Justa Rollin’ Right Along


Visiting Woodstock, NY - With Pictures!

Thursday, May 3rd, 2007



As I mentioned in an earlier post, my sister, her son and I visited Woodstock, NY on Tuesday. We had a few adventures on the way there, but when we did finally make it, we had a great day.

First, let me give you a little background on where exactly is. Ummm, it’s a little SouthWest of Albany, NY and West of Kingston, NY. It is right on the Southern border of the Catskill State Park and tucked to the SouthEast of Hunter Mountain and to the East of Phoenicia, NY. It is North of the Ashokan Reservoir.

Now, I know that I just threw a bunch of places and links in there, but I did that on purpose…I wanted you to be able to click around to see how cool of an area this is. It really is…but that’s just the location. Just wait until you see the town.

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This is the Library.

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This is the Town Hall.

Since we visited town on a Tuesday, the masses of tourists weren’t there. Most of the shops were open, so we were lucky to get some bagels and something to drink. There are tons of little shops throughout town…

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…and a good number of art galleries…

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Have you ever been to one of those towns were there is absolutely no rush? When we were in the bagel shop, a woman was baby talking to James. She looked up at Stephanie and said, “Hey, it’s better than working, right?”

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So is full of art and cool people. But what about the nature? Yeah…that too. There is a river that runs right through town. It’s called Tannery Brook. It has some nice waterfalls and is very clear.

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Overall, this town is a bit out of the way for the average person, but no one ever said we were very average. That’s why Laura and I have been having short little conversations about how nice it would be to live in , (hint, hint).

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Flight School - Lesson #17 - 10:00AM-12:00PM - VOR Navigation

Sunday, January 7th, 2007



Hours - 20.4

This was a fairly challenging but rewarding lesson. That seems to be the default description of flight school…challenging but rewarding. I remember the first time I did VOR navigation with Yigal. It made so much sense on the ground, of course things are different in the air. It helps that I am studying my ass off for the written test. The reading makes things a lot easier.

Today I learned how to track a course with the VOR (Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range) Indicator. I also learned how to intersect a VOR radial. What we actually did today was to fly to the destination VOR station and then change heading to a nearby airport, using the VOR signal. Ok, here’s how it went down:

We wanted to fly to the Huguenot VOR station (HUO) northeast of Port Jervis and then to the Resnick airport (N89) in Ellenville. We would be parallel to the with the to the northwest. On the ground with my chart and plotter, I made a line from our departure airport (MGJ) to the VOR station, so I knew the general direction to head after takeoff. The heading is 260 (magnetic). Then, I made a line from the VOR station to the destination airport. The heading is 037. You can see the compass rose surrounding the VOR station below. You can also see the little headings written on the outside circle of the compass rose.

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After I wrote those two items down, I recorded the radio frequency for the VOR station. In this case, the frequency was 116.1. Each local VOR station has a different radio frequency. Just for your personal information (so you can talk about this at parties), VOR stations transmit within a VHF frequency band of 108.0 - 117.95 MHz. Keep that in mind because I am going to quiz you on this one day. I also recorded the UNICOM frequency of 122.8 for Resnick airport. Yigal and I did a practice flight with the simulator and then hopped in the airplane.

We took off from runway 26, so we were already headed in the right direction. After I climbed to about 3,000FT, I tuned the NAV portion of the radio to the VOR frequency of 116.1. I listened for the Morse code. After tuning into any VOR station frequency, you need to listen for the Morse code because sometimes the station might be down for maintenance. If you hear no beeps, don’t use that VOR. I continued climbing to 3,500FT. Orange County Airport was pretty busy today, so I wanted to get away from all the traffic. Also, this was a good cruising altitude.

Once the frequency was dialed into, I turned the OBS knob on the VOR Indicator so the little arrow pointed “TO” and the needle was centered. Below is a sample of a VOR Indicator. The “TO” and “FROM” are not showing. What you see is what it would like like if you were directly over the VOR station. See my previous post for what a VOR station looks like from the air.

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When the needle is centered, that is the track you fly. If the needle moves to the left, that means you need to fly left because you drifted to the right and vice versa. The needle acts as the actual track and you don’t touch the indicator again until you reach the station.

