Hike Winnakee Nature Preserve (U.S. National Park Service)

A park ranger and two people examine a leave in the woods.

Length: 1.5 miles

Difficulty: Easy

Blaze: Green and white Hyde Park Trail Marker

Trailhead Location: The Entrance to the Nature Preserve at Route 9 and Van Dam Road is not accessible until further notice. Please use the entrance at Terwilliger Road Extension.

History: The Winnakee Nature Preserve conserves part of the estate of Colonel Archibald Rogers, a neighbor and close friend of the Roosevelt family. It was on Rogers’ land where FDR learned about forestry and was imbued with a deep love of the land and natural habitats. The historic culverts, canals, and trails within the preserve are artifacts of Rogers’ 19th-century innovations in forest management. The nature preserve consists of 105 acres with extensive public hiking trails, protected forever by Winnakee Land Trust.

Trail map available here.

Rules & Regulations

Safety first!
Trail is open daily sunrise to sunset.
Bikes are not permitted on any trails at this site.
Garbage cans are not available. This is a Carry In,Carry Out trail.
Stay on marked trails only.
Hunting, trapping, or possession of firearms prohibited.
No Fires, camping, or swimming.
Pets must be leashed; You must clean up after your pet.
Removal or disturbance of flora, fauna, or cultural resources is strictly prohibited.
Motorized vehicles prohibited.

Entrance fees may apply, see Fees & Passes information.

Mostly level paths of dirt, occasionally rocky surface.

The Hyde Park Explorer Podcast

Enjoy these episodes of the Hyde Park Explorer podcast series as you walk the trails.

Winnakee Trailhead
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The Native American word Winnakee means “good land.” This wonderfully pristine forest is often called Hyde Park’s backyard–a place where local residents come to restore balance to their lives by reconnecting with nature.

Credit / Author:

National Park Service
Audio Transcript

Welcome to the Winnakee Nature Preserve, owned by Winnakee Land Trust. The Native American word Winnakee means “good land.” This wonderfully pristine forest is often called Hyde Park’s backyard–a place where local residents come to restore balance to their lives by reconnecting with nature.
Today, this 105-acre forest, with its rocky carpet and glittering waters, is protected forever from development, thanks to the efforts of the Winnakee Land Trust, and their volunteer corps. See their work, and savor the stories every step of the way!

The Road Well-Travelled
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It’s likely that this road served a utilitarian purpose–as a logging road. Here, hemlock, oak and other commercially important trees were felled, the logs hauled out by horse team or more recently by tractor-like skidders, for transport to sawmills, whether in Hyde Park or much farther afield.

Credit / Author:

National Park Service
Audio Transcript

The Blue Trail has a rugged, if somewhat incomplete, history, so it’s important to let your imagination guide your steps as you consider how this road may have serviced Crumwold, the estate of Colonel Archibald Rogers, or landowners since Rogers’ time. It leads straight uphill from the junction with the Yellow Trail, and has suffered some erosion.
It’s likely that this road served a utilitarian purpose–as a logging road. Here, hemlock, oak and other commercially important trees were felled, the logs hauled out by horse team or more recently by tractor-like skidders, for transport to sawmills, whether in Hyde Park or much farther afield.
By contrast, the Yellow Trail, the road running along the stream, looks as smooth as a superhighway. It was more carefully laid-out and constructed for a woods road. Colonel Rogers built his carriage roads for the mindful management of the woodlands and farmlands, and they were continually maintained and upgraded. The trail shows evidence of having been built by carving into the side-slope, with gentle curves and slopes suitable for horse-drawn vehicles. This refined road certainly brought comfort to appreciative carriage cruisers.

Wildlife of Winnakee Preserve
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Whenever you walk the woodlands of Winnakee Nature Preserve, stop, look, and most of all cherish the wildlife–a world away, but close to home.

