New York has more than 250 parks, recreation areas, and historic sites — and in winter, they are a Christmas wonderland.
Think frozen waterfall hikes, sledding in front of gilded age estates on the Hudson, ice fishing on a lake so clear you can watch the fish below, cross-country skiing at Fahnestock Winter Park just 90 minutes from New York City, snowshoeing through hemlock valleys, and guided owl walks where rangers call owls into the dark.
Chris Rickard — Park Manager at Lake Taghkanic State Park — joins me to walk through everything from statewide highlights to what’s happening at his park in the Hudson Valley this season.
A note from Missy: Chris mentioned something I hadn’t heard before — when New York parks have a good ice winter, Lake Taghkanic fills up with ice fishing families setting up shelters all across the lake. Multiple families, multiple generations, all out on the ice together. It sounded absolutely magical and I want to go.
Episode Guest
Chris Rickard, Park Manager at Lake Taghkanic State Park
New York State Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation
Show Notes & Links
- New York State Parks: parks.ny.gov
- New York State Parks Explorer App — lists events by your location
- Fahnestock Winter Park — premier cross-country ski center, ~90 min from NYC
- Mills Norrie State Park — prime sledding on the Hudson River
- First Day Hikes: January 1st statewide, all levels, most with hot cocoa
- Reservations: up to 9 months in advance — book peak season early
Episode Transcript
Winter in the Parks: New York State Parks
The Parks Podcast, Episode 55 | Chris Rickard, Park Manager, Lake Taghkanic State Park
Winter Activities Across New York State Parks
Missy Rentz: As we continue to celebrate winter in the parks, today we are exploring New York State Parks. I’m thrilled to welcome Chris Rickard. Chris is the Park Manager at Lake Taghkanic State Park. Chris, welcome to The Parks Podcast.
Chris Rickard: Thank you very much for having me.
Missy: When people explore New York Parks in winter, what kinds of activities can they expect to see?
Chris: Oh, especially in New York State — we have a very diverse state. But some of the regular things you would think of: just a regular hike. Going hiking, whether it be around the lake, a small nature trail. We have small hiking loops, we have really big long loops. My lake’s about a five mile hike which you can do with just a set of hiking boots, maybe a set of gaiters, and some crampons — some small micro spikes in the wintertime. And obviously then we have all the other fun activities with the toys, right? We have sledding in some of our parks. We have snowmobiling, believe it or not — even here at my park at Lake Taghkanic. It’s a good warm-up if you’re gonna go north where we have about 10 miles of trails. So if you want to get your sled ready for the big runs up north, we have that too. We obviously have snowshoeing — you bring your own snowshoes, though we do have some facilities in the Taconic region that rent snowshoes or offer guided snowshoe hikes. Sledding at Mills Norrie State Park on the Hudson River is probably the premier sledding spot — a nice safe area. I did it for the first time last year there and was blown away. It reminds me of growing up in Manhattan — we had some sledding hills in Riverside Park. But somehow the Hudson River valley gives you some really good sledding hills. Even people who wouldn’t think a historic site is a place to have a blast sledding — believe it or not, you have the gilded age behind you and you’re sliding down the hill towards the river safely. So it’s really really cool. We also have hunting in some of our parks — that’s a winter activity. Hunting season just ended for most of New York state, but we do offer hunting in season. We obviously usually separate a lot of our popular hiking areas from the hunting, keeping it to the more backwoods, more wild parts of the park.
250+ Parks and Holiday Highlights
Missy: New York has more than 250 parks, recreation areas, and historic sites — which is a number that blew my mind. That just makes for a huge variety of activities. As we lead into the holiday season and then hardcore winter, what are some of the highlights that visitors can look forward to?
Chris: So one of the things everyone’s got to check out is frozen waterfalls. New York State has amazing waterfalls. Obviously Niagara is the first one on everyone’s list and when it’s iced up it’s pretty cool. But there’s Taughannock Falls out in the center of the state. We have a trail close to us that goes out to Bash Bish Falls — it starts in New York and you end up in another state, which is really cool. And it’s less than a mile hike. Really cool — along a beautiful trout stream through this gorgeous hemlock valley. Frozen waterfalls are a really cool destination on hikes. A lot of people love them. And as people say, don’t go chasing waterfalls — well, hikers love to do that.
Missy: We do.
Chris: In wintertime it gives a completely different experience. The water’s clear because of the reflection from the snow — there’s like blue water. It’s beautiful because of just the reflections. It’s a totally different take on a regular summer hike to a waterfall. It’s a really unique experience. And then we have Fahnestock Winter Park — our premier cross-country ski center. It’s only about an hour and a half from New York City. So when they finally get some southern snow in the mid-Hudson Valley, that’s where you can go. It has everything — you can rent snowshoes, you can rent cross-country skis, both the traditional skis and skate skiing. They do a very professional job of grooming their trails.
Guided Programs, Kids’ Activities, and Holiday Events
Missy: Your region is very active and it’s all about outdoor activities. But as I was looking at the calendar of events for the holiday season in New York, some of the things I thought were really interesting — there’s a storybook trail and craft outing, which felt very kid-friendly. There was wreath making. And the one that took me back to my childhood was making pinecone bird feeders. I think a lot of your parks are really trying to incorporate the kid in all of us — of all ages — to encourage people to come outside. And a lot of those are guided, which I think if you are new to parks, it’s really helpful to have someone guide you and teach you how to use our parks.
