Come walk the trails of Sunny Ridge Park, New Castle’s new nature preserve

April 4, 2008
by Susan Carpenter
When Sunny Ridge Park, located on the west side of New Castle with an entrance on Route 134 near Grace Lane, officially opens on April 12, local residents will have the opportunity to experience one of the town’s newer nature preserves.  Click here for a look at the trail map.

New Castle and generous neighbor partner to create accessible nature preserve

Sunny Ridge was slated to become a housing development, which would have destroyed the fragile wetlands and wetland buffers on the property and fragmented important wildlife habitats.  But in 1999, the town, a pioneer in acquiring land for open space wetland protection and biodiversity, stepped up and bought it for a nature preserve.

David Swope, a neighbor to the park lands, generously donated some of his adjacent land, including the “ridge” that is identified with the park, to be added to the park’s acreage. And rather than fencing the public off, Swope helped build the trails to encourage the public to venture out into his woods.

Spring life stirs at Sunny Ridge Park

When you first enter Sunny Ridge, you’ll see a large dammed up lake off to the side.  Follow the well marked trails through rocky woodland. Right now the spring peepers and wood frogs will be calling and soon the salamanders will be moving into the wetland pools.  They’ve spent the winter under leaf litter and fallen logs and in spring return to the wetland pools to breed. 

Breeding birds have returned and you’ll hear them setting up territories and beginning their summer in New Castle. Toward the back of the trail you’ll come to another pond on an adjacent property at the edge of Sunny Ridge which is clearly an old swimming hole. Finally the park descends in a steep slope to Hawkes Avenue. 

So sometime this spring go for a walk at Sunny Ridge. See the long views from the top of the hill. Enjoy the birdsong, watch the earth wake up and appreciate the foresight of our town and David Swope for preserving this beautiful piece of land for us, for the creatures that live there. And, not insignificantly, this park will help to preserve our water resources and reduce our carbon footprint, which everyone is thinking about these days.

Susan Carpenter’s has lived in New Castle for 22 years and has served on the Open Space Advisory Committee, the Conservation Board, and currently sits on the Planning Board. 

Editor’s Note: Town ceremonies begin at Sunny Ridge at 10:00 a.m. sharp, with an hour-long group trail walk immediately following.  Parking is very limited at Sunny Ridge, so take advantage of town-provided buses leaving from Town Hall at 9:30 and Millwood Fire House at 9:45.  RSVP by April 9th to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or call 914 238-4778