May 30, 2011 Black Rock Hike

I'm not sure what made me think to keep a hiking journal. I usually don' write my thoughts down. But now is as good a time as any to start.

I'm at Black Rock now....my first time. When the path split, I took the fork to the right for no other reason than I'm right handed. This trail has been all up hill..like I feel my life is right now. I think I should turn around and go back down but I keep thinking the next turn will bring me to something wonderful. We can all hope because at times....that's all we have. I'm sitting on a big moss covered rock by all these fields of fern. It's beautiful in itself. I can swear I hear the Memorial Day parade down in town. I'm going to get going to head up...to better things.

 After leaving the fern meadows, I continued up the trail. I saw plenty of chipmunks and heard lots of birds but saw very few of them. I eventually came to a gign with trail markers. There was also a Black Rock truck there and the man inside gave me a trail map. I had been on Hulse Road and now was a "2 gates". I continued on up Continental Road. I kept seeing fenced off areas with bird houses on posts. I was able to get a nice picture of a bird flying in to feed her babies.

I then passed "white oak tree" (thank goodness for trail maps) and eneded up at the "stone house". There were 2 plaques in this area that I took pictures of. There was also Arthurs Pond in the distance.

I ended up leaving and going down White Oak trail. This was going to take me a little south of where I parked my car so I tried to find another trail off of the main one that would take me back but I couldn't seem to find it. There were alot of people (most with dogs) walking up to the reservoir for a med day swim. It was warm and humid today and would be a great day for swimming. I had about 4 hours to myself and it was a nice
way to reflect.

A great web site is:

www.blackrockforest.org/pdf-files/MaherHistoryComplete...

Cornish Estate Ruins

The main house

 

 the green house   

 

 My hiking partners

 The cistern for the estate

                         A view of Rt 218 on the other side of the Hudson River

                                      The road leading down from the estate

 The main entrance where we went in. There is limited parking there but there is parking further down the road.


February 18, 2011
My daughter, April and I (along with grandpuppy Gibson) went over to Cold Spring to theruins of the Cornish Estate. I had read about this in an article in the NY Times. It was a snow covered day but the temps weren't to bad. We hiked up past the main house and then turned around after about 3 miles and went back to explore the ruins. It was amazing to see no only the house but also all the other buildings. I was also able to see what the main house used to look like "in it's day". That old picture and much of the history of the estate I found on a web site by Rob Yasinsac www.hudsonvalleyruins.org/yasinsac/cornish/cornish1.html.
The hike was relatively easy (or would have been if not for the snow) since the road up to the house is a concrete road. We took many photos and we would love to go back in the nice weather to see more that may have been covered up.
There is also a wonderful book, "Hiking the Road to Ruins" by David A. Steinberg that is very helpful.