Date visited: 11/3/2022

We skipped walking over the Hudson River Skyway the day before, because Mandy does not like heights. So it may seem odd that we crossed this bridge the very next day. This one is different. It is pedestrian/cycle only, and is much wider. Mandy probably didn't even realize she was on the bridge, because she had no issues with this walkway. The bridge used to carry a double track railroad, built in 1889 and used as a railroad track until 1974. It's new life as a pedestrian walkway started in 2009. The bridge connects the Dutchess Rail Trail to the Hudson Valley Greenway. Those trails are both segments of the Empire State Trail, a 750 mile multi-use trail that links New York City, Albany, Buffalo and the Canadian border. The bridge crosses the Hudson River and connects Poughkeepsie to Highland. I get very confused as to the make-up of the municipalities in New York State. There are towns, cities, villages, and something called hamlets. Highland is a "hamlet" of a town called Lloyd, and there is a Town of Poughkeepsie that is different from the city of Poughkeepsie. I can say with certainly that I will never be completing every town in New York, so I guess it doesn't matter what is considered a town and what is not! At any rate, this was a fun, easy four mile walk (two miles each way) with great views on another spectacularly mild November day. The pictures below are from the Poughkeepsie section of the trail. The pictures from the Highland section are here.

More Images

Date visited: 1/16/2023

I bet this place looks fantastic when it's not winter and leaves are on the trees. This park is basically a series of mowed trails that climb "Peach Hill". Once at the top, there are some nice views, especially at the Catskill Overlook. We expanded the loop trail that was on the All-Trails app by incorporating some other trails, and we were able to get a good 3+ mile hike here. The trail was deceivingly muddy in spots. The grassy nature of the trail pretty much hid the slippery spots. I slipped a couple times but didn't fall! On a side note, New York towns confuse me. Evidently, there is a Town of Poughkeepsie and a City of Poughkeepsie that are different municipalities. This park is in the town, but I decided to use the same "Poughkeepsie" page I already had started, as creating a new page with the same name would be confusing. Not like having two municipalities in the same state with the same name isn't confusing enough!

More Images

Date visited: 2/5/2023

See Also: East Fishkill, LaGrange, Poughkeepsie

The Dutchess Rail Trail is a 13 mile paved bike trail that runs from Hopewell Junction to the Walkway Over The Hudson in Poughkeepsie in Dutchess County. The trail is part of the larger Hudson Valley Greenway, itself part of the much large Empire State Trail which sets out to link New York City, Albany, Buffalo and the Canadian Border with paved bike trails, though much of it is still "on-road". We walkled the segment that ran from the parking area at Gold's Gym in LaGrange to the bridge over Wappinger's Creek on the border of the Town of Poughkeepsie and LaGrange. The pictures below on the very cool three segment bridge (two segments over roadways, with the middle segment over the creek) are from just over the border in the Town of Poughkeepsie.

Date visited: 10/9/2024

This park is on Marist College property, but open to the public. You need to drive through the campus, and then through a tunnel under the railroad tracks. The park is along side the Hudson River, and is impeccably maintained. There are benches, picnic areas, and fishing docks, all with great views of the river. The only issue was that the park area is kind of small. The college campus is beautiful as well. We walked through a small section of the campus, but we were here in the middle of the week while classes were in session, so I felt kind of funny walking around the campus with the dogs. I'm not sure the rest of the campus is open to the public, so we kept that part of the walk short.

More Images