There is a Once World-wide Famous Park Right here in Albany , NY

My love for the outdoors and US history has always lead me to parks and museums. As a young mother I enjoyed taking my three children with me to hike and visit all of them. The fact that we built a home on the Hudson River with nature views surrounding our home and no neighbors in sight is like living in a postcard to me.  My mother visited when we first moved in and said she would not like to live here as "You could fall in the back yard, need help, call for help, and no one would come because no one could hear you."  I said, "I love it here." 

As a bonus, there is the John Boyd Thacher Park only minutes away and an annual picnic and hike for all of our children every year as they grew up.  The views of Albany and the fun of looking for fossils in the cave and rocks along the Indian Ladder Trail never ceased to amaze me and the children.  

Yesterday after work I thought I could go home and walk my driveway (1-2 miles) like I do every day or I could stop by Thacher Park and walk the 1.2 Indian Ladder Trail this year by myself.  I chose the park trail even thought it looked like rain and thunderstorms, I love to walk in the rain and I have a hat. So I walked the trail needing to stop a few times and remembering how as a young mother I use to skip and run up the stairs with the wee ones and now I am aware I need much more exercise to continue to do that again. Today at the end of the trail I climb up the limestone steps to see a new edifice, a visitor center. It is beautiful and I hurried to take a walk through wondering if I need money to go in.  I did not, what a gift.  I was looking for air conditioning to cool off and catch my breath before heading back up to the "overlook" parking lot another mile or so.  I found an area to sit in and see a documentary on the park by PBS.  (And you know I love nature documentaries)

Yes, I sat in the small dark room for almost an hour and watched all of it, as other hikers came in and out not interested enough to see all the vignettes. In the documentary I saw my OB/GYN of 33 years ago speak on the Helderbergs and her participation in the conservation of it! I wondered where she went.  I learned of the two men that met as students at Albany Academy, John Thacher and Verplanck Colvin, both came from families interested in public service.  (Colvin became Superintendent of Adirondack Survey and John became Mayor of Albany.)  The two were concerned about the mining of the palisades along the Hudson near NYC for cement and wanted to preserve the Helderberg Escarpment from the same destruction. 

Info on the pool constructed there in 1952 (when many people did not have backyard pools) was visited by 89,000 swimmers that first summer. My husband remembers going there a couple times with his mom when he was very little.  And now my children and I remember going to hike the Indian Ladder trail many times every summer from 1984 to 2017.

My first date with my Sweetheart ended in the Overlook Parking lot of the park. It was marvelous to see the skyline of Albany at night. Our tenth anniversary was celebrated by the wall with a card table, candlelight, and Chinese food, complete with fireworks from the Altamont Fair.  My brother-in-law offered to babysit our children so we could go out there for the evening. Years ago you could go there after sunset, now the park closes at dusk. Now it has a visitor center and additional activities for children at a nearby Wildlife Activity ground to open July.  Thankful there were others before us that saw to preserve this natural geology for future generations.  We are the future now.