the Way of the Turtle

1.3 Mile Hike at the Pachaquack Preserve
& A Brief Visit to Valatie Falls
Saturday, September 26, 2009

I've driven past the sign for the Pachaquack Preserve many times on my way through Valatie and always wondered what it was... since I didn't have directions to the CLC Conservation Areas in Ghent and Chatham, I decided to stop there today and find out. Apparently it's a small section of land bordering the Kinderhook Creek which was designated a "forever wild" preserve back in the mid-1990's when a housing development was being buil right next door. There's a large parking area and gazebo, with trails leading off into the woods overlooking the creek. After wandering through the woods for a bit, I followed a path which turned into a powerline right-of-way/access road before eventually turning around and following the road back to the parking lot.

According to my copy of Russell Dunn's Hudson Valley Waterfalls, the name "Pachaquack" is Mohican for "cleared meadow" and was chosen because it's believed that the Mohicans used the area as a meeting place.

I don't know that I'll head back there any time soon... it was a nice little section of woods, but the areas along the creek aren't all that scenic (you can see houses and businesses on the far side of the creek, and there are occasional bits of junk and trash around... about what you'd expect for a park in a town. Actually, I'm a bit surprised there wasn't more trash and junk, so maybe volunteers clean it up periodically.) Some nice wildflowers that are getting past their prime, a few birds... the one real surprise was seeing a great blue heron across the creek, in the shady area where the Valatie Kill joins the Kinderhook Creek.

After leaving the park I drove across the creek and stopped at the Beaver Cotton Mill overlook, a parking area and viewing platform built on the site of an old mill that burned down in 1888. No great surprise, since with a ready supply of water power Valatie was primarily a mill town (according to Dunn the original name was Millville until 1832) and I can remember seeing several old brick mills when I was a kid, that have since been demolished (like many of the old Columbia County mills, which after being shut down fell into disrepair and either burned down, were razed for safety reasons, or were demolished to build newer structures.)

Valatie Falls is actually two waterfalls divided by an island, with a dam across the top. It's tough to get decent picture of it without walking out onto the bridge across the creek, and unfortunately the sidewalk is on the far side of the bridge. There was a reasonable amount of water flowing over the falls today, though nothing spectacular - pretty consistent with the other falls I've seen in the past couple of weeks. Ustream a short distance there was a good-sized flock of geese resting on the sandbars and paddling around in the creek.

Clouds were moving in, so I shelved my plans to make a side trip down the Hudson River to the Swyer Preserve, picked up some food at the local supermarket, and headed back to Albany to rest up for tomorrow's trip down to New Paltz and a hil 10 mile trail race at the Mohonk Preserve.

JMH