HUDSON VALLEY HISTORY HIKES
From the Catskills and Taconics to the Palisades
by Russell Dunn and Barbara Delaney

Trade paper, 6′ x 9′, 240 pages, 175 illustrations including maps and 160 full-color photographs & vintage postcards
isbn: 9798985692167 $21.95

As rich in history as it is in scenic beauty, New York’s Hudson River Valley is the perfect region to hike through history. And the perfect hosts to guide you on those hikes? Russell Dunn and Barbara Delaney, who between them have authored 48 books on the history and great outdoors of America’s Northeast. Hudson Valley History Hikes is the 4th in their “Trails with Tales” series, to be followed in 2025 with the 5th volume, Capital Region History Hikes, exploring more of the storied terrain in and around the Tri-City area of Albany, Schenectady and Troy, the Saratoga and Mohawk regions, and the Berkshires.

In Hudson Valley History Hikes, follow Dunn and Delaney as they walk in the footsteps of Benedict Arnold and Revolutionary War soldiers, movie stars and Hollywood mogul Adolph Zukor, 18th-century colonists and 19th-century tycoons, canal men and quarrymen, artists and industrialists. Explore abandoned cement mines and bluestone quarries, canal locks and carriage roads, the ruins of once-glorious mansions and mountain hotels, a lost village, the foundry that forged the Parrott Rifle cannon that helped win the Civil War, fire towers with stunning views, a unique natural gorge, and some of the most beautiful waterfalls in America. Visit a tunnel that was a WWI-era firing range, an unfinished spiral railway that attempted to circle a mountain and become the world’s longest “roller coaster,” and the family estate of the woman who was FDR’s closest companion.

Featuring more than 160 full-color illustrations, plus maps and vintage images, GPS coordinates, and detailed driving and hiking directions.

The Hikes
Beebe Hill Fire Tower • Stoppel Point & Mary’s Glen • Kaaterskill Wild Forest & Kaaterskill Falls • Sloan Gorge Preserve • Overlook Mountain Road • Mount Tremper Quarry & Fire Tower • Grinch House • Coykendall Lodge Ruins & Alder Lake • Copake Iron Works & Bash Bish Falls • Wilderstein Historic Site • Widow Jane Mine • High Falls & Five Locks Walk • Minnewaska State Park Preserve • Mt. Beacon Casino Site & Hotel Ruins • Tioronda Hat Works & Tioronda Falls • Edward Payson Roe Memorial Park • Northgate: Stern-Cornish Estate Ruins • West Point Foundry Preserve • Arden Point, Glenclyffe Loop & Arnold’s Flight • Doodletown • Dunderberg Spiral Railway • Fort Hill • Adolph Zukor Estate Ruins • Blauvelt Rifle Range Tunnels • Lawrence-Tonetti Gardens & Peanut Leap Falls • Cliff Dale on the Palisades

The Authors
RUSSELL DUNN and BARBARA DELANEY are a husband and wife writing team that has been collaborating for twenty years on history-oriented hiking guidebooks. Their first three books were Trails with Tales, Adirondack Trails with Tales, and Paths to the Past. Hudson Valley History Hikes is the fourth book in the series. The fifth book in the series, Capital Region History Hikes, will be published by Black Dome Press in 2025.
Barbara and Russell are retired New York State–licensed hiking guides. For fifteen consecutive years they led hikes to waterfalls in the Adirondacks. The hikes came to be known as “Waterfall Weekend” and took place annually in early May in the Keene Valley area.
In addition to coauthoring the history-oriented hiking guidebooks, Russell Dunn has written a number of other regional outdoors guidebooks to eastern New York State and New England, including nine waterfall guidebooks, five paddling guidebooks, and seven guidebooks to regional glacial erratics and other amazing rock formations. He has also published a series of anaglyph 3-D books.
Barbara Delaney has become well-known for her two books of fiction, Finding Griffin: An Adirondack Novel and Follansbee Pond Secrets.
They live in Albany, New York, and can be reached at Russell’s email, rdunnwaterfalls@yahoo.com.