Terry's Journey in Retirement
Chapter 579
2/22/2021
Palmertown Range
so many recreational opportunities
Within a half hour drive there are thousands of acres available to us for recreation. We have recently been exploring the lovely southern portion, the Daniels Road State Forest above. This area began with a mountain bike leasing agreement with the Finch Pruyn Paper company before it turned over to the DEC.
A collaborative effort between the State, the Saratoga PLAN group along with decades old OSI Open Space Institute (master plan) to manage this overall 40,000 Acre project study area . Skidmore College also has allowed for use of their lands and is developing an interconnecting trail system.
In all these decades I'm surprised I haven't been more aware of the opportunities. But this new emphasis on interconnecting trails has only began in the last few years with the 2018 plan. The bulk of the lands have been owned by NYS starting with the 1967 Moreau Lakes State Park opening as well as the Lincoln Mountain State Forest and the Daniels Road State Forest. Have visited the Moreau area many times but it's just a little bit farther up the road.
Well done Palmertown Range short videos covering the
The trails are lovely. In winter it's pretty nice to see the fat tire tracks for navigation as the trails are poorly marked. Plus it makes a nice packed down path thru deep snow.
Got up there after an ice storm and it was magical.
There are several swampy areas which are very accessible during frozen days.
The SMBA Saratoga Mountain Bike Association has established trails throughout and even at 15 degrees out we saw a half dozen riders out This link shows what it's like to ride a fat tire on the trail we hiked or at night . A couple miles into the wild woods we found this rider enjoying the moment on the "Here to There" trail. They are a pretty serious and impressive group. We also walked the popular and circuitous "Ridge Line" trail.
There are a variety of riders and levels of experience.
You might not think you could ride thru snow but you can with fat low pressure 7psi tires.
link to SMBA full size trail map
You really need this map and a good gps device while hiking as trails are not marked very well. It's easy to get disoriented out there. The All Trails app works very well, but I found I also needed to hook up the cheap portable battery pack to my iphone as the charge can be completely depleted when you are taking a lot of pictures on a long hike. A little more information and map are linked here. And more MTB links.
Lucas loves King Crab it turns out.
An adult pair and a juvenile pair of eagles have recently beeen hanging out at our Vischer Ferry Dam again.