Over the month of September, I have been leading ADK hikes in the local area after work on Wednesday nights.  These all have been short (under 3 miles) with little elevation that can easily be done in an hour or so.  Overall these seem to have been well received, and I will be continuing this, but in the spring.  There probably will be a couple short local hikes, like maybe exploring the North end of Thatcher, on weekend days but nothing too intense.  Something for those that want to get out for exercise but not really wanting to commit to a long distance or high elevation hike in the Adirondacks or Catskills.  This has forced me to explore some more local parks myself.

Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy has a lot of lovely local lands.  I first explored Hollyhock Hollow Sanctuary.  This is an absolutely lovely preserve just outside of Albany.  It has a nice little stream on one side, some old mines on another, and a small hemlock forest that is just lovely to hike through.  Next I did the Holt Preserve.  This is a hilly park, but again lovely trails and a small pond.  There are a couple of engineered lookouts where they clear cut a line of trees on the side of the hill, but they do provide nice views.  I then went up to Bennett Hill Preserve.  This is a hill with a lovely view on top and a "bathtub" spring (the spring empties into a bath tub) near the top.  A bit more hilly than the others, but still a nice hike.  I finally did the Keleher Perserve.  This is a little worse for the wear.  There are a bunch of dirt roads that are still used that crisscross the preserve.  That said, it's still a nice park.  For me it was ruined because either I kept hearing road noise, or more likely than not, I heard the land owner just below the park mowing the lawn for the hour I was hiking.

Then I did the hikes for ADK.  We started with Hollyhock on September 3, just 3 of us.  The next week, September 10, we did the Albany Pine Bush at Six Mile Water Works, again, just 3 of us.  September 17, we went again to the Pine Bush, but went to Blueberry Hill, this time with 8 of us.  We were prepared to do Holt on the 24th, but we had rain and I had a family emergency I had to attend to, so that was cancelled.... but next year we will do that.... this will start up again in the spring (March or April) once the sunsets fall past 7 again.