Yes, yes. I know. Apple-picking. Historic sites. Leaf peeping. Farmers’ markets. Corn mazes. Hayrides. Wineries and cideries. There’s nothing wrong with these fall traditions, but we can be more creative.
The Hudson Valley is synonymous with autumnal beauty and color-shifting foliage. You’re right to want to enjoy the fall in the great outdoors. But perhaps you’ve grown tired of the typical activities pictured on the full-color covers of monthly regional magazines and brochures, and seek to venture off the beaten path while still enjoying nature. Below are six unique activities that may not be obvious to you. From personal experience as a long-time local, I humbly suggest these are great enough pastimes to stand beside placing apples in bags and watching chlorophyll break down.
Pick-apple alternatives
Apple picking in the Hudson Valley has become so passé that Saturday Night Live wrote a skit poking fun at it. So while all the tourists are knee-deep in pies and ciders, we recommend you join the cool kids by picking anything but apples.
Pumpkins are the obvious apple alternative, but few Americans eat them save un pumpkin pies If you’re looking to be adventurous, Kelder’s Farm in Kerhonkson is one of a few places you’ll find sugar pumpkins, which distinguish themselves from gargantuan Halloween gourds, They’re smaller and sweeter, perfect for cooking.
But we can get more adventurous still. DuBois Farms in Highland advertises October picking of kale, collards, swiss chard, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and even grapes. Homemade country wine, anyone?
Raspberries can be found at several local pick-your-own spots, including Greig Farm in Red Hook. Several varieties of pears can be picked down at Fishkill Farms in Hopewell Junction (reservation required).
Go on and pick your apples, but consider some other types of fresh fall produce to liven up your autumnal aesthetic.
Play disc golf
Once you’ve caught the disc golf bug, you wonder why it took so long to catch on. It’s accessible to almost anyone regardless of athletic skill. It’s easy to learn. The pursuit is relatively inexpensive, especially compared to real golf.
Courses are typically free to the public, and you only need a handful of discs to start playing (though you’ll be replacing lost discs from time to time). Open spaces like parks can easily be turned into disc golf courses. Disc golf offers great camaraderie when enjoyed with friends, and can be as casual or competitive as you care to make it. And even if you’ve managed to get a disc caught in a tree and two in the water, at least you had a great walk in the woods.
Lucky for us, the Hudson Valley has some incredible disc golf courses. An unofficial top three might include Hunter Mountain’s hilly hike of an 18-hole course, the challenging and diverse bucolic landscapes of the Beacon Glades disc golf course, and the heavily wooded (and thus highly demanding) Gunks disc golf course.
Warwick Town Park disc golf course is a bit further-flung, but gets an honorable mention as many a Hudson Valley disc-tosser’s favorite. Also check out Kingston Point’s nine-hole setup – nothing fancy, but certainly some cool features and views.
Go metal detecting
Metal detecting is having a moment, thanks to social-media accounts and video streaming channels which give a first-person perspective of treasure hunters in historic locations. Several content creators have amassed audiences in the tens of thousands.
Their fans hunt vicariously, watching metal objects being found and dug out of the ground in live streams and vlogs – everything from Civil-War paraphernalia to discarded handguns. When one factors that popularity in with the low price of a beginner-level metal detector (around $60), the hobby can become alluring. Hudson Valley’s rich history and plethora of ruins and historic sites, add another dimension to the hunt.We have the real makings of a metal-detecting odyssey.
This is a needle-in-a-haystack type of pursuit. You will likely find hundreds of bottle caps, metal scraps and screws before something interesting surfaces. Coins that have slipped out of pockets are typically the only items of value you’ll find. But who’s to say you won’t get a one-in-a-million hit on a lost gold ring or valuable historical artifact? That’s what metal detecting is all about – never knowing whether that beep you just heard is treasure, trinket or trash.
In addition to the metal detector, you’ll need one or more implements to dig – start with a small trowel built specifically for metal detecting. Wear gloves that can handle hours in the dirt. Having a partner is recommended, so one person can do the detecting while the other does the digging. You can switch off to keep things interesting.
