The Wallkill Valley Rail Trail

There are times in life when one of the “locals” from wherever you’re visiting in the world blesses you with a recommendation regarding your travels. It’s always been my opinion that this isn’t just serendipity but divine intervention casting you into an experience that nourishes the soul. So generally speaking, the advice is taken and the path proposed, explored.

The trip to New Paltz delivered just such an accidental epiphany by way of the gentleman whose apartment I was renting when he suggested I try riding the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail. While the trail just passes through town, so was I, and from that shared perspective, I followed his counsel.

Given its roots as a college town, New Paltz is a very friendly community when it comes to riding ones bike. After a brief trip through small town New York, I arrived where village meets trail and headed north. As one heads out, the trail flirts with civilization, part small town, part forest, revealing in the divergence something of its true nature.

As the trail unfolds, a more subtile version of New York the state emerges. Fields and forest claim their dominion over the landscape. There is a familiar comfort to be found here, something missing from city life, something not hard to give into.

The contrast here between New York “the city” & New York “the state” unveiled before me in shades of green & grey, yet to focus on the differences is to miss the commonalities.

The trail crosses the Wallkill River over an old train trestle now converted to travel by two wheels. The span provides a great spot to stop, enjoy the view and the day. 

It rolls on past farms and farmers, the flowers of spring and through the fields of crops awaiting fall and the harvest.

After a while or 7 miles, whichever came first, I arrived at Rosendale, NY. Rosendale is a small hamlet of a few hundred souls along the shores of Roundout Creek. It is billed as a haven for lovers of the arts, hippies and other assorted followers of a different tune. A trestle crossing high above the creek heralds your arrival. A brief, yet enjoyable jaunt into town reveals the heart and soul of this community.

Returning to the trail and heading back to New Paltz, I was presented with the regretful realization that the trip was almost over. However sad that fleeting feeling may have been, I’ve always seen the return trip not so much as a review of my travels but as a reaffirmation of the joy I felt during the discovery.

In the end, New Paltz held one more delightful surprise along the trail, historic Huguenot Street. It’s a small cluster of historic buildings from the 1700’s preserved as a window to America’s past. A window well worth opening so as to enjoy the view of a simpler time when life unfolded at a slower pace.

While the allure of travel is seeing different places and meeting diverse people, it’s the commonalities that define the ties that bind us. Within that interplay of different versus same, we come to discover a shared thread of existence running through our lives and those of our neighbors. It is that thread interwoven amongst the other members of our species that reveals the greatest truth about life, we are all connected in the place we call home, our planet earth.