Interstate 87: The Adirondack Northway

Albany is the capital of New York and is one of the oldest cities in America, founded by the Dutch as Fort Orange in 1660. It was a beaver trading post for a long time. Now it is the capital of New York, and thanx to our huge state government, is full of all sorts of state office complexes like the multi-billion dollar marble Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza or the State Office Campus, or University at Albany (formerly SUNYA) on I-90. There actually is some wilderness area, the Pine Barrens, in Albany, west of Exit 1 on Washington Avenue Extension. The Pine Barrens is known for the Karner butterfly and is an example of the old lake bottom, coastal environment before the last ice age. Basically, it's scrub oak and pine, as you would find near the ocean in the sandy soil. Much of the lower Adirondacks, up to Essex County, is very sandy. Albany County, while being part of the Catskill-Helderberg Mountain region, not the superior Adirondacks, foothills, is full of state forests for hunting, snowshoeing, camping, cross country skiing all through the south western part of the county, like Rensselaerville, Berne. It is actually very remote in parts of south-west Albany County, with tons of state forest acreage and hunting zones.

Colonie is the largest town in New York state in population is and takes up the whole northern end of Albany County. Some of its communities are Latham, Loudonville, Village of Colonie, Karner, Roesselville. It is a crossroads town: between Albany, Watervliet, Cohoes, Troy, Schenectady, and Saratoga County, so it's full of shopping areas like the Latham Traffic Circle. The Northway skirts the Village of Colonie then goes through Latham .The Latham Traffic Circle is east of Exit 6 and is the junction and overpass between NY 2 and US 9. Exit 2 & 4 have Wolf Road and Colonie Center, on Central Avenue, NY 5. There is no Exit 3, that was for a highway never built. Colonie is very well off and has an extensive park system and the Albany International Airport at Exits 4 & 5.

Albany was settled by the Dutch in 1686 as Fort Orange, a beaver trading post in Dutch New Netherlands. This was based on Henry Hudson's voyages up his namesake river for the Dutch. Albany is at the northern end of the navigable waters of the Hudson Estuary. From the Atlantic to the US Army Corps of Engineers Dam, or 101th Street Dam, in Troy, the Hudson is tidal, there is only 7' of vertical drop for over 150 miles. Hudson's Halfmoon and British navy ships could sail the Hudson if they knew the tides, currents and winds. Especially during dry summers low flow days, backtides can be quite extensive during moontides on the Atlantic. During the Revolution, the British were driven out of Albany when us colonials erected an iron chain across the river at West Point, forcing the maritime based British Army to retreat to its base in New York Harbor. These were the key forts that our arch traitor Benedict Arnold tried to betray to the desperate British. If the British had carried the forts and broke the chain, they would have split us colonials in two. This left upstate NY as a land bridge between New England and the rest of the colonies.

Though Albany has tons of Dutch and English colonial history, as well as pre colonial Indian history too, it really blossomed when the Erie Canal, Clinton's Ditch, was built in the 1820's, exploiting the geographic fact that Albany and the Mohawk Valley provides the only way west without climbing mountains. Governer DeWitt Clinton was the man behind the Erie Canal and there are Clinton Streets all over New York State because of that. Then the New York Central's Hudson, Mohawk, Western and Erie Divisions exploited this to become the premier railroad of the 19th and the first half of the 20th Century, providing "water level" service to Chicago in less than 20 hours on the Empire State Limited and other fast trains. In its time it was a big rail town, where they had car shops and built engines in West Albany Yards. Then the state built first NY 5, Central Avenue, then the I-90 stretch of the NYS Thruway to utilize this precious pass between the Adirondacks and Appalachian Mountains to the frontier off the west.

Southern rural Albany County, the hilltowns of Berne, Knox, Westerlo, Coeymans, Rensselaerville and Altamont, have plenty of woods and state land on the hilltops. they stand in contrast to the city and the usual suburban sprawl, like Colonie nad Guilderland. Some parts are just as remote as the Adirondacks. It is served by Albany County's excellent net of county routes and the usual good state highways. Partridge Run game area and Cole Hill State Forest, with XC ski trails, in Berne are totally excellent places. Hunting here is good: the hills are forested and state land usually with working farms in the valleys. This part butts against rural Greene and Schoharie Counties.