Once we reached the station, and actually saw it on the ground, we flew over it. Right at the point of over the station, the “TO” flipped to “FROM” and I changed the indicator to read the new heading to Resnick airport of 037. Then, I turned the airplane to that heading.

Basically the idea is the same. You fly based on headings and what the VOR Indicator is telling you. At the same time, you use your chart and ground reference charts to confirm your heading. We decided not to go all the way to Resnick and to head back to Orange County. How did we know where we were, you ask? We just took the closest ground reference point and made a note of the heading from that reference point to the airport and then flew it. Easy. The hard part is that Yigal kept cutting the engine when we got close to the airport for simulated engine out practice.

Also, I learned soft field takeoffs. You need this when you are taking off from a grass or snowy runway. That is pretty straightforward…basically you need to set your flaps to 10 degrees and punch it like a normal takeoff. When you reach about 40KTS, you pull back just to get off the ground. Then, you use ground effect to keep the airplane about 20FT off the ground. When you reach climb speed of 70KTS, you pull back and climb, while putting the flaps back up in normal position. This type of takeoff is used to get you off the ground as quickly as possible because the grass or snow creates drag on the wheels and slows you down.

For next lesson I need to create my first flight plan for our cross country flight to an airport at least 50 miles away. Word.

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Sam’s Point Preserve - A Christmas Hike

Friday, December 29th, 2006



We have a new tradition in our house. We are going to go for a hike. Now, I completely understand that this may be a one year tradition because this year’s tempurature was in the 50s, but if this Global Warming thing is correct, there may be a few more years to go. By the way, wouldn’t you just love to see Al Gore and George Bush in a boxing match?

Anyway, we decided that Sam’s Point Preserve in the Mountains of Ulster County, would be the best place to start, because it is fairly nearby.

We drove up RT.52 towards Ellenville and made a right at the sign that said, “Cragsmoor.” After a few miles of crossing the top of the , we found and parked in the parking area. I took a walk over to the big map and saw that there was a lake about one and a half miles up the trail. Ok, let’s go see that.

We walked for a while and could see the cliffs on the right. They were getting lower and lower to the ground as we continued on. When we finally got to the top, I took Holly (the dog) and jumped up on top of a rock for a view.

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The first thought I had was, “What an odd place.” Right from where I was standing, you had a 360 degree panoramic view of the and the . Also, there was the lake all right…in the middle of this short pine tree forest. I felt like I was either walking on the moon or walking in Florida somewhere. Again, very odd.

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I took Holly down to the edge of the water and came across a weird little area. It must be a spill over or something. It seemed a bit out of place because I was wondering how they would get any machinery up here. I guess it must’ve been a while ago. Also, I was wondering if maybe there was any cave entrances around. I kept my eyes peeled.

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We totally forgot what the map looked like, so we only continued to walk for about another mile. We walked out and turned back for the two mile trip back to the car. When we got back there, we realized that a loop actually went around the lake and we were closer to the car at the point we turned around. Whoops. Next time we are going to take the trail from the other direction and take some nice pics from the top of the cliffs.

Till then!

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Flight School - Lesson #15 - 10:00AM-12:00PM - Sky Acres & Navigation

Sunday, December 10th, 2006



Hours - 18.3

Can you believe it? I was taunted the other day. Yes, that’s right…taunted. By who? None other than Bob C. You can see his taunt here. Now, you can say what you want about greasing things all day, but I pay particular attention when it has to do with landing in valleys with small uphill runways. Well, that’s Sky Acres (44N) in Millbrook for ya.

I have really have come to terms with the fact that I will be the only student pilot taking his practical having never soloed. The examiner is going to look over at me and say, “So, how did you like your first solo?” I am going to respond, “Oh, actually, I never have.” That should make for some good conversation. Hmmm, let’s see…10KTS on the ground with gusts to 20KTS at Stewart. We calculated a 40KT headwind at 3,500FT. The airplane was barely moving, but I’ll get to that later.

Back to Bob. Ah yes, I think I read a bit of a challenge in his last comment. Well, today, after I did the pre-flight, I walked up to Yigal and told him I want to go to Sky Acres. He has never turned down one of my requests, so why would today be different? That’s what is so cool…you actually have an airplane for 2 hours to go do what you want. If you learn something too, all the better. He looked at me and seemed pretty eager to do something fun today.

