ABOUT THE PARK:
Hyde Park Trails Healthy Walkabout - Hyde Park, NY
Hyde Park Trails Maps and Info
Hyde Park Walkabout Brochure with Maps
DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 41.76988, -73.93470
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| Parking at the Wallace Visitor Center at the FDR Historic Site. |
TRAIL MAP:
Home of FDR Trail Map
Hyde Park Walkabout Brochure with Maps
HIKE DISTANCE:
Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Sites - 10 miles
hiked together with
Hackett Hill Park - 1.6 miles
THE HIKE:
On November 20, 2015 Shawnee and I hiked 5 of the Hyde Park trails and earned a patch. On
November 20, 2017, Brodie and I hiked two of the Hyde Park Walkabout Trails and needed three more to to complete all 10 trails and earn our second patch. That was our mission on this day.
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| From the parking lot, facing the visitor center, turn right... |
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| ... towards a tree with the Hyde Park Trail markers. |
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| A short distance ahead a sign directs the way. |
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| It's all well-blazed through the FDR historic site. |
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| We left the Hyde Park Trail, which follows the green park trail, to hike the yellow trail because we'd hit that part of the Hyde Park Trail on our return route. |
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| On the yellow Meadow Trail. |
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| The other end of yellow meets back up with green/Hyde Park Trail. |
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| The Hyde Park Trail goes left but green continues right also; we would do the green loop to the right on the return route. But now we stayed with the Hyde Park Trail. |
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| Starting to follow along the Hudson River. |
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| Boats in hibernation at a marina. |
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| The trail ends at a cul-de-sac where it leaves the park and continues as a road walk for 1.2 miles through a quiet residential area. |
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| Views of the Hudson River along the way. |
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| Where the road veers right, we went left towards the "bridge closed" sign to look at the waterfall. |
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| There we saw more Hyde Park Trail signs where it said to turn right but ... |
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| ... the gates were chained. |
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| So we returned to where the road veered right and saw that the sign said to enter at Coach House Drive. |
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| Coach House Drive a short distance ahead. |
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| Around behind the building ... |
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| ... across the bridge ... |
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| ... and left on the paved park road. |
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| Up ahead, that chained gate from the other side. Now we turned right ... |
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| ... on a gravel road all along the Hudson River. |
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| At the end of the gravel road, we turned left towards Bard Rock. |
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| Yay - trash and recycling so I could unload the litter I had picked up that Brodie was hauling in his pack. |
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| Continuing on to the right. |
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| Common Merganser boys in the Hudson. |
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| Nice views to the north. |
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| Heading the other way. |
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| Hudson views to the south. |
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| Heading back ... |
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| ... and continuing straight on the park road. |
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| A path runs parallel to the road for a short distance and that is always preferable to a road walk. |
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| Plus you get views from higher up from the path. |
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| The Catskills in the distance. |
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| Coming up on the Vanderbilt Mansion. |
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| But we don't care about that. It's the views we are after. |
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| The Hyde Park Trail continues on as a footpath... |
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| ... and comes out on the paved park road where we turned left ... |
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| ... and made our way back across the bridge towards the coach house and out to retrace the road walk. |
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| Back at the cul-de-sac... |
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| ... the trail into the FDR historic site. |
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| The Cairn app showed a trail to the left and it looked like a trail so what the heck, we were game. |
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| There really wasn't a trail at all and I was surprised once we made our way back to the Hyde Park Trail that I had actually followed the exact track on the app. |
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| Back on the proper trail. |
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| Now leaving the Hyde Park Trail to do the green loop around. |
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| Back at the Hyde Park Trail. |
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| Ice Pond |
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| Coming up on Springwood, FDR's home. |
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| Springwood |
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| But right in front of that, a song sparrow who posed nicely for pictures so he had my full attention. |
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| Coming back up on the parking lot. |
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| When Shawnee earned her patch in 2015, she accepted it with such dignity. Brodie tried to eat his. He thinks if it is not edible, then it is useless. |