Credit / Author:

National Park Service
Audio Transcript

In every season, Winnakee has something unique to freely share with all who walk its paths. And for the people who call the neighborhoods of Hyde Park home, this is all happening in their own back yards.
The Winnakee Nature Preserve is ringed by suburban development. In spite of human encroachment, the rocky wetlands and woodlands host diverse and thriving communities of plants and animals. Winnakee Land Trust Stewardship Manager Rafael Notin sharpens your senses as you discover the preserve …
RAPHAEL NOTIN SOUND BITE: No matter when you walk in the Preserve, there’s always something to observe, and if you have this naturalist outlook on nature you can always find little hints of what happened, what is living here. If we talk about the seasons in the Preserve, every season always has something interesting–there’s a different set of actors out in the Preserve. You may find antlers in the fall or winter so if you go to the Preserve in spring, you will have concerts of frogs every season; summer is also a good time for warblers )they are very colorful little birds.
The habitats in the Preserve–they are a plant forest, hardwood swamps, a mixed forest–there is also an interesting habitat called an intermittent woodland pool there’s also some fantastic rocky outcrop areas which is also very specific habitats for plants and other types of wild life.
NARRATOR: A brief geologic history of this rugged terrain is provided by Hydrogeologist Russell Urban-Mead…
RUSSELL URBAN-MEAD SOUND BITE: Like the rest of Hyde Park, what we have at Winnakee is shale formations and greywacke sandstone formations deposited something like 450MYA which then fractured up into their current jagged positions, and then erosion and weathering kind of got them into their current topography to be only very recently, then, covered by glaciers which sanded off the high spots and filled the low spots with glacial till, which is the ground up sediment and rock debris which travels beneath glaciers.
NARRATOR: Whenever you walk the woodlands of Winnakee Nature Preserve, stop, look, and most of all cherish the wildlife–a world away, but close to home.

The Colonel’s Plantation
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Growing up in the forested landscape of Hyde Park, young Roosevelt expressed a strong interest in conservation.

Credit / Author:

National Park Service
Audio Transcript

The woodland that surrounds you, this plantation of white pine, is nearly 100 years old. The trees are hand-planted, perhaps by Colonel Archibald Rogers, former landowner, and neighbor to future President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Growing up in the forested landscape of Hyde Park, young Roosevelt expressed a strong interest in conservation. The Colonel willingly shared his knowledge to turn the boy’s curiosity into what would become a lifelong interest. Like the trees themselves, Roosevelt’s scientific skills and confidence grew and grew. In fact, the future President so loved forestry, that when asked his occupation, he’d sometimes reply, “tree farmer.” FDR would work alongside Rogers, learning along the way, and absorbing some of the Colonel’s enthusiasm for trees.
Roosevelt also learned the commercial value of trees as crops. As the deep and rich soils of the American Midwest began to evolve into the nation’s farmland, eastern farmland went into decline. Beginning in the late 1800s, Rogers and other gentlemen farmers began to practice the newly-developing science of forestry, replacing abandoned farm fields with productive forests, and worked to enhance the productivity of standing woodlands. In later years, FDR would put the lessons learned from Colonel Rogers to work in his own tree farms, to help forest the future.

Volunteer Trail Builders
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Wherever you walk through the Winnakee Nature Preserve, you see the work of volunteers of all ages.

Credit / Author:

