ABOUT THE PARKS:
Staten Island Greenbelt - Greenbelt Conservancy
Great Kills Park - National Park Service
DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 40.607331, -74.156980
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| Parking at Willowbrook Park. |
TRAIL MAPS:
Greenbelt Hiking and Running Trails - Greenbelt Conservancy
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| I could not get the download links to work for the map so I snagged an image. |
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| 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.
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| The beginning of the white trail in Willowbrook Park. |
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| The white trail continues to the right of the carousel... |
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| ... then turns left into the woods. |
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| It didn't take long to come across balloon #60 of the year. We'd be picking up 4 more along the way. |
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| Passing a dog park. |
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| Lots of bridges on the trail. |
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| Coming up on ruins. |
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| Looks like some puncheons were repurposed as party spot benches :(. |
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| The trail goes quite a way before road crossings start. |
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| After the first two road crossings, it's uphill on Heyerdahl Hill ... |
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| ... where the Nature Trail and blue trail join in. This is the most remote feeling part of the white trail. |
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| We are staying with white. The other trails are for another day. |
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| Continuing on through Buck's Hollow. |
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| After passing a little pond ... |
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| ... the trail turns left then left again on residential roads a short distance to ... |
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| ... where that white car is turning from at that blue sign. |
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| Here the trail goes through the break in the guardrail ... |
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| ... down into Egbertville Ravine. |
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| There will be several road crossings, mostly residential, some very busy with no crossing lights. |
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| After all of the road crossings, the trail follows the narrow strip of green space between homes. |
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| When the trail comes out at Clarke Avenue, turn left ... |
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| ... cross Amboy Avenue at the light the continue straight past Amundsen Circle ... |
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| ... then right continuing on the white trail. |
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| Going under railroad tracks. |
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| No more road crossings until ... |
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| ... the white trail ends at ... |
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| ... Hylan Boulevard directly across from Great Kills Park. |
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| The multi-use path through Great Kills Park has different surface options. |
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| 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. |
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| Some side trail to the left to ... |
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| ... water views. |
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| We made one of them our break spot. |
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| Almost at the end there are trail markers. |
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| 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. |
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| We eventually came out at a parking lot where a right turn ... |
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| ... took us along a pretty trail to the beach. |
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| We looped around coming out on the other side of the parking lot ... |
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| ... and started the long hike back. |
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| Coming up on Hylan Boulevard ... |
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| ... and crossing back over ... |
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| ... to the Greenbelt White Trail. |
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| Coming up out of Egbertville Ravine. |
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| Back through Buck's Hollow. |
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| Back through Willowbrook Park along the pond. |
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.
ReplyDeleteThat would have been a very cool picture!
DeleteBrodie doesn't have to carry out trash today, lol!
ReplyDeleteThere were trash cans everywhere so he got a day off.
Delete