Thanks to guest writer Noah Pearce who wrote the article below about the Briarcliff-Peekskill trail. We encourage readers to write in with some of their training runs.
The Briarcliff/Peekskill trail is a great trail for running or hiking. It’s a singe track, intermediate technical trails. Its part of the Westchester park system and starts right at the Rider Rd. Bridge over Rt. 9A (the first blaze is on the north east side, the blazes are green diamond) in Ossining where you could park for a few hours thought it not marked as parking on the Map.
The first mile or so really could use some tending to it’s a little over grown but that isn’t a problem after crossing Grace La.
Once you reach the Tea Town Preserve (where there are also lots of little trails to explore, all of top quality and well marked) the Briarcliff/Peekskill trail goes under the high tension power lines in the and the blazes are hard to find, stay under the power lines until it goes down a really steep rocky hill at the bottom of this hill you will see that the blazes leave the power lines. This is the only time that you can’t see from blaze to blaze.
Running from the trail head in Ossining to the Croton spillway and back is about 13 miles this is the mid point of the trail and this segment is completely off road only crossing 3 lightly traveled and one more heavily traveled road.
After crossing the Croton Dam spillway the trail runs on the road for about a mile and should be only run on in full day light. Once off the road the trail resumes as before but maybe a little less technical because of better maintenance.
Below is a link to a great map:
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