Recently named Hudson Valley Magazine’s 2021 “Best Small Hike Big View,” families from all over the region enjoy this lovely hilltop park in Rhinebeck.  A popular picnicking, hiking and sledding spot, Burger Hill rises to a 550-foot hilltop that boasts panoramic vistas of the surrounding countryside and spectacular views of the Shawangunk Ridge, Catskill and Taconic mountains, Stissing Mountain and the Berkshires. Over 67 acres of the 76 acres (88%) that make up Drayton Grant Park is essential habitat to grassland nesting birds including Henslow’s sparrow, grasshopper sparrow, vesper sparrow, upland sandpiper, horned lark, eastern meadowlark, savannah sparrow, northern harrier, short-eared owl, and bobolink.

Winnakee Nature Preserve is part of the larger Hyde Park Trail network. The network consists of 14 miles of trails within the Town of Hyde Park that run through the Town’s parks, nature preserves and are contiguous to the Heritage Greenway, incorporating an east-west connection linking the FDR National Historic Site and the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site known as “Val-Kill”. The Town and volunteer members of the Hyde Park Trail Partnership maintain these trails in conjunction with the Dutchess County Department of Health.  Winnakee holds conservation easements on a little over 300 acres within this network.

In the Town of Stanford, Sisters Hill consists of 75 acres, 8 acres of which are designated DEC wetland, containing a red maple swamp and Class B stream. It also contains a DEC Core Forest; Forest Linkage Zone and is designated by DEC as Core Habitat for Imperiled Species and a Significant Biodiversity Area in the Hudson Valley. It is permanently protected by a Dutchess Land Conservancy easement. Sisters has an existing railbed that will be the core of a new trail system, and Winnakee plans additional recreation improvements for the site.

The Phase One trails of the Winnakee Land Trust and Town of Red Hook are now open.  These trails are on 335 acres of land in the Town of Red Hook, purchased by Winnakee and enabled with funds from the CWIA/EPF Water Quality Improvement Project Grant administered by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC).  The primary purpose for the acquisition is to protect the water supply of Saw Kill through an innovative public private partnership with the Town of Red Hook called the Saw Kill Water Quality Protection Project.

Owned by the Town and Village of Rhinebeck, Thompson Mazzarella Park is protected under an open space easement with Winnakee Land Trust. The park is 72 acres with 2.2 miles of multi-looped foot trails that weave through agriculture fields.  The park features open rec fields, active farming, a thriving community garden, towering tulip poplar forest, and is bordered by the rich habitats of the Rhinebeck Kill and Landsman Kill. It is a great family park that often boasts beautiful sunset views.

The second largest wetland area in Rhinebeck, Vlei Marsh consists of 165 acres, 90 acres of which are DEC designated wetlands, including 1,300 feet of headwaters of the Fallsburg Creek. The property is designated by the DEC as a Core Forest in a Forest Linkage Zone, meaning its intact forested connections between nearby matrix forest blocks allow animals and plants to move across the landscape. It is also designated as a DEC Significant Biodiversity Area in the Hudson Valley; it contains a wide diversity of bird life (including a heron rookery), beavers and amphibians.

Visit a hidden treasure. Winnakee Nature Preserve in Hyde Park iquickly immerses visitors in a beautiful, historic 105-acre woodland. The 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. Winnakee established the site as an Educational Arboretum to inform visitors about the historic role this particular forest played in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s environmental education; and to inspire an appreciation of its ecological value and beauty with over 36 species of native trees.