Patch Picks: Back on the Nearby Trail

If you didn't get enough ideas from the first edition of , or last week's ways to outdoors, check out these nature-ridden gems in the area:

Hardscrabble Wilderness Area: Traveling on Pleasantville Road from Briarcliff make a left turn, from the Village of Pleasantville a right turn, onto Dogwood Lane, to uncover another hidden gem in the neighborhood. The Hardscrabble Wilderness Area is 235 acres of woodland, rolling hills and brooks on seven marked hiking trails of .3 to 1.3 miles. If you are out for an idyll come early or pull in late. Came later in the morning if you are looking for a social saunter with your dog, you will find that here too.  The Hardscrabble Wilderness Area is noted in Best Hikes with Dogs: New York City & Beyond Guide Bookby Tammy McCarley (Mountaineers Books). Want to  the weather at HWA in real time?

Graham Hills Park, bounded by the Taconic State Parkway, Saw Mill River Parkway Route 117, this park sprawls over 435 acres. The entrance is  across the road from Entrance #2 to Pleasantville Campus. This site was a hamlet (named after Dr. Isaac Gilbert Graham, a surgeon during the American Revolutionary War) and a station on the Putnam Railroad. You will often find Manhattanites amongst the trail riders at Graham Hills which is noted by the New York City Mountain Bike Association as one of  "the easiest Westchester trails to get to via public transportation from NYC."

The winter damage here is almost sculptural this year as upended trees with root spans of 15 ' and cling to stones as if they are being held an a jewelers' setting. Six trails covering nine miles are, according to the NYCMBA, "well-packed, not too tight, and perfect for those who like good climbing matched with fast descending...Graham is more about fast flow than anything else." These are challenging (and currently muddy) trails where cyclists, hikers and dogs coexist. Just across the Taconic State Parkaway from Graham Hills is a parking area for the North County Trailway. 

The North County Trailway covers 22.1 miles of paved bicycle and pedestrian path  primarily along the route of the what was the Putnam Division of the New York Central Railroad. The Tudor-revival style Briarcliff Manor Station, now used as the Briarcliff Manor, is one of three former stations, in Millwood and in Yorktown Heights, along the way. Plaques placed at many of the locations of former stations provide a quick narrative of the history at each spot.

To plan the  distance that you want to cover from this entrance click for the trail map here.

Pleasantville Rd north to Route 120 -- 3.6 miles, Route 120 to Croton Reservoir—2.7 miles,Croton Reservoir to Yorktown Heights—3.8 miles Yorktown Heights to Baldwin Place—5.5 miles; the north end connects to Putnam County Bicycle Trail at Baldwin Place and the path now ends in Ketchiwan . 

Much of the 190-acre Cranberry Lake Preserve was, in the early part of the 20th century, the site of where stones were mined to build the nearby Kensico Dam and Reservoir. You can take a self-guided tour (with a free booklet available on site) on the two mile long purple history loop. This jaunt includes old stone walls, the foundations of a former farmhouse, and a crumbling concrete wall that is a remnant of a facility built to crush stone extracted from the quarry.

There is also a 2.4 miles (red) loop that follows the perimeter of the park but skirts the quarry, the 1 mile blue loop that goes around 10-acre Cranberry Lake and the south pond, and the 1.1 mile (yellow) loop passing through rocky, mossy upland and follows a portion of the lakeshore.

Cranberry Lake has geocaching sites. The Nature Lodge where information can be obtained about this opens after 10 a.m. Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game to locate containers, called geocaches, hidden in the outdoors which may contain logbooks or modest items, and then share your experiences in getting to the find online.

Cranberry Lake is the only trail of this group that does not admit dogs.