Before we left, Yigal gave me a rundown on navigation. Yeah, I should probably know something about that. We discussed VOR, the VOR Indicator, the radio settings and the GPS. That all made some pretty good sense. Why does everything always seem so much easier on the ground? You know, I could really be the best pilot if I just stayed on the ground. I could be one of those guys who just hangs around the hangars talking to the mechanics about VOR. That would be fun.

With that all done, I grabbed my bucket of Crisco and headed toward the plane. I was sure I would need that for later. We taxied to runway 21 and flew that airborne vessel off the ground. I turned into the downwind leg and kept climbing. I climbed to 3,500FT and then that’s when it all started. It seemed like everything we went over on the ground was a distant memory and now I knew nothing. I am sure I will get more familiar with it all in time.

We set the radio to the proper VOR setting for Kingston…117.6. I set the VOR Indicator. We started our way to Sky Acres. Due to the strong cross wind, I had to keep adjusting my heading until it was pretty set. We talked with ATC because we were in Class E airspace. I was pretty familiar with the terminology because I have been up at this altitude before. We crossed the Hudson River and saw Dutchess County Airport (KPOU). We were heading right for the VOR beacon. Right when the Indicator switched from “To” to “From,” we turned the plane to get a good look. It looks like a small white lighthouse.

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Ok, on to Sky Acres to see Bob. I saw the airport only a few miles away. I descended and switched radio frequency to 122.8 and made a few calls to see what the active runway was…17. Ok, I had the wicked beast in sight. Bob was right, a nice valley right before the end of the runway and an even nicer uphill slope after that. Hmmm…should be interesting. I entered the pattern and did my best to situate myself in new terrain. It is so weird…you can get very used to your home airport very quickly. I turned base, final…kept going down. The wind was pushing me to the left. I went down, cut the throttle, flared and touched down. We turned on to the taxiway. Great landing! I will admit that Bob does have a more difficult airport to practice from. It has “character.” I didn’t want to get smart, so I left the Crisco in the back seat (kidding of course).

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Yigal and I talked for a little while and then turned back on the runway for a nice uphill takeoff. On the way back, there was a huge headwind that made it seem like we weren’t even moving. I was boggled at all the ATC chatter and the navigation. I will get that, but it was a challenge. I talked a lot and ATC and I seemed to like each other. One time, I said “yes” instead of “affirmative” and they questioned that. I responded again with “affirmative” and it was all cool. We headed back to MGJ by going through Stewart’s Class D airspace. I made some more radio calls to ask for clearance to do this. All good. I entered the pattern for MGJ correctly this time and landed with a bit of help from the throttle after my airspeed got too slow due to the wind. It’s important to remember that your airspeed needs to be a bit higher when landing in the wind.

Bob, now that I visited your home base, I would like to invite you to my neck of the woods, just be sure to give a call first, so I can be there.

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Flight School - Lesson #14 - 10:30AM-12:30PM - Cross Wind Landings & Stalls

Wednesday, December 6th, 2006



First thing - 17.1 hours. Yee Haw. It’s just starting to get good.

I was soooo mentally prepared all this week for my first solo. Of course a huge thunderstorm had to roll through on Friday. Well, that lesson was cancelled. I rescheduled for Tuesday morning at 10:30. I kept looking out the window that morning to see if there was any wind. I am not allowed to fly solo if the crosswind is more that 6KTS. The wind seemed to be calm at my house. I hit the road and called the weather service for a standard briefing. The dude informed me the winds were from 210 at niner…that is…the winds were coming from the southwest at 9KTS. Also, there were gusts to 18KTS. Not a good day to solo. Oh well, maybe next time.

We did go up though. It was windy, but I am actually happy to fly in the wind now. Maybe because I learned how to land. I have to say, out of the four landings I did in this lesson, I aced them all. I mean aced. I can’t even express how good they were…you couldn’t even feel the tires touching the runway. I think this is awesome because it was quite windy and we were tossed around a bit. I finally got a handle on how to combine the “crab” with the “sideslip” for a good touchdown. I think Yigal was getting bored.