National Park Service
Audio Transcript

Wherever you walk through the Winnakee Nature Preserve, you see the work of volunteers of all ages. You might even say that they are following in the footsteps of Hyde Park’s most notable volunteer, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who encouraged people to create big ideas in little places…
This property was donated to Winnakee by a private landowner.
SALLY MAZARELLA SOUND BITE: We decided to work toward a nature preserve.
NARRATION: Sally Mazarella is the President of the Winnakee Land Trust.
SALLY MAZARELLA SOUND BITE: Its mission is to protect and preserve the historical, agricultural, environmental, archaeological, scenic values of the communities we serve.
NARRATION: She could see the potential the land held for the community…
SALLY MAZARELLA SOUND BITE: It is a beautiful piece of land that has wonderful natural features and can offer wonderful recreational opportunities for young and old and families to enjoy.
NARRATION: But she couldn’t do it alone.
SALLY MAZARELLA SOUND BITE: So you reach out to the community. We’re very, very fortunate that we have a community that recognizes that we have a special place, and perhaps should be joining us in these efforts.
POMPEY DELAFIELD SOUND BITE: I don’t think anyone would like to have seen what it looked like before we took over. It was basically a swamp overgrown, piles of wood it was a place to throw debris.
NARRATION: Pompey Delafield was the Supervisor for the Town of Hyde Park, and a member of the Rotary Club, a service organization. Their club stepped in to lend a hand–many hands.
POMPEY DELAFIELD SOUND BITE: And so what we wanted to do was clean up this mess at the entrance and Rotary could be helpful in achieving that goal.
RAPHAEL NOTIN SOUND BITE: What’s interesting about the Winnakee Nature Preserve is that it’s over 100 acres of pristine forest and habitats, right in the middle of a suburban neighborhood and it’s also a mosaic of habitats right there that provides refuge for many wildlife.
NARRATION: One of Raphael Notin’s first jobs as Stewardship Manager for the Winnakee Land Trust was to walk the land and gauge the condition of the habitats.
RAPHAEL SOUND BITE: In the past, it was just a piece of land, and people would just dump their stuff there.
NARRATION: Now, there are annual clean up days that bring out volunteer forces from all throughout Hyde Park.
RAPHAEL SOUND BITE: Thanks to the help of many volunteers, neighbors in love with the preserve, who want to contribute.
BOB ARATA SOUND BITE: There was a lot of ATV/snowmobile/dirt bike traffic that destroyed most of the trails, and we’ve repaired that over the years so they’re in a lot better shape now than when I got involved with it.
NARRATION: As a director of the Winnakee Land Trust, Bob Arata has always taken a hands-on role in maintaining the hiking trails.
BOB ARATA SOUND BITE: Well, I just like to see the preserve in good shape, and I just hope we can keep it that way.
NARRATION: Even the students from the local vocational school, where Bob is a substitute teacher, got involved, making the trail signs and kiosks you see all throughout the Preserve.
BOB ARATA SOUND BITE: They liked that, it was something different, it wasn’t bookwork (laughs) and that was a big plus for them.
NARRATION: From Boy Scouts, to senior groups–a full spectrum of volunteer forces helped transform this parcel of land into the Winnakee Nature Preserve…and their work continues!
SALLY MAZARELLA SOUND BITE: I think some of the goals that are important for us to try to achieve is to try and bring as many people to the preserve, so they can enjoy the natural resources that are there.
POMPEY DELAFIELD SOUND BITE: (EDIT) It made our club aware of the cooperative nature of working with others and getting the job accomplished.
BOB ARATA SOUND BITE: I’ve probably volunteered about three or four hundred hours.
SALLY MAZARELLA SOUND BITE: We all need as a society these pockets of open space to remind us what nature is all about. And this is this pocket.

The First Steward
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An extensive network of ditches, combined with hand-built stone culverts, kept water from washing out the woods road crossings. Drier, more stable roads let forestry work continue uninterrupted.

Credit / Author:

National Park Service
Audio Transcript

As you walk this section of trail, keep your eyes open for the engineering of this woodland. Notice the drainage ditches–all hand-dug by Colonel Rogers and his team. This extensive network of ditches, combined with hand-built stone culverts, kept water from washing out the woods road crossings. Drier, more stable roads let forestry work continue uninterrupted.
The Colonel employed two men every summer to drain any swamps on the property by hand-digging ditches.
A former Rogers employee recalled, “Mr. Rogers was very enthusiastic about his woods. Trails were made through the woods for Mr. Rogers to follow. Every day after work and weekends, even if the family was entertaining, Col. Rogers would spend the afternoons in the woods checking the trees and marking those he felt should be sawed down.”
No matter how hard or heavy the task, Colonel Rogers often worked alongside his men, earning their respect and admiration. For the Colonel, the effort of land stewardship was truly a long-standing labor of love.

Hike Winnakee Nature Preserve

Tags

The Hyde Park Explorer Podcast

Winnakee Trailhead

The Road Well-Travelled

Wildlife of Winnakee Preserve

The Colonel’s Plantation

Volunteer Trail Builders

The First Steward

Tags

Contact Us

Tags

The Hyde Park Explorer Podcast

Winnakee Trailhead

The Road Well-Travelled

Wildlife of Winnakee Preserve

The Colonel’s Plantation

Volunteer Trail Builders

The First Steward

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