Friday, November 29, 2019

Staten Island Greenbelt, NY - White Trail and Great Kills Park


ABOUT THE PARKS:
Staten Island Greenbelt - Greenbelt Conservancy
Great Kills Park - National Park Service

DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 40.607331, -74.156980
Parking at Willowbrook Park.

TRAIL MAPS:
Greenbelt Hiking and Running Trails - Greenbelt Conservancy
I could not get the download links to work for the map so I snagged an image.
Great Kills Park map from Wikimedia Commons as I could not find it on the NPS site.

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HIKE DISTANCE: 17.25 miles total
Greenbelt White Trail from Willowbrook Park to Greak Kills Park - 6 miles one way
Great Kills Park Trails - 5.25 miles

THE HIKE: 
This is a great option for a no hunting hike during hunting season.
The beginning of the white trail in Willowbrook Park.
The white trail continues to the right of the carousel...
... then turns left into the woods.
It didn't take long to come across balloon #60 of the year.  We'd be picking up 4 more along the way.
Passing a dog park.
Lots of bridges on the trail.
Coming up on ruins.
Looks like some puncheons were repurposed as party spot benches :(.
The trail goes quite a way before road crossings start.
After the first two road crossings, it's uphill on Heyerdahl Hill ...
... where the Nature Trail and blue trail join in.  This is the most remote feeling part of the white trail.
We are staying with white. The other trails are for another day.
Continuing on through Buck's Hollow.
After passing a little pond ...
... the trail turns left then left again on residential roads a short distance to ...
... where that white car is turning from at that blue sign.
Here the trail goes through the break in the guardrail ...
... down into Egbertville Ravine.
There will be several road crossings, mostly residential, some very busy with no crossing lights.
After all of the road crossings, the trail follows the narrow strip of green space between homes.
When the trail comes out at Clarke Avenue, turn left ...
... cross Amboy Avenue at the light the continue straight past Amundsen Circle ...
... then right continuing on the white trail.
Going under railroad tracks.
No  more road crossings until ...
... the white trail ends at ...
... Hylan Boulevard directly across from Great Kills Park.
The multi-use path through Great Kills Park has different surface options.
There are trash cans everywhere.  There is also litter everywhere.  I picked some up along the way and deposited it in the trash cans.  I will never understand why this is such a hard concept for some people to grasp.
Some side trail to the left to ...
... water views.
We made one of them our break spot.
Almost at the end there are trail markers.
We took the yellow trail to find it mostly closed but the red and white trails merge in so we just followed them around where we could.
We eventually came out at a parking lot where a right turn ...
... took us along a pretty trail to the beach.
We looped around coming out on the other side of the parking lot ...
... and started the long hike back.
Coming up on Hylan Boulevard ...
... and crossing back over ...
... to the Greenbelt White Trail.
Coming up out of Egbertville Ravine.
Back through Buck's Hollow.
Back through Willowbrook Park along the pond.


4 comments:

  1. A little bit of country in New York City. The deer are relatively recent. They probably swam over from NJ. There is a large wild turkey flock on the grounds of Staten Island Hospital in South Beach (which is not along the greenbelt, but near the eastern shore of the island). I once saw a group of them crossing busy Hylan Blvd. single file at a light with the WALK signal. Wish I'd had my camera.

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  2. Brodie doesn't have to carry out trash today, lol!

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    1. There were trash cans everywhere so he got a day off.

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