the Way of the Turtle

2.5 Mile Walk at the Normanskill Farm
Monday, June 22, 2009

Normanskill Historical Walk site

Legs are still tired from yesterday's trek (surprise, surprise) but I didn't want to end up stuck indoors all day... so after a tutoring session I headed over to the Normanskill Farm for what I thought would be an easy walk on level ground. (Well, part of it was...)

I first stumbled across references to this park on the Normanskill Yellow Brick Road page and was intrigued by the references to the old concrete bridge across the Normans Kill, the ruins of an ice house and a mill, and the yellow brick road, presumably an attempt to tie in with The Wizard of Oz, though there's no obvious historical reason to do so. I later found information about a series of trails along the creek in ECOS's Natural Areas of Albany County and had been interested in checking them out for a while now. Today seemed like a good opportunity to do so.

I parked in the fairly sizeable lot and first walked over to the bridge of the creek (now closed to traffic.) Lots of yellow bricks in evidence there... not so along the Yellow Brick Road, which seems to have had a layer of asphalt put over top of the bricks (probably either to reduce erosion or provide a more stable surface for traffic, since cars are allowed on the road.

From there I took a path that essentially followed the creek, first through woods and past the ice house and mill ruins, then past the Normanskill Farm, an old farm which serves several duties - some of the buildings are kept up for historical purposes, some of the farm is leased by the city to a cattle farmer, and the Albany Police Dept houses its mounted division here. Further along the path went past the Albany Community Gardens, where a number of folks were busily working on raising flowers and vegetables. Unfortunately, views across the creek were fairly limited.

Past the gardens I followed what I thought was the main path into the woods - actually it was more likely a herd path, since after climbing up a steep hill and then down the other side to creek level it pretty much disappeared. I surprised a heron twice along here - a nice change for all the robins that were chattering away at me.

The last stretch of trail goes through the Capitol Hills golf course, which didn't sound very interesting to me, so I hiked up another hill and then along the edge of the woods back to the path I'd been on previously. I decided to take the easy route out and walked along the dirt road that runs down to the garden. Along the way I saw lots of birds... the most obvious were the killdeers, which would run off a short ways then plunk themselves down until I drew closer, then pop back up and run a little ways and repeat the process. There were also swallows swooping around, mallards with duckings in a wet area off the side of the road, and goldfinches in the shrubs. As hikes go the trails aren't terribly scenic or exciting, but it seems like this could be a very good area for birding.

Back at the parking lot, I followed another path up the hillside along a ravine to a Whipple bridge that crosses the ravine between the old Yellow Brick Rd and the part of the farm used by the APD. I guess there aren't too many Whipple bridges left, and here we have three in the area (the others are at Union College in Schenectady and in the Vischer Ferry Nature Preserve near Clifton Park) probably in part because designer Squire Whipple, sometimes called the father of iron bridge building in America, graduated from Union College in 1830. On my way back from taking in the view from the bridge I saw something moving through the field on the far side of the APD area - a turkey.

I can't say that I plan to visit here all that often - it's just not as scenic as some of the other outdoor areas around here - but I'm glad I stopped by today, and it might make an interesting place to do some snowshoeing next winter, when the golf course is closed and I can follow the whole trail.

JMH