Description
The Briarcliff-Peekskill Trailway is a 12-mile route that runs from the town of Ossining to the Blue Mountain Reservation in Peekskill. It is park of Westchester County Parks. This particular park was built on land originally acquired in 1929 by the Westchester Parkway Commission for the construction of the Briarcliff Peekskill Parkway. This part of the Parkway was never constructed, and in 1977 the remaining land was re-designated for a trailway. Sections of the BPT are little-used and it is sometimes hard to follow. It is marked with green diamonds, and there are occasional signs, especially within the Teatown Lake Reservation. The trail starts at the intersection of Route 9A and Ryder Rd in Ossining (Briarcliff) and heads north, crossing Grace Lane, Route 134, Spring Valley Road (at Teatown Lake) and Applebee Farm Rd before meeting Croton Dam Road and crossing Croton Dam. The route then continues along Highway 129 for a short distance before turning off on Pond Rd (past Colabaugh Pond) and continuing on trail to Watch Hill Rd. From there the route passes through the parking lot of the Sportsman's Center at Blue Mountain Reservation and continues up Spitzenberg Mtn, then down to the trail's northern end at Lounsbury Pond in the outskirts of Peekskill.
These 2 maps cover the BPT:
https://parks.westchestergov.com/images/stories/pdfs/bptrailway.pdf
https://parks.westchestergov.com/images/stories/pdfs/BlueMtn_map_2015.pdf
This route on the old FKT site
Comments
Robert Mason & Matt Bryan ran the BPT out & back, unsupported on 10/18/2014. They started & ended at Watch Hill Rd, so skipped the 2-mile (each way) section thru the Blue Mountain Reservation & therefore did not run the whole route (they did not find the Blue Mtn Res section). Mike reported as follows:
"Did the trail both directions 10 days ago training for our first 50 mile. The trail was very difficult to navigate in several places, so we missed it and found our way back at several points. Our time for the first half, which only ended being about 10 miles and not the 12 claimed was 1h35m32s. The way back was about 10min slower [4h6m11s total RT time]. My Strava data from the day is below as well as a blog post I wrote the day following the experience. This can be done much faster with more route knowledge and experience."
https://www.strava.com/activities/208932443
mikebryan.blogspot.com/
(The full route is 12 miles, and is shown on our map on this page.)