Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States and the first US delegate to the United Nations, lived part of her life at Val-Kill, a quiet, wooded estate in Hyde Park, New York, just east of her husband Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s home at Springwood. Val-Kill is today protected as part of Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic …
Continue reading Eleanor’s Walk Trail (Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, NY)
Springwood, the Hudson River Valley home of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is now preserved by the National Park Service in Hyde Park, New York. However, during his second term as president, Roosevelt also had built a separate cottage, intended as a retreat atop nearby Dutchess Hill, a mostly wooded ridge east of the Hudson. Today, …
Continue reading Top Cottage Trail (Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, NY)
Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site in Hyde Park, New York preserves the historic estate of Frederick Vanderbilt, grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the famous 19th century railroad tycoon. Reaping the success of his ancestors, Frederick owned considerable real estate across New York and New England and completed constructed of this mansion in Hyde Park in 1899. …
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Dwarfed in size by nearby New River Gorge National River, Babcock State Park is often overlooked by visitors to southern West Virginia. Yet the park, most famous for its photogenic grist mill, offers several excellent hiking options. While the best lie elsewhere in the park, the short Island in the Sky Trail is easily accessible …
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Southern West Virginia’s New River Gorge National River includes dozens of waterfalls, some easier to reach than others. Among the relatively simple is Butcher Branch Falls, which, despite being less than a half-mile from the Kaymoor Top Trailhead, is rarely crowded. The moderately difficult hike drops 150 feet from the western rim of New River …
Continue reading Butcher Branch Falls (New River Gorge National River, WV)
Before the New River Gorge Bridge—the longest arch bridge in the western hemisphere—was constructed in 1977, travelers across New River Gorge in southern West Virginia were forced to descend and ascend more than 800 feet in elevation on the slow and winding Fayette Station Road. The road also serviced a pair of small mining towns, …
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Cedar Run Falls, Shenandoah National Park, April 2018 The nearly 8-mile trail up Whiteoak Canyon and down Cedar Run is easily one of the most scintillating loop hikes in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park and features a string of excellent waterfalls that is perhaps unparalleled in the state. Except for a dull connector trail between the …
Continue reading Whiteoak Canyon – Cedar Run Trail Loop (Shenandoah National Park, VA)
This excellent hike combines two of the finest summits in northern Virginia in a strenuous circuit with considerable elevation gain and loss. The trek up Duncan and Strickler Knobs is not for the casual hiker; it involves significant climbs and drops, including a borderline Class II/III rock scramble to the summit of Duncan and a …
Continue reading Duncan Knob and Stricker Knob Loop (George Washington National Forest, VA)
- Civil War Series - The 1862 Peninsula Campaign, intended by the Union to put a decisive end to the Civil War by capturing the Confederate capital of Richmond, began with a slow start. Gen. George McClellan, despite setting out in March 1862 with the largest army the continent had ever seen, inched up the …
Live and Let Hike 