Sunday, December 2, 2007
Ward Pound Ridge Reservation trail map (1.9 Mb PDF)
photo slideshow
The 4300 acre Ward Pound Ridge Reservation is the largest Westechester County Park and is also an exceptionally beautiful location with miles of trails running through woods and fields, along streams, and up and down hills adorned with rock outcroppings and a variety of glacial erratics. The fact that the area was once farmland is also evident in the many stone walls that still run throughout the park. The park is best known both for the Leatherman's Loop 10k trail race which has been run there since 1987 and for being the location of one of the caves that the mysterious Leatherman found shelter in whenever he passed through the area.
original image from The Lure of Litchfield Hills magazine December, 1952; scan courtesy of Ghostvillage
The Leatherman was a mysterious vagabond who regularly walked a 365 mile loop between the Connecticut and Hudson Rivers from 1862 to 1889. During this time he completed his circuit ever 34 days, and apparently was so regular in his appearances at the various towns and homesteads along his route that the local residents could easily predict when he would appear, and some families would regularly prepare food for him. He was mostly silent, communicating in grunts and gestures, and chose to sleep outdoors or in caves even when offered shelter in barns. He gained his name from the fact that he wore a 60 pound, roughly sewn leather outfit consisting of a hat, pants, long coat, and shoes with wooden soles.
map courtesy of the Leatherman's Loop race site
After surviving the blizzard of 1888, the Leatherman succumbed to age, the environment, and very likely oral cancer (which had eaten away a portion of his cheek), dying in one of his caves in southeastern New York. He was buried in the Sparta Cemetary in Scarborough, and later identified as Jules Bourglay, a Frenchman who ruined his fiancee's family business and took up his wanderings in America as a form of penance. Subsequent research has shown that this was most likely fabricated, as no information about any of the individuals named in the story has been located (more info here.) There are many articles about the Leatherman that can be found on-line, including the ones at the Leatherman's Loop race site, Ghostvillage, Hudson Valley Ruins (which is also a book that I highly recommend to anyone interested in Hudson Valley history), and Carol Hanning's wonderful pages on tri-state history and geology. There are also some fascinating stories on the Hudson Valley website Bearsystems.com, apparently supplied by local Leatherman researcher Dan DeLuca. I encourage anyone interested in learning more about this fascinating character to check out some of the sites I listed or simply do a basic web-search... but of course be aware there is a mix of both fact and fiction out there, and separating the two can sometimes be tricky.
OK, enough history and legend. While I'd been to the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation 3 times before today, I'd never explored any portions of the park other than the 6 mile loop that we'd run during the race through the northern part of the park. A little silly, when you consider that since I moved to Albany it's easily a 4 1/2 hour round trip for me to travel there and back! So, armed with suggestions from 50 Hikes in the Lower Hudson Valley and a park trail map, I decided to do a 4.5 miles hike to visit several interesting sites in the southern portion of the park - a scenic overlook, the Leatherman's cave, Bear Rock (a boulder which may have petroglyphs carved into its surface), Dancing Rock (a large flat rock where locals once held socials), and the remains of a Civilian Conservation Corps camp from the 1930's.
After leaving the Meadow Picnic Area (where today's race had been held) I drove a short distance back toward the entrance of the park and then headed down Michigan Road to a parking lot and fairly large picnic area which included a number of concrete tables and a stone shelter. I spent a few minutes gearing up for a hike in the cold and snow - hat, gloves, 180's, and a neck gaiter, and my bottle carrier with a bottle of Gatorade (which turned out to be an excellent decision... some solid food snacks would have been a good addition too, as it turned out...) Since I was slightly chilled from the run I'd just finished, I decided it was better to have too much clothing rather than too little, and much of my cold weather gear went on and off throughout the hike as I overheated and then cooled down. Armed with a hiking pole, I set off into the snowy woods.
One thing that definitely characterizes this park is hills... after a relatively level start, the rest of the trails went up and down repeatedly. The woods were very peaceful... I passed five or six other folks out walking in the first mile or so, but after that saw no one else until the very end of my hike. Virtually everywhere I went I passed exposed rock outcroppings, some of enormous size, and glacial erratics (big rocks sitting out in the middle of the woods.)
click for a larger image
After a while I came to an intersection with a sign marked "Leatherman's Cave" and followed it onto a trail blazed "LL" - presumably Leatherman's Loop. This trail did a lot of climbing, and eventually took me to the top of a ridge where a very nice overlook, complete with a bench, had been cleared. Off in the distance I could barely make out the Cross River Reservoir, which I'd passed on my way to the park. From there the path plunged steeply down through the rocks, and I began searching for a side path to the Leatherman's cave. I shouldn't have worried about missing it - when I finally came out at the bottom, at a wide trail intersection, there was a sign marked "cave" pointing up another steep hill.