Back to the beginning of this story. We decided to go up to 5,500FT for some maneuvers. On the agenda was slow flight, power off stalls and power on stalls. I have done slow flight before, but not the way the examiner is going to ask me to do it. Let me think (first clear the area)…reduce throttle to 1,700RPM, lower flaps 10 degrees at a time, reduce speed even more until I am down to 50KTS while pitching the plane to keep its altitude. Sounds easy, but not that easy when you have to keep turning to stay in the clear area of the clouds and are being pushed around by the turbulence. To accelerate after slow flight, you give the plane full throttle, pitch down to avoid the balloon and one by one, raise the flap levels.

Now, stalls are a little different. The main reason for practicing stalls on Tuesday was to simulate taking off and landing. The power off stall is used to simulate what can happen during your approach to land. Let me think again…reduce throttle to 1,500RPM, pull carb heat on, lower flaps 10 degrees at a time, cut throttle. Now, pitch the airplane up by pulling the yoke to your chest. The plane will pitch up and stall quite easily. The minute it stalls, give it full throttle and try to recover by keeping the nose at the horizon while losing as little altitude as possible. Easier said than done.

The trickiest one is the power on stall. Just wait until I tell you why. Here it is…this is to simulate stalling after takeoff and during your climb. For whatever reason, you might pitch too high or your angle of attack might become too great. Give the airplane full throttle, pitch up, up, up. You have to really pitch up because the plane doesn’t want to stall, but when it does, you better have right rudder hard and heavy. I didn’t and learned my lesson. I forgot to use right rudder and performed a power on stall. The minute the lift broke…WHAM, the left wing fell and we went into a spin. This happens due to the airplane’s natural tendency to pull to the left at full throttle because of slipstream and torque. During the spin, I had a difficult time recovering because of my natural tendency to turn the yoke to the right. I actually aggravated the stall. I should’ve just kept the ailerons neutral and applied right rudder pressure and well as pulled back on the yoke.

We did a few of these and started to head back to Orange County. We were right above Stewart (SWF) with the Hudson River in good view. At 5,500FT, we were in Class E airspace, well outside of Stewart’s Class D airspace. Yigal asked me to make a call to ATC. I said, “Tower, November 734 Delta Sierra has Orange County in sight and is heading back now.” He looked at me and said, “Tower?” I thought we were talking to the Stewart ATC. Not the case. Since we were in Class E airspace, I should’ve been talking to “.” Oh well, they answered anyway. Man, you feel like a loser when you screw up like that. The tower guys are cool though. I think they hear a lot of it.

As I approached MGJ, I decided I had to pass the airport on the east to head in at 45 degrees to the downwind leg. As I began my descent to the pattern, we spotted another plane in the pattern already. I thought I could come in behind him and then do some slow flight to let him complete his landing. Yigal thought that was bad judgment because my airspeed was so much more than his. I would’ve come too close to him. We did a right circle to give him some time to get ahead and then we entered the downwind leg of the pattern. Two landings and one emergency “engine-out” landing were as smooth as silk.

Solo next time?

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The Hidden Waterfall in the Ridge

Thursday, November 30th, 2006



I went up to Paul’s house this past weekend to pick up some fiberglass insulation he wanted to get rid of. Perfect! I needed a few pieces to finish up the basement.

We decided to make a half-day of the visit and take a hike to the hidden in the Ridge. There was a very special little lady who decided to join us. We needed a good guide.

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I can’t give you the exact location of this , but I will give you a hint. It is off a road off a road off of Rt.44/55 going through the . Is that clear enough? It is about the height of Awosting Falls…well, maybe a little higher. I promised Paul I would keep mum about its exact location to respect the privacy of the area. Nuff said.

We started on our way and our guide was doing quite well. I am not sure she used a telescope or any other equipment, but I can tell you that she had a very keen eye for detail and direction.

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We made it to a wide open area that is used for part of the Catskill Aqueduct System. There was an opening of a few acres and even a helipad. Some digging had gone on there for shale. Also, on the right side, there were a few exposed pipes…part of the water system.

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Just past the clearing, the trail to the started. It is a really nice area. It reminded me a lot of where I used to hike at Grimes Glen, when I lived in Naples, NY.

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I just love waterfalls and creeks. A short hike through some semi-rough terrain brought us to a pretty amazing hidden treasure. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. I also couldn’t believe that this is so hidden. Well, at least now I know where it is.

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The coolest part is that you can jump around on all of the really large rocks at the base of the falls to cross the river and look through the caves. The one thing that can kind of freak you out is the steep cliffs that surround the area. You could just imagine if anything ever gave way. Anyway, if you ever find this place, make sure to bring some lunch and hang out for a while…it’s worth the hike.

