Happy trails to you,
Until we meet again.
Happy trails to you,
Keep smiling until then.
— Lyrics by Dale Exans, sung by Roy Rogers
One doesn’t have to own land to feel its wealth of pleasures. In fact, we share this land. We are rich – and getting richer – in the number of accessible and awesome trails in Ulster County, which has more than 350 miles of public trails.
Of one of his walks in the woods, Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal in 1858 of the uplifting sight of a grove of pine trees shining in the clear sunlight: “My spirit is like a lit tree.”
These pathways running through and connecting our communities are, places for experiencing physical activities; nature’s beauty and splendor, quiet and contemplation, and the ease of traveling in traffic-free areas.
Another Thoreau walk in the forest in 1851 similarly renewed him, “My heart leaps into my mouth at the sound of the wind in the woods. I whose life but yesterday was so desultory and shallow suddenly recover my spirits.”
Walking under a canopy of trees on a trail provides what Thoreau experienced. Slow down, take a breath, look up at the trees as you walk on a trail, and you are sure to feel a restorative tonic.
For this trail exploration, here’s a sampling of three appealing, beautiful trails for pick-your-own recreation.
Wallkill Valley Rail-Trail
The connectedness of the trails in Ulster County and New York State is inspiring, and this one is part of the connection. The sign near the Wallkill River in New Paltz shows a map of the Empire State Trail, the 750-mile linear pathway that travels from New York City through the Hudson River Valley, west to Buffalo along the Erie Canal, and north to the Adirondacks and the Champlain Valley.
The Wallkill Valley Rail-Trail is a part of this statewide trail. Its 22+ miles showcase a variety of iconic landscapes, splendid views of the Shawangunk Ridge in places, serene settings amidst the woods, rolling fields that border the pathway, and local history. The trail snakes through Gardiner, New Paltz, Rosendale, and Ulster to Kingston. One of its high points, literally, is the 940-foot long Rosendale Trestle, a continuous truss bridge and former railroad trestle some 150 feet above the Rondout Creek.
On the land where the Wallkill Valley Railroad once transported passengers, produce and milk, the trail now sees walkers, parents with strollers, joggers on long runs, from bicyclists doing jaunts of various lengths to those who pedal many miles, and in winter even cross-country skiers.
Walking south of New Paltz, I feel cradled by the rolling farm fields and savor the views of the Shawangunk Ridge. Northward into and through New Paltz, I can hear the low sounds of traffic in the distance.
An interpretive sign invites a pause to tune in to the surroundings, with its encouragement to “open one’s senses.” Breathing deeply in and out, I catch the earthy smells of leaves in the wetland. I see the shapes, colors, and textures of the wetlands, from smooth, vibrant bright greens to thin, sword-like plants with yellow wildflowers atop them.
A half-mile north, the traffic noises recede. There is silence and solitude along the trail. Passersby cycling, walking, or jogging are far fewer. The trail in the distance appears as a triangular hole that lets in light through a green wall. It’s meditative.
Sojourner Truth State Park.
Sojourner Truth State Park
The trails of Sojourner Truth State Park offer an intersection of riverfront, sky, and water within the first state park to be established in the City of Kingston. The park’s a successful and ongoing rejuvenation of a once-industrial landscape along the Hudson River known for manufacturing.
This new life has come following Scenic Hudson’s acquisition with state collaboration of the property in 2019. Scenic Hudson now manages the park, a 508-acre gem, a dramatic landscape of ecological regeneration from abandoned quarry and industrial sites.
The trails afford opportunities to take in a scenic overlook and a natural green space with a panoramic view of the Hudson River. Savor nature in unique habitats of woods, wetlands, and steep cliffs. Check out remnants of Kingston’s brick manufacturing and quarrying history. Gather at the extant mule barn’s community green space near the trail.
The park is one of the few places where the Empire State Trail connects directly with the Hudson River. This network includes the paved Hudson River brickyard and Kingston Greenline trails. Ongoing work is making more of the park publicly accessible in the future.
From a parking lot, a trail winds first level and then downward in a curve toward the river. It traverses through an area on each side of late September colors – plentiful goldenrod, punctuated by purple asters. Sprinkled in is echinacea withering to browns and rust. As the trail winds downwards, it slowly reveals a 180-degree view of the Hudson River, framed by a verdant landscape and an open blue sky above. The setting is spectacular.
