Trails with Tales History Hikes through the Capital Region, Berkshires, and Hudson Valley

Thirty nature treks, selected for their natural, stand-alone beauty, are enhanced by tangible silhouettes of a fascinating past, from early Native Americans and Colonial settlers to the Industrial Revolution and Victorian-era grand hotels. Hike to waterfalls, mountains, escarpments, lakes, sculpted rocks, ponds, rivers, islands, caves, balanced rocks, geysers, and deep gorges while visiting the sites of famous battles of the Revolutionary War, ghostly industrial ruins, a Moorish-style castle, views and vistas made world-famous by America’s greatest painters, vanished Shaker communities, great estates of the Gilded Age, a working lighthouse, and New York’s Mount Rushmore.

Hikes include: Starks Knob & Schuylerville Champlain Canal Towpath -- Saratoga National Historic Park -- Geyser Park -- Vischer Ferry Nature & Historic Preserve -- Peebles Island State Park -- Oakwood Cemetery -- Burden Pond Environmental Park -- Ann Lee Pond -- Indian Ladder -- Bennett Hill Preserve -- Clarksville Cave Preserve -- Edmund Niles Huyck Preserve -- Balanced Rocks -- Shaker Mountain -- No Bottom Pond -- Tyringham Cobble -- Ice Glen & Laura’s Tower -- Ashintully Estate & McLennan Preserve -- Vroman’s Nose -- Pratt Rock -- Lindenwald & Martin Van Buren Nature Trail -- Rogers Island -- Olana -- Montgomery Place -- Ravena Falls -- Hudson River School Art Trail -- Catskill Mountain House Escarpment -- Saugerties Lighthouse -- Overlook Mountain -- Sky Top & Mohonk Lake

To me, this book is full of old friends, whether places, people or stories. It also includes several distant acquaintances and (especially pleasing) even a few complete strangers. To find such a wide and eclectic variety between the covers of one book, and also within an easy drive of home, is a wonderful gift. Karl Beard New York Projects Director of the Rivers, Trails & Conservation Assistance Program of the National Park Service.