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The Pickle Festival in Rosendale, NY

Monday, November 20th, 2006



This is pretty cool. We went to the Pickle Festival in this past Sunday. Laura said she saw a sign for it on the road and then emailed me a link. I checked out their site and was intrigued, to say the least. “What the heck is a pickle festival?” I asked myself. Then I said, “Hmm, I wonder.” And then thought, “Well, maybe we should go.” OK, enough of that.

We got in the car and drove over the and through Ellenville. We made our way up Rt.209 and then made a right towards . I haven’t been up that way for over a year. I am always shocked at how interesting of an area it is. It’s just so tucked back in the that you really need a reason to go there.

I really didn’t know what to expect for this type of festival. Well, we arrived and apparently it is a pretty popular happening in that neck of the woods. If I had to guess the whole day’s attendance, I would say about 1,500 people. Now, I didn’t hear a peep of advertising for this thing, so I would have to say that road sign worked pretty well.

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We walked in the parking lot towards the entrance and couldn’t really find it, so we strolled through an opening in the tent around back. No one stopped us, so I guess it was free admission for us. After a brief look around, we discovered the typical booths…jewelry, t-shirts, fried dough, etc…Hmmm, not many pickles. We walked through the tent, lengthwise towards the front. There seemed to be more and more vendors giving out samples of food. There were different types of spreads, breads, jellies and finally…pickles! I started noticing that there was some sort of a line that snaked itself around the whole tent. I guess you just hop on this very slow line and get a sample from each booth. The only thing you had to do was battle the ladies who were trying to push their way through you. That’s right, through you. I don’t know why people think it is ok to be rude. They are lucky I didn’t body slam them. Perhaps a pile driver would’ve been ample…or a figure 4 leg lock.

We looked around for a bit and even bought a jar of Spacy Tracy’s Pickles…(hey, there’s some free advertising). She makes some pretty damn good pickles. Nice and garlicy…

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…and then we noticed some commotion coming from all the way at the front of the tent. We made our way up there and saw this long line wrapped around…everyone was waiting for this dude to grab pickles our of these 5 gallon buckets and put them in quart containers. They must’ve been good pickles, so we got on line. A half hour later, we were getting our very own container of half-sour pickles for $5. Laura even got a different type of pickle for $1 (full-sour). We were kind of full. Who knew this guy filling pickle containers would be the coolest guy there.

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He was hot shizznit. I ate one of them on my way down the parking lot…MMMMMMMM…gooooood! The best pickle ever! I have to find his recipe and make my own, or I can just wait until next year and get another quart. Over all, I would recommend this fun festival if you are in the area.

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The Toll Booth Drag Race

Friday, November 10th, 2006



Here is the scene - you are on a nice trip with your family (or just on your way to work, like me) cruising down the highway and you cross a beautiful river…ahh, the Hudson River. You cross the Newburgh-Beacon bridge to stumble upon the toll booths that are on the Beacon side of the river. You find a good lane and slide into it…You wait until it’s your turn to pay your toll, or slowly glide through EZ Pass. What a peaceful day. Once payment is made…WHAM! You hear the screeching of tires and car engines revving up to 9,000RPM. You see cars shooting out of the holeshot like bats out of hell. You smell exhaust like you never have before. You wonder what the hell is going on. Just on the other side of the booths was a nice laid-back cruise and on this side is alike a race to save your life.

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I experience this almost every day I drive to work. Just the other day, there were two drivers, pushing their cars to do 0-60 in about 2.3 seconds, trying to pass a semi truck in the fast lane. Now remember, there are about 10 lanes merging into 2, so you need to be slightly…just slightly respectful to other drivers. These 2 cars pushed themselves so far up the rear of this semi truck they both almost crashed into the highway divider…by themselves. There was no other condition that caused their close accident.

My question is this - What the hell is going on? What is the rush? As I cruise slowly on purpose, I see the most aggravated looks on these people’s faces trying to get ahead. I think some of them would really kill you and not care, just to get in front of you. I love it when they whiz by you and then are forced to stop behind the car that was right in front of you. They have to feel stupid.

