Hyde Park Trails, NY: Hackett Hill Park

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 41.787213, -73.924851

TRAIL MAP:
Hackett Hill Park Trail Map - Hyde Park, NY

Powered by Wikiloc

HIKE DISTANCE:
Hackett Hill Park - 1.6 miles
     hiked together with
Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Sites - 10 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.

For such a small park, the trails are incredibly hard to find.  For lack of anything better, we went up the steps from the parking lot towards the recreation office.  I knew we had to hike the perimeter trails (red and green) but where the heck were they?

Just as we got to the top of the steps a park maintenance man pulled in and he directed us across the disc golf course towards the woods parallel to the road.

And there is the trail, but not at all visible from the parking lot.

The trails are quite hilly and rugged.

There are good directional signs at each intersection.

At the end of red, turning left on the green Woodland Trail.

A short side trip on yellow to ...

... Gorilla Rock.  It does indeed look like the head of a gorilla!

Back on green.

Orange joins in for a bit before ...

... we left green for blue which was a bit longer than finishing on green but it follows Crum Elbow Creek so it was more scenic.

It was that cold out - 19 degrees!

Blue ends at a field with the parking lot across the way.

On the way back to the car I noticed a sign for the trails in the parking lot but that would take you to the center of the park not the perimeter trails that we had hiked.

Now just a couple miles of driving to the next hike.

Hyde Park Trails, NY: Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Sites

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

Parking at the Wallace Visitor Center at the FDR Historic Site.

TRAIL MAP:
Home of FDR Trail Map
Hyde Park Walkabout Brochure with Maps

Powered by Wikiloc

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.

From the parking lot, facing the visitor center, turn right...

... towards a tree with the Hyde Park Trail markers.

A short distance ahead a sign directs the way.

It's all well-blazed through the FDR historic site.

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.

On the  yellow Meadow Trail.

The other end of yellow meets back up with green/Hyde Park Trail.

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.

Starting to follow along the Hudson River.

Boats in hibernation at a marina.

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.

Views of the Hudson River along the way.

Where the road veers right, we went left towards the "bridge closed" sign to look at the waterfall.

There we saw more Hyde Park Trail signs where it said to turn right but ...

... the gates were chained.

So we returned to where the road veered right and saw that the sign said to enter at Coach House Drive.

Coach House Drive a short distance ahead.

Around behind the building ...

... across the bridge ...

... and left on the paved park road.

Up ahead, that chained gate from the other side.  Now we turned right ...

... on a gravel road all along the Hudson River.

At the end of the gravel road, we turned left towards Bard Rock.

Yay - trash and recycling so I could unload the litter I had picked up that Brodie was hauling in his pack.

Continuing on to the right.

Common Merganser boys in the Hudson.

Nice views to the north.

Heading the other way.

Hudson views to the south.

Heading back ...

... and continuing straight on the park road.

A path runs parallel to the road for a short distance and that is always preferable to a road walk.

Plus you get views from higher up from the path.

The Catskills in the distance.

Coming up on the Vanderbilt Mansion.

But we don't care about that.  It's the views we are after.

The Hyde Park Trail continues on as a footpath...

... and comes out on the paved park road where we turned left ...

... and made our way back across the bridge towards the coach house and out to retrace the road walk.

Back at the cul-de-sac...

... the trail into the FDR historic site.

The Cairn app showed a trail to the left and it looked like a trail so what the heck, we were game.

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.

Back on the proper trail.

Now leaving the Hyde Park Trail to do the green loop around.

Back at the Hyde Park Trail.

Ice Pond

Coming up on Springwood, FDR's home.

Springwood

But right in front of that, a song sparrow who posed nicely for pictures so he had my full attention.

Coming back up on the parking lot.

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.