I have to admit, after running 6 miles that morning I wasn't crazy about hiking up and down a steep, slippery trail, but I really wanted to visit the cave, so up I went, a few hundred feet from the main trail. As caves go, it wasn't terribly impressive - really more of a small rock shelter - but as I looked around it I was struck by the history of it all, and found myself imagining the Leatherman hiking through the same hills and up to his secluded shelter every 34 days. While it was a fairly small space, that was probably an advantage in cold weather, since it would heat up more quickly and probably retain body heat more readily. Then it was time to make the hike back down - always a more challenging proposition for my knees than the uphills. At one point my feet slid on the snow and leaves and I fell onto my left side, whacking the side of my knee on a rock... ouch. But at least my camera was in my right pocket! Picked myself up, brushed myself off, and finished the rest of the trip back to the main trail without mishap.
From there I headed off along the main trails toward Bear Rock. When I reached the area where I thought the rock should be, I was surprised that there weren't any markers, and continued along the trail, a bit disappointed that I couldn't be sure I'd seen the rock. The trail headed down and then up a long hill, finally coming out on a rocky outcropping with a view off into the distance.
I stopped for a bit to admire the view, then looked around for the trail... and discovered a trail marker indicating that the site I had reached was the start of the trail! That couldn't be right... consulting my map, I realized I'd made a wrong turn and ended up at Spy Rock. No big deal, other than my wondering how I'd made the wrong turn.
So I hiked back down the trail I'd come up on, and at the next intersection made a dumb call and headed off down a trail blazed with large yellow BRLA signs... in hindsight, going down a trail that wasn't marked with Westchester County Parks blazes was foolish, but so it goes. I hiked downhill for quite a distance, until finally the trail leveled off and followed a creek (probably the Stone Hill River.) Looking up, I could see what I was pretty sure was Spy Rock far above me. I followed that trail for a little while longer before deciding that I wasn't heading in the direction I wanted to go, and no amount of hoping otherwise would change that... and turned around to trudge back up the hill I'd hiked down. On the plus side, all that uphill hiking warmed me up very nicely... and I ended up very pleased I'd decided to bring some Gatorade along.
The other plus was that I wasn't really lost... once I got back to the white-blazed trail I'd been on previously, I knew I could retrace my steps to the last numbered trail intersection I'd passed through and follow the map from there. Of course, that meant - you guessed it - more hiking uphill!
I paused at a point where the trail crossed a power line right-of-way, and checking the map realized my error - that was where the trail I'd wanted to take branched off from the one I was on! Retracing my steps and following one of the main paths back to the car was about the same distance as following the route to Bear Rock, Dancing Rock, and the CCC camp ruins, so I decided to go with my original plan. I came to a large boulder which was probably Bear Rock shortly after that - between the snow and my getting a bit tired and hungry, I didn't spend much time examining it, but it did look like there might be some carvings on its surface (maybe... or maybe the real carvings were under the snow!) From there I continued on through the woods. I missed the turnoff to Dancing Rock, but I'm not sure I would have been up to a side trip at that point. Thankfully, a lot of the trails for the latter part of the hike went primarily downhill, though there were also a few short climbs to add a bit of additional challenge.
Eventually, the trail I was following merged with a wide predominantly downhill path through the woods... more of a washed-out woods road than a hiking trail, really. With only about 3/4 of a mile left to walk, I knew I was in the clear, and that I'd get back to the car well before sunset (and in fact make much of the drive home before sunset.) The walking was pretty easy for the final stretch, and I even made the short side trip to visit the CCC camp ruins (really just a set of concrete steps and a concrete slab next to the trail.) Even though I was tired and hungry, I was again struck by a sense of history... this was a site where young men in the 1930's came to work on improving the local park and planting thousands of trees in areas that had been cleared for farming. Indeed, judging by the many stone walls I saw throughout the park, it seems likely that at least some of the trees I saw today were planted by young men during the Great Depression, resulting at least in part in the beautiful park we enjoy today.
From there it was a short hike back to the car, where I gladly wolfed down the rest of the sandwich I brought with me and shed all of the cold weather gear I'd carried for my hike. And then it was time for the 2 1/4 hour drive home... with a stop at a supermarket in Pawling for more food!
Today's hike reinforced how much I enjoy the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation (even with my 1.5 miles of extra hiking!) and I will definitely have to make plans to visit it again in warmer weather, or perhaps in the midst of the autumn foliage season. In any case, I'm glad I took the time today to explore some more of this wonderful park - I'm looking forward to visiting it for more races and maybe some more hiking in the future!
JMH