The trail culminates in the community green space, which features lush plants, minimalist-though-comfortable benches, a resurfaced fishing platform, and a sleek covered 2000-square-foot pavilion with a gorgeous view of the Hudson. The paved pavilion trail is ADA-compliant.
Walking the trail, Kingston resident Sara Eckel appreciates the scenic beauty and calls the pavilion “stunning.” She especially relishes coming to the park in the wintertime, when it is full of “remarkable sunlight.”
The pavilion is indeed a gathering place. On this day, Rita Shaheen, Scenic Hudson’s director of parks and community engagement, is enjoying a celebration of her birthday in the pavilion. “One of these days,” she divulges, “I’m going to come here not for work but for fun.”
The riverfront area offers the feeling of safety in being among others and yet places to find solitude. It shows how the best trails and public spaces allow us to tailor our experiences.
Ashokan Rail-Trail
At the top of the website for the Ashokan Rail-Trail are the words, “It belongs to you.”
After the many years that it existed as the abandoned corridor of the Ulster and Delaware Railroad, the proof that it is a welcoming place for all comes from watching the folks who on a late summer day are bicycling, running, strolling, walking with their children in strollers, or relaxing along it to enjoy its spectacular views. It has places where the forest canopy makes the trail feel cozy and others where it opens to views of the Ashokan Reservoir and the surrounding mountaintops.
Running for 11.5 miles between West Hurley and Boiceville, the trail can be used for excellent heart-enhancing exercise as well as for peaceful, mindful contemplation of the seasons.
During my time there, I found only one trail visitor talking loudly on a cell phone. It’s unusual these days, such quiet in a public space.
This trail is accessible, with easy-to-find starting points. It can be accessed from three public trailheads: the Woodstock Dike, Ashokan, and the Boiceville Bridge. Surrounded by New York City-owned reservoir land, the flat trail’s surface consists of compacted, finely crushed stone, making it
amenable to long stretches of biking, walking your dog on a leash (provided you clean up after your pet), or jogging. It is ADA-compliant and accessible.
In the winter, it’s open for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and hiking. The trailheads are plowed but not the trail itself.
Even on a late-summer Sunday with lots of visitors, the rail-trail did not have a feeling of being swamped. Walking it truly invites noticing the light and shadow on the mosses and ferns and through the red maples, eastern white pines, and other trees or on the steep stone sides that frame it elsewhere.
The views of the Ashokan Reservoir are breathtaking, the kind that if you are stopping to explore will dispel all the busy thoughts that can crowd one’s mind. Even though the trail is not elevated, at times I had a sense of being atop a viewpoint observing the striking ways that water, mountains, and sky come together on the horizon.
More miles to come
One important way that new trails and parks improve on what governments and various entities opened decades ago is the history, science, geography, and other lessons imparted through the interpretive signs along them.
The Ashokan Rail-Trail has eleven interpretive signs. One describes how the Esopus people lived on these ancestral lands before European settlement, which brought conflict, towns and villages, industries, and trains, and illuminates where the Esopus descendants are today. Another tells of the communities, farms, and industries obliterated and lost when powerful and far-sighted New York City-based interests of the early 20th century cleared some 10,000 acres to construct the Ashokan Reservoir as a drinking-water source for the thirsty city.
Another describes the steps that those designing and establishing the Ashokan Rail-Trail took. The work to restore wetlands, natural water flow, and plant and wildlife habitats continues.
Such teaching moments are found on the waterfront trail at Sojourner Truth State Park as well. Its interpretive signage focuses on the Hudson River’s history, including its role and related activities in the lives of indigenous peoples of the Hudson Valley, the passenger steamboats on the river, and the acceleration of sea-level rise along the river, which is a tidal estuary.
If a lot seems to have enhanced the network of Ulster County trails in recent years, it’s because it has – and this trend is very likely to continue. In its 2020 report, “State of the Trails: 2020,” an Ulster County trails advisory committee set six important goals, including to connect and to complete the county’s unified trail network, to promote and to coordinate trail use countywide, and to promote sustainable trail use.
As the committee put it in the report, “We are poised to complete a unified network of trails that will benefit many more Ulster County residents for generations to come.”
For this trail-lover, that is a very happy, gratitude-generating thought!
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