Niskayuna's Old-Growth Forest Is Getting A New Loop. Fall Is The Time To Walk The Old One.
"It's a huge act of trust to engage an organization like the Nature Conservancy and trust that we will hold this parcel and this property in perpetuity in the way that you intended with conservation first."
Paul Gallery of The Nature Conservancy said that on the morning of Thursday, August 13, standing at the Lisha Kill Natural Area off Rosendale Road, as the Daily Gazette reported. He was thanking the family of Ethel "Effie" Taylor. She grew up at 2600 Rosendale Road, where her family ran a farm. Her will set aside a 5.5-acre piece of that property, and she and her husband Reginald wanted it kept as open space. The town says the parcel went to The Nature Conservancy through a lot line adjustment.
Where the parcel sits changes how the whole preserve gets walked.
As things stand, Lisha Kill has three marked trails, and the Gazette notes that all of them begin from the Rosendale Road side. Whichever loop you pick, you start and finish on the same entry stretch. The Nature Conservancy's preserve page describes them like this:
| Trail | Blaze | Length | Climb | What it's like |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grattan Family Trail | Red | 1.2-mile loop | About 350 feet, 9% average grade | Starts at the parking area in young birch, aspen and sumac, then climbs into mature hemlock, oak and white pine. Two benches |
| Frank's Trail | Yellow | 0.4 mile | Minimal, 6% average grade | Branches off the Grattan loop. Narrow, with muddy spots |
| Paul's Trail | Blue | 0.5-mile loop | 70 feet | Near the Lisha Kill itself. The loop farthest from Rosendale Road |
Paul's Trail is the interesting one. It runs closest to the stream, and the Gazette describes it as the loop farthest from Rosendale Road. To get there now, you have to walk through the rest of the preserve first and then come back the same way.
The Gazette reports that the donated land sits on the north side of the park and connects two parcels the preserve already owned. Gallery said this lets The Nature Conservancy connect the trailhead directly to Paul's Trail, so walkers get one big loop. He added that the gift may also let them reroute the Grattan Family Trail so people stop covering the same ground twice.
The ground itself matters too. Gallery said the Taylor parcel is fairly flat. Fewer slopes mean less runoff, and less runoff means less trail upkeep. He said that could open trail to people of different abilities and let parents bring strollers. Today, the main loop climbs about 350 feet in and out of ravines.
Here is where the work stands as of mid-October:
The acreage hasn't caught up either. The Gazette called it a 145-acre park after the gift. The Nature Conservancy's page and the town's announcement still say 140. The printed trail map still shows the three-trail layout described above.
The posted hours say open year-round, dawn to dusk. The same page also asks people to stay off the trails from late February to early May. Because of the terrain, walking them in mud does serious erosion damage.
That leaves roughly four months from today, through mid-February, to walk the trails as they are now. After that comes a break of more than two months. Trail building usually happens in the warmer season, as it did this summer, so the routes waiting in May could be different from the ones you know.
Winter still counts. The Nature Conservancy's New York preserve guidelines list cross-country skiing and snowshoeing as generally permitted, along with hiking and photography. Even so, the next several weekends of fall are the easiest time to see the whole preserve before ice sets in on the steep ravine sections.
The preserve page suggests allowing at least 1.5 hours to cover all three trails. In order:
If you bring a dog, check the rules before you go. The town's listing says leashed dogs are welcome. The Nature Conservancy's own page doesn't mention pets either way. Its standing rules are to carry out what you carry in and leave plants and animals alone, and its statewide guidelines ask visitors to stay on the trails.
Gallery's point about trust has a history behind it. Back in 2011, a Nature Conservancy stewardship coordinator told All Over Albany that this land had once been slated for a highway. Local residents campaigned to protect it, and the Conservancy bought it in several pieces between 1964 and 1966. The town's own chronology lists 1964 as the year the preserve was established.
Sixty years later, it grew through a single resident's will. Planning Board member Leslie Gold, a childhood friend of Effie Taylor, remembered that Taylor often went home after school to help on the family farm, on the same land she later gave away. Gold told the Gazette she "wasn't the least bit surprised" when the Planning Board learned of the gift.
The town's planning work points the same way. At the ceremony, Council Member Ashok Ramasubramanian said green space was residents' top priority when the town surveyed them for its Comprehensive Plan update. He held up a word cloud from those sessions, and "greenspace" was the biggest word on it. Gallery called Lisha Kill one of the most popular natural areas in New York State, with more than 20,000 visitors a year. That's a lot of people for 25 parking spaces.
On a busy fall Saturday, Niskayuna has two good backup walks.
The H.G. Reist Wildlife Sanctuary covers 111 acres with several miles of marked trails. According to the Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club, it has several public entrances: the end of Morgan Avenue, Oakmont Street, which has wheelchair access, Thackerey Court, Brendan Lane, and the Kelly Adirondack Center at 897 St. David's Lane. It's open dawn to dusk. Pets must be leashed, bikes aren't allowed, and the trails can get muddy in wet weather.
Lions Park at 3439 Rosendale Road is about the opposite of Lisha Kill. It's a 14-acre riverfront park on the Mohawk-Hudson Bike-Hike Trail, with restrooms, picnic areas, a boat launch and a historic depot. The town lists its hours as 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Farther along, Jeff Blatnick Park at 2555 River Road also connects to the bike path and has a dog park, which requires a town permit.
Neither one has a 200-year-old hemlock ravine, though. For that, it's Lisha Kill, with the current three trails for now and maybe one long loop once the trails reopen in May.
If you live along Rosendale Road or anywhere near Lisha Kill and want to know how the area around your home is changing, Jamie M Mazuryk and her team can walk you through it, starting with a free home valuation.
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