Family Nature Day @ Hudson Highlands

The Hudson Highlands Land Trust has protected more than 7,500 acres of the Hudson River’s most geologically dramatic corridor since its founding, and Winter Hill at 20 Nazareth Way in Garrison, New York, is one of its showcase properties: a glacially sculpted highland preserve with views across the Hudson River to the West Point military reservation and, on clear days, south toward the Tappan Zee crossing. Family Nature Day returns to Winter Hill on Saturday, May 31, 2026, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m., free and open to the public. The afternoon is built around the Hudson Highlands Land Trust’s approach to conservation education: hands-on, participatory, and rooted in the specific ecology of the Hudson Highlands rather than in generic environmental messaging.

The centerpiece program is “World of Animals,” an interactive talk by naturalist Brian Robinson beginning at 3:00 p.m. Robinson’s presentations at previous Land Trust events have drawn on his direct field experience with the Highland region’s wildlife, covering species from the osprey that nest along the river’s bluffs to the timber rattlesnakes that use the granite ledge habitat of the inland slopes. Hands-on learning activities led by Land Trust staff and conservation partners run from 2:00 p.m. onward. Light refreshments are provided. Children are the primary audience, though the content and setting consistently engage adults equally.

Garrison and the Hudson Highlands

Garrison is a hamlet in the town of Philipstown, positioned between Cold Spring to the north and Peekskill to the south on the eastern shore of the Hudson, at the point where the river narrows between Storm King Mountain and Breakneck Ridge. This stretch of the Hudson Valley is geologically distinct from the broader valley: Precambrian granite and gneiss push through the surface in outcrops and ledges that give the landscape a rugged, Highland character absent in the lower valley. The Hudson River School of painting, which produced Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church, and Asher Durand in the mid-19th century, was largely inspired by this specific terrain, and the views from Winter Hill’s upper slopes correspond directly to the compositional priorities those artists worked from. Manitoga, the Russel Wright Design Center four miles south in Garrison, preserves the woodland home and studio of industrial designer Russel Wright in a 75-acre forest landscape Wright designed himself over 30 years.

If You’re Going with Kids
The “World of Animals” talk has been specifically designed to hold the attention of children from approximately age 5 through early adolescence, with live specimens when logistically possible and a Q&A structure that rewards curious participants who arrive with questions. The 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. window before the talk is the best time for the hands-on activity stations, which allow younger children who may not sustain 45 minutes of seated listening to fully engage with the visit on their own terms.

The Hudson River and Its Lakes

The Hudson River itself, visible from Winter Hill’s upper elevations, is technically a tidal estuary navigable by ocean-going vessels as far north as Troy, and its ecology at the Garrison crossing represents the transition between the salinity-influenced lower river and the freshwater upper reach. Fahnestock State Park, five miles east of Winter Hill on Route 301, encompasses several lakes in the Hudson Highlands Interior including Canopus Lake, with a swimming beach and canoe rentals open through the summer season that provides a natural extension of a Family Nature Day visit into a full Hudson Valley weekend. Look on Lake.com for vacation rental properties in the Hudson Valley and Putnam County area.