I really try to drive slowly out of the toll booth, but sometimes I slip. Yesterday, I was almost at the end of the merge and in my lane when this lady tries to fly up behind me and pass me on the left. Now, this really aggravated me. She got past, so I gunned it and went around her on the right. Once around her, I cut sharply to the left to land right in front of her. She had no idea what was going on, because she didn’t even know she was being rude.

I really hate it when adults have to discipline other adults.

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Some Background on the Tilly Foster Mines in Putnam County

Thursday, November 9th, 2006



Since I started writing about the , the posts on the topic have become the most popular on this blog. I started talking to some people about it and thought it might be fun to get some history on mining in the Putnam County area to share. I found some good links here:

There are a lot more great resources on the topic and they can be found if you just Google search for Tilly Foster Mines.

Let me know your thoughts…

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PS - the photo above is an aerial view of the Mine at the Carmel end of Rt. 312. This is the one right next to Simon’s Junkyard.

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Hiking at the Pawling Nature Reserve

Wednesday, September 27th, 2006



When you think you are getting in a rut with your life, one way to climb out of it is to go for a walk every evening. Make sure it lasts an hour or more. You don’t have to power-walk or do it for exercise…just do it for the pleasure of getting out of the house and having a decent conversation with your significant other. It’s amazing how much stress you shed off and how much of the town you live in becomes noticed and enjoyed.

When we lived back on the Eastern side of the Hudson River, we used to walk around the neighborhood, on the track up at the Trinity-Pawling School and at the Pawling Nature Reserve. By far, the best place to get away from it all is the Nature Reserve.

You get their by heading north of Pawling on Rt. 22 and making a right on N. Quaker Hill Rd. Continue East until you make a left on Quaker Lake Rd. Continue on this road, past both lakes until the road turns into dirt. You should see a sign on the left side shortly thereafter.

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A short description of the reserve is here:

“The Pawling Nature Reserve covers 1,050 acres ecomapssing almost the entire 1053′ high western side and top of Hammersly Ridge in the northeastern corner of Pawling. South of Pawling, the topography is considered a part of the Hudson Highlands. From Pawling nothward, however, the topography and geology is the very foot of the Berkshire Mountains. The Pawling Nature Reserve contains many of the geological features of the Berkshires with deep ravines, sheer cliffs and rock talus slopes.

Much of the Preserve is covered with second growth timber as the area has been settled beginning in 1728. Sheep and cattle grazed the Nature Reserve land from 1750 until around 1930. Logging also played a major role in the area’s history. Remenets of an old sluiceway can still be found near the main entrance, along the Yellow trail. Foundations and stone walls dot the entire reserve.”

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The feature that initially attracted me to this trail system is the Hemlock trees. I just love the shade of huge hemlocks!

When we start the approximate 5 mile loop, we immediately pass the little wooden map holder and donation box. We usually look through this for things that people write. You can find very interesting comments there. Then we continue through to the coolest ravine and waterfall. There is a wooden bridge set up that crosses the river and bounces when you walk on it. It is extremely fun to cross first and then jump up and down on it when someone else gets to the middle. It makes then hop up and down on it uncontrollably. Just don’t fall off while laughing at them. Remember, this is not a nice thing to do to someone. They may begin to walk away without you.

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After you apologize and pass the river, you bear to the left and follow the trail markers. It is pretty basic hiking for a few miles, until you get to a little area with a very small pond on your left. Be sure to stop there to look for frogs. They have been there every time we visited.

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Right after that, you will see a sign for the Appalachian Trail. This is very exciting because you can say that you walked the “AT” while hanging out at parties. People will think you are really cool. Just be sure to stop the conversation there, before they start to ask questions. You skirt the AT for a while and the landscape becomes a bit swampy. The people who maintain the trail built a wooden path that hovers above the swamp about two feet.

Continue walking and when you arrive at the big hillside, you will know that you are on the back half of the trail. It becomes kind of rocky, but really neat because everything changes to smaller trees and mountain laurels. Follow the hillside down and you will connect back with your starting place at the bridge, river and waterfall.

The hike usually takes about an hour and a half. I would say that the best time to go, like all hiking, is in late September and early October, but it’s nice year round. You will notice that when you hop back in your car to drive home, the conversation will have changed from everyday work talk to hiking and what you want to do with the rest of your life. Ahhh….what nature can do for you.

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