Chris: A hundred percent. Our busy season is the summer here. But our neighboring park — Taghkanic State Park, Copake Falls — has a wonderful interpreter. They do almost weekly events there. And obviously the First Day Hike is going to be statewide. It’s gotten so popular that it’s almost every single state park offering some sort of guided hike on January 1st — some in the morning for the folks that didn’t stay up all night, and some in the afternoon for the folks that are just waking up. Statewide, everywhere from Walkway over the Hudson — which is a pedestrian bridge — to Taghkanic State Park, Copake Falls, which does a waterfall hike. There are rail trail hikes, small loops, all guided. And usually the cool thing at the end is some sort of hot cocoa or warming station. It’s open to all ages — that’s a big thing. Some are dog friendly, which is important to a lot of people. Check with the park before you go to make sure your dog is well-behaved for a social setting. And there’s the Park Explorer App — the New York State Parks Explorer App — where a lot of these events are listed. If it knows your location, it will list parks near you. You just click on the park and it’ll have the calendar of events coming up for that park.
Missy: And if you go to the episode page on TheParksPodcast.com, I will link to all of these sites so that people have an easy link. One of the things I also want to point out — and every state park does this — but it seemed really prominent in New York, is the guided activities. You’ve mentioned a lot of activities, but there are also programs if you want to learn how to snowshoe, how to bird watch, how to ice skate. That really seems to be prevalent and a big priority in New York State.
Chris: Yeah, very much so. Rockefeller State Park Preserve down in Westchester County has interpreters that do exactly that. They do bird walks, owl walks — they’ll actually play calls so you can hear and call owls, which is a really cool event. Animal tracks is a really cool, fun thing to learn and it’s guided — they do that at Taghkanic State Park as well as at Rockefeller. And as much as some people think history is dry, especially in the winter — especially with the holiday decorations right now — those interpreters just walking and seeing how it was to live in the past is amazing. Philipse Manor Hall just had a huge renovation done and does some amazing interpretation with all the different storytellings — from the indigenous folks to the enslaved — really just well put together. There’s nothing cooler than coming into Yonkers, which is a bustling little metropolis of its own, and there’s this beautiful historic site that tells really the stories of the manor days back in the time, and what the New York City area looked like back in the 1700s and 1800s.
Missy: Those have become — it was a surprise to me — but those historic sites and historic parks have become one of my favorite things to discover. I thought I would just be the nature hiking, camping person, and it’s amazing how our parks and history really do work well together.
Chris: A hundred percent. And a lot of our parks were formed by these large landowners that ended up ultimately passing on those big lands back to the people — through gifts and land sales. So we now all get to enjoy what those people got to enjoy back in the day.
Lake Taghkanic State Park in Winter
Missy: So we’ve talked broadly about New York State Parks in the winter and the holiday season, and First Day Hikes. Let’s talk about your park at Lake Taghkanic a little bit. What do you guys have going on this holiday season?
Chris: So right now we got about six inches of snow in the last storm — maybe a little more than that, we sit a little higher. Right now we are open for regular hiking. We have a five mile loop around the lake which is very easy to follow. We have some other back loops, probably about 10 to 15 miles of hiking in the park total. We also allow snowmobiling on some of those back trails. We don’t get busy enough for it to interfere with hikers. We maybe get a dozen or so snowmobiles a year here — so it’s a testing ground before they go up north. If you got a new Christmas present and wanted to try out snowshoeing, this is a great park for it. And ice skating — we don’t maintain it, but once we get the ice setting up like right now, as long as you don’t get too much snowfall, that will smooth over very nicely. And then ice fishing is huge here. We have great ice fishing — perch, pickerel, largemouth bass. Last year was probably our busiest for ice fishing in about 20 years. The stuff they sell now — ice shelters, these throw-up tents — we had them all over the ice. Families out, multiple families, multiple generations. We had a group of about four families just all out there together and it was just great to see. With climate change, some of the winters have not been ideal for that, but it comes in phases. Last winter was really good for ice fishing. We had state troopers here practicing their diving — they cut these huge blocks out of the ice and we had almost two feet of ice on the lake, which is amazing. We haven’t seen that in a long time.
Reservations and Planning Ahead
Missy: That is really neat. I know New York Parks can be very busy — I tried to spend more time up there last summer and I’m a last-minute planner, so it didn’t work out very well for me. How far in advance can people book reservations at the parks?
Chris: For cottages, cabins, and campsites, you can book up to nine months in advance. That is highly recommended if you want to stay in the parks during peak season — especially the big holidays like Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day. Columbus Day falls in there with the beautiful fall foliage. We have people that will sit online at midnight to the nine-months-to-the-day mark and still not get the reservation because everyone’s clicking at the same time. But during the week, even in peak season, there’s more availability.
Missy: You can sometimes get lucky for those short windows. But this is a good time to be thinking about your spring, summer, and fall plans — go ahead and get things booked for New York State Parks.
Chris: A hundred percent.
Missy: Chris, thank you so much for joining us today. I love hearing about New York State Parks. I need to get to Lake Taghkanic and play in your park sometime soon. Thank you so much for being with us today.
Chris: No problem. Thank you for having me.
Missy: Happy holidays to you, Chris. Happy holidays to you listeners, and until next time — we’ll see you in the parks.
Music for The Parks Podcast is performed and produced by Porter Hardy. Follow us @TheParksPodcast or visit TheParksPodcast.com.