Spectacular Views, Food, Roads and Moonlight: Harlem Valley by Bike

by Richard Brause

In the face of ominous weather (the remains of Hurricane Ivan), Joan Byron and I met at Grand Central Terminal on Saturday morning, Sept. 18, for a two-day tour of Dutchess and Columbia counties. In fact, the only rain we encountered was getting to Grand Central. Weather steadily improved on the two-plus-hour Metro North train ride to Wassaic, where we were greeted by patches of blue sky and occasional sunlight. No more rain gear. I was in shorts and a tee-shirt.

Joan's planned route started with a short southbound hook on busy Route 22 to a country road leading to the Harlem Valley Rail Trail. However, Joan's scouting had found an exit from the Wassaic railroad station parking lot onto an unpaved dirt road that appeared to shortcut this hook.

Signs next to this exit included the words "Trespass" and "Enter" (there were other words, too) but enter we did, shortly finding ourselves on lovely quiet back roads. The only loss was missing the goose egg store in Wassaic. 

After a few miles, in Amenia, we joined the Harlem Valley Rail Trail heading north. It looks like the trail southbound toward Wassaic may be paved this fall, but until then, the back roads are excellent. The railroad right-of-way itself was really well engineered when it was originally built. We couldn't ignore the results of the heavy early morning rain that left the rail trail dry while some adjacent roads remained flooded.

On the trail between Amenia and Millerton, we encountered more deer, wild turkeys and bunnies than people. Just to the east of the trail, the Berkshires climbed into a low cloud cover.

In Millerton, there's a gap in the paved trail, and that was a good excuse to stop at the diner for fuel: no culinary delights here, but lots of adequate nourishment. Across the street, Joan found a great bookstore and added to her map collection.

From Millerton, we continued north on quiet back roads. The low-lying clouds continued to shroud the Berkshires to the east, but each curve in the road revealed new views of Columbia County's rolling hills and farms.

After about eight miles, the paved rail trail resumes. There's no apparent work to close the gap south to Millerton. We continued north on the paved trail to Copake Falls, and from there, headed over to our accommodations at the Mountain View Inn in Copake: entirely adequate, but with only a superficial recognition of niceties like fire and electric codes. The photo shows an ordinary AC plug from a floor lamp, connected to the UHF antenna from the TV, which is connected to the flat twin-lead connected to the VHF antenna input. Everyone loves an adventure.

 

We lightened our bikes, washed up, dressed(!) for dinner, and then got back on our bikes, retracing our route through Copake Falls, and continuing uphill into the Berkshires to an overlook above Bash Bish Falls I'd last visited more than a few years ago. The spot doesn't have an official name but it's referred to both as Eagle's Nest and Sunset Rock. The climb is about 525 feet over about 1.5 miles and the panorama of the Hudson Valley and the Catskills is spectacular.

From there, we scooted back down through the ravine (don't try this at night) toward a well-earned dinner. Our planned destination was unexpectedly closed, so we continued just a bit further to Hillsdale where we locked our bikes to the sign outside the spiffiest place in town. Figured we'd add some class. Once inside, we were told they couldn't seat walk-ins (sniff!) so we strolled a few hundred feet to Hillsdale House, where we were welcomed. 

Hillsdale House has moderately priced, excellent wines and beers. It's hard to rate the range of food available because both of us ordered the same thing: duck. It was all it was quacked up to be. Additionally, there's a wood-fired oven for thin crust pizza and calzone.

After dinner, we watched a sliver of a moon set as we biked back through the night under a star-filled sky to our lodgings in Copake.

Our innkeeper had a fresh carafe of coffee waiting for us on Sunday morning, and we biked about 8 miles south to an outstanding breakfast at the Cinnamon Twist in Ancramdale: fully accessorized blueberry pancakes. (Note for the future: limit myself, because there are other fuel possibilities between Ancramdale and Poughkeepsie.)

Joan's route from Copake to Poughkeepsie, in more or less a southwesterly direction, almost completely skirts roads with lots of motor vehicles. The general trend is downhill, avoiding roads with names like "Overmountain," but there's the opportunity to check out all the gear combinations on your bike. Columbia and Dutchess Counties feature dairy, horse, and sheep farms, and there's at least one alpaca farm near Standfordville where there's an alpaca store as well as a very good espresso stop named Deserticus.

The last noteworthy fuel stop was the British Café in Clinton Corners, a fork in the road about 20 miles outside of Poughkeepsie. We didn't find much of interest in downtown Poughkeepsie on a Sunday, but the two-hour Metro North train ride back to Grand Central hugs the east bank of the Hudson River, offering a stunning conclusion to this trip.