I love walking in the woods in the fall. There’s something about the smell of leaves in crisp, cool air that revitalizes my senses. We visited the Stewart Preserve on a nice fall day. Though the sun was mostly hidden behind clouds, when it did decide to peek out, the forest glowed. We will definitely be returning to this beautiful place in the early spring to see what else it has to offer.
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.
We decided to try a short little hike in the Catskills that we found using our AllTrails app that promised a waterfall along Kiskatom Brook, and stumbled onto a large network of trails created and maintained by the Round Top Mountain Bike Association (R.T.M.B.A.). The R.T.M.B.A. is working on providing riders with more mountain trails, and connecting local businesses in the process.
We found this little walk along the Lower Waterfall Trail and Ale Trail to be a lot of fun. With so many interconnecting trails, you really have a lot of flexibility when choosing your path. For such a short walk, the waterfall was totally worth it. However, now knowing that the trails were created for mountain bikes, next time I return it will be with a bike.
Continuing our day trip hiking adventures, we visited the Bennett Hill Preserve in upstate New York on a gorgeous crisp fall day. The leaves were just starting to change for autumn, gently padding the path, and the sun was shining brightly. It was a perfect day.
We visited the Winn Preserve on a perfect day. The temperature was in the mid-60s, the air was crisp, the sun was shining, and the leaves were changing color all around us. It was also the first time our son put his boots on the ground and “hiked” on the trail with us! Okay, so he didn’t hike the whole thing, but he did walk a stretch of the trail and loved every second!
The Keleher Preserve is a conservation area in the town of New Scotland that is managed by the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy. This is a larger preserve, with over 440 acres and offers miles of hiking trails with some overlooks of the city of Albany. We got a chance to hike around this gorgeous spot to take in the final days of summer. We even spied some leaves already starting to change color on us!
I’ve been hearing about Letchworth State Park for years now. “It’s the Grand Canyon of the East,” my husband has said to me on numerous occasions. Though I always kept it in mind, my need to visit this state park was cemented in 2015 when it was voted by USA Today readers as THE best state park in the United States. For Labor Day weekend, we traveled to western New York and finally decided to make a day at Letchworth. I must say, it lived up to all the hype!
The Adirondacks are beautiful. They are immense, tall, rugged, and powerful. It had been several years since my last Adirondacks hike, when we decided to hike up to Cascade Mountain, I was thrilled. This provides a short day hike to a summit with a glorious 360 degree view of the Adirondack Mountains.
The journey up to North Point is a beautiful one. We decided to hike to this overlook with our one year old son and had a wonderful time! With multiple views along the way, the trail gently slopes up, giving you a lot of level areas and allowing you to catch your breath as you make your way to the top. This was our first real hike since our son was born, and it was the best way to get ourselves back into hiking shape!
The Lisha Kill Preserve is a beautiful place, and echoes the feeling I had while traipsing though the Black Forest in Germany. The forests here consist of tall, dark trees and soft pine needles trail riddled with roots to walk on. It’s simply magical.