in the train, but I opted to not have to spend any extra money. I took my pillow and a blanket. I didn't need the blanket, but I think I'll get a neck pillow before the return trip.

Finally, we crossed the Hudson River to arrive at the Albany-Rensaleer train station.

Marie picked me up and we crossed back to the west side of the Hudson and headed south to her place. The Thruway runs between the Hudson and the Catskills. We think this is Timmerman Hill ahead.

We arrived just in time to fix dinner, and then go do some prep work on a project she is involved in. Now we are crashed. We'll take a picture of us tomorrow. For now, you know I'm here safely. Really tired, but all is well.

See Working My Way East