There are many resources available online for you to learn more about the techniques behind detecting objects and choosing locations in which to hunt. There are no resources online that will develop the patience you need to metal-detect for an extended length of time. For that, you need the offline idyllic nature of the Hudson Valley to continue motivating your hunt during long moments of silence between beeps.
Forage for a terrarium
Foraging for food is all the rage in the Hudson Valley (locals’ tip: there are morel mushrooms growing at the aforementioned Hunter Mountain disc golf course). Foraging for a terrarium is perhaps less popular, but it’s a fantastic and family-friendly way to bring the outdoors inside and create a piece of nature-inspired decor for your home.
Terrariums are another hobby that has risen in popularity with the advent of online content creators who build elaborate closed ecosystems and otherworldly natural installations housed behind panes of glass.
All this hobby requires is a clear vessel of some kind. Old aquariums are ideal, but you can make most see-through containers work. Once you have a container for your canvas, all that’s left to do is get outside and start finding objects in nature with which to build a virtual miniature landscape.
There are countless directions to take your terrarium, and endless oceans of inspiration online. For a first-timer terrarium, consider using only objects that will not quickly break down: cool-looking rocks, of course, but also interesting sections of tree bark, moss, sticks, and plant life that can survive for a while even if ignored.
The more living and organic you make your terrarium, the more you’ll need to maintain it as you would a plant or garden. Introduce living organisms if you’re feeling ambitious. You’ll need to layer your ingredients and manage moisture strategically, but worst-case is everything in your container becomes withered and dead. If that happens, you’ll have a pretty cool apocalypse terrarium.
Make grave rubbings
A bit of charcoal and some lightweight paper is all it takes to make amazing artwork for your home. This is particularly true in the Hudson Valley, with its historic and often-unique graveyards. Plus, the act of graveyard rubbing offers peak spookiness for Halloween, and an opportunity to enjoy the dying leaves amongst monuments to the dead.
It’s easy to create a grave rubbing – just get some lightweight paper like tracing paper, some sticks of charcoal (you can also use rubbing wax, chalk or a soft pencil), and maybe some masking or painter’s tape to hold the paper in place. Perfectionists will want to bring a soft brush (like a paintbrush) to gently clean the grave of dust and dirt, perhaps even using a soft cloth or sponge. Cleaning the gravestone is not necessary, though, and in some cases it might draw unwanted attention.
Most graveyards don’t have a problem with grave rubbings as long as you’re acting responsibly, But don’t expect graveyard staff to sanction them if asked – especially in historic graveyards that have been preserved and restored.
Take your rubbings home and frame them for some great decor that carries with it the memory of enjoying fall in the Hudson Valley, and the reminder you are thankfully still alive.
Search for the dice gnome
This is by far the weirdest item on the list, and one that I might get in trouble for telling you about. That’s because the dice gnome is one of our area’s most closely-guarded secrets, an experience you only hear about via word-of-mouth, or if, like me, you stumble upon it on Google Maps.
Basically, the dice gnome is a statue that can sometimes (but not always) be found in the southern area of the Ferncliff Forest in Rhinebeck. It’s in a small wood shrine at the base of a fallen tree a bit off the Orange Trail.
Based on Google reviews, the gnome has been spotted in this vicinity as far back as 2019, but its presence is far from reliable, ostensibly because people keep stealing it. Or perhaps Ferncliff Forest caretakers are not too keen on all the attention the gnome gets.
Fortunately, gnome devotees bring replacement gnomes in from time to time.
There’s also the matter of dice. Some visitors leave dice of all kinds to present as offerings, while others take the dice. Though my most recent visit to the site revealed no gnome, I did find a single white six-sided die was where the gnome should have been.
To my knowledge, there is no explanation for the appearance of the gnome or its obsession with dice, which makes the object all the more mysterious.
Even if the gnome’s not home, Ferncliff Forest is a fantastic casual fall hike accessible to folks of all ages. It’s the kind of traditional activity you’d expect to partake in during autumn in the Hudson Valley, so why not spice it up by rolling the dice? You might get lucky.
Join the family! 
