Our little weekend adventures to the various preserves in our area have been one of the most wonderful things that we have started doing since our son was born. Our initial intent was to get our son out of the city and into the woods. Now, I see that it’s not just about getting him outside, but it’s for ourselves as well. It keeps things in perspective to get out of the daily chaos into a quieter place. This allows us to focus on the little things that matter, like the changing of the colors of the leaves, or the sound of a raven in the distance.
With that in mind, we visited the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy’s Winifred Matthews Holt Preserve in New Scotland, in upstate New York. It is my favorite Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy preserve to date, and that’s saying a lot.
Winifred Matthews Holt Preserve
The Winifred Matthews Holt Preserve, or Holt Preserve for short, is 148 acres that was donated to the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy in 1994 by William Holt and Winifred Matthews Holt. Though the land was once open pasture, it was reforested by William Holt with mixed softwoods and hardwoods.
He also built a pond for the wildlife that you can visit in the southeast part of the preserve.
Hiking Trails
There is over two miles of trails that take you through the preserve. There are several named trails that have accompanying trail blaze colors of red, yellow, green, blue, purple, and orange. These trails loop around and connect with each other. This allows you to make your walk as long or as short as you’d like. We decided to take the outer trails all the way around the preserve. That would let us spend a little time on each trail.
I really loved this preserve because each section of trail had its own feel to it. There were several trails with some actual elevation change, one that followed the ridgeline, one that went around the pond, and one with a view of Route 32 below.
Where is it Located?
The Holt Preserve can be accessed from either Lower Copeland Hill Road in Feura Bush, or Upper Copeland Hill Road in Coeymans Hollow, in upstate New York.
Maps
A downloadable pdf of the hiking trail can be found at the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy website here.
For other Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy hikes, please see my posts about Norman Kill Preserve West, Bennett Hill Preserve, Keleher Preserve, Winn Preserve, and Wolf Creek Falls Preserve.