the Way of the Turtle

LOOK! AN EAGLE!
4.0 Mile Hike at the Hannacroix Creek Preserve
Monday, July 21, 2008

I had a friend going with me to Minnewaska tonight, so I couldn't get to the Gunks early and do some pre-race riding or hiking. Instead, I checked around for someplace to stop before we met up for the ride south, and finally settled on the Hannacroix Creek Preserve just south of Coeymans. The preserve sounded interesting for two reasons - one trail goes down to the edge of the Hudson River, passing by a small pond that has had abundant wildlife in the past, and another follows the Hannacroix Creek to 15 foot high Ravena Falls.

I started out hiking down to the river, following a somewhat overgrown trail from the parking lot down to Route 144. While both of my guidebooks (ECOS's Natural Areas of Albany County and Dunn & Delaney's Trails with Tales) described the need to carefully walk along the shoulder of the road to reach to trail to the river, apparently the New Baltimore Conservancy's been busy working on improvements - directly across the road a boardwalk has been erected and a relatively new trail has been cut through the woods to take hikers to the Hudson River Interpretive Trail without spending too much time dodging cars on 144.

The trail to the river is fairly short, and crosses the creek on a rather unusual bridge made of "lumber" formed from recycled plastic milk bottles. According to the sign near the bridge, 68000 bottles were used to make the bridge materials. I've seen similar materials used to make boardwalks through swampy areas and I think it's an excellent idea - the plastic "lumber" is durable and doesn't need to be replaced anywhere near as often as wood, and plastic is being recycled that would otherwise probably be taking up space in a landfill somewhere.

A little ways beyond the bridge the trail came out on the shore of the Hudson River. The tide was low, so the closest areas to the beach were exposed mud flats, but it was still a great view. After taking a few photos I stepped down onto the sand and got my wonderful surprise of the day - a large bird flew out of the tree over my head, and when I looked up it turned out it was a bald eagle! I watched him fly across the river, with a brief descent to water level to presumably snag a fishy meal, before he disappeared into the trees on the other side. How cool is that? A short while later another large bird flew out of the trees across the river and circled around the area repeatedly before heading upstream... I can't be positive, but in the photos I took the profile looks a lot like a turkey vulture.

As much as I enjoyed watching the river, I knew I couldn't stay too long or I wouldn't have time to hike to the waterfall and back, so I headed back out toward the road with a short detour down to the observation platform overlooking the small tidal pond near the plastic bridge. Unfortunately, there were no critters in view, possibly because the tide was low and there was very little water currently in the pond.

more to come...