| Breakneck Brook Breakneck Valley Brook | |
|---|---|
 Cascade on brook at Undercliff Trail bridge | |
 | |
| Etymology | Fromnearby mountain |
| Location | |
| Country | United States |
| State | New York |
| Region | Hudson Valley |
| County | Putnam |
| Town | Philipstown |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | Surprise Lake |
| • location | Philipstown |
| • coordinates | 41°27′23″N73°57′17″W / 41.45639°N 73.95472°W /41.45639; -73.95472 |
| • elevation | 711 ft (217 m) |
| Mouth | Hudson River |
• location | S of Storm King |
• coordinates | 41°26′18″N73°58′25″W / 41.43833°N 73.97361°W /41.43833; -73.97361 |
• elevation | 10 ft (3.0 m) |
| Length | 1.7 mi (2.7 km), SW |
Breakneck Brook, sometimesBreakneck Valley Brook,[1] is a 1.7-mile-long (2.8 km)[2]tributary of theHudson River located entirely in thePutnam Countytown ofPhilipstown, New York, United States. It rises atSurprise Lake and flows southwest towards the Hudson from there, mostly throughHudson Highlands State Park. The name comes fromBreakneck Ridge to its north.
Two of the park's hiking trails parallel Breakneck Brook for much of its course. Most of the land the brook flows through was once part of the estate of Edward G. Cornish, chairman of theNational Lead Company in the early 20th century. He established a largedairy farm on the property, and ruins of structures built for that purpose, including a largecistern, are still visible along the stream.[3]
The Breakneck flows relatively straight in a southwest direction from its source to its mouth, draining the small and narrow valley between two of the higher mountains in theHudson Highlands. Most of its 701-foot (214 m) vertical drop takes place in its lower half-mile (800 m).[4]
The brook begins flowing from the outlet of the dam at the southwest end ofLake Surprise, an artificial lake established in the early 20th century to support a small summer camp built around it. It descends gently at first, losing only 40 feet (12 m) from its starting elevation of 711 feet (217 m) in the quarter-mile (400 m) from its source to the boundary between the camp property andHudson Highlands State Park. The mostly wooded camp property gives way to fully wooded state parkland.[4]
An unpaved road parallels the brook to its northwest. Shortly after it crosses onto state land the blue-blazed Notch Trail, concludes its descent fromBreakneck Ridge and joins the wood road.[5] The road and stream draw closer as it reaches a large open area, formerly thereservoir for the dairy farm that once operated in this area. It is only 60 feet (18 m) lower than the stream was at the park boundary.[4]
One-tenth of a mile (160 m) to the southwest, Breakneck Brook receives an unnamedtributary that flows down from a wetland to the northeast, 300 feet (91 m) above theconfluence. Just below, at the ruin of an outbuilding for the dairy farm,[6] the Notch Trail and wood road crosses the brook at a bridge also dating from the dairy farm era. Shortly afterwards, at a Y-shaped junction, the Notch Trail follows the other branch of the Y toward the mountain on the other side of the stream's valley,Bull Hill. Red blazes for the Brook Trail[5] take over on the woods road as it continues downhill alongside the stream.[4]
The road/trail and stream continue another tenth of a mile to 500 feet (150 m) in elevation. Here, at the narrowest point of thecol between the two mountains, Breakneck Brook begins to descend more steeply. A pump house that once tapped the stream for Cornish's mansion remains.[7] At a wooden bridge marks the crossing of the yellow-blazed Undercliff Trail, which connects the trail systems on the two mountains.[5] A quarter-mile from here, it has already dropped 200 feet (61 m), mostly in a series of small cascades, to where it crosses theCatskill Aqueduct ofNew York City's water supply system, at a small rockcistern. The Brook Trail, now a footpath as the woods road has turned to the southeast to become the Cornish Estate Trail, near the ruins of the former mansion, continues to parallel closely.[4]
Another quarter-mile covers most of the remaining 300 feet (91 m) of vertical drop. At 100 feet (30 m) in elevation, another unnamed tributary comes down from Bull Hill. The Brook Trail ends at its small trailhead onNew York State Route 9D,[5] the only paved road to cross the brook. Here the trail ends at itstrailhead. Breakneck Brook empties into theHudson River just after crossing under railroad tracks used by the passenger trains ofMetro-North Railroad'sHudson Line andAmtrak'sEmpire Service, as well as occasionalCSX freights.[4]
Breakneck Brook'swatershed is small. It extends to the ridgelines of the two mountains it sits between, 1,280-foot (390 m)Breakneck Ridge to the north and 1,420-foot-tall (430 m)Bull Hill, the highest point in it, to the south. Although at one point on the former peak it nearly crosses theDutchess County line into the neighboring town ofFishkill, it remains entirely withinPhilipstown andPutnam County.[8]
On the north it is bordered by the watershed of an unnamed stream that flows down from between Breakneck Ridge andSugarloaf Mountain to the north of that peak. The basin does not extend much to the northeast beyondthe camp at Surprise Lake; there it gives way to that ofFoundry Brook, which rises fromCold Spring's municipalreservoir almost a mile (1.6 km) away to drain into the Hudson just south of Cold Spring, bounding the Breakneck Brook watershed on the east and southeast in the process. A very small portion of the watershed on its south borders on the Hudson's directdrainage from the steep western slope of Bull Hill.[4]
The watershed is almost entirely wooded. Most of the lower portion is withinHudson Highlands State Park, where the only development regularly used since the dairy farm was abandoned are the hiking trails. At the upper end, the camp is the most significant development within the watershed, but it is not used year-round, so the watershed has no permanent population.[4]
Like most of theHudson Highlands, Breakneck Brook reached its present form during theWisconsin glaciation, as thelast glacial period is known inNorth America. To the immediate west of the brook's valley, the glaciers forced theHudson River through the nascentAppalachian Mountains, resulting in the presentfjord and pressuring and scouring the mountains alongside it. Ice covered the entire area, with the creeks forming as it melted 20,000 years ago.[9]
Human use of the brook began at the start of the 20th century, whenThe Educational Alliance (EA), a New York City Jewish organization that sought to better integrateJews into American life, bought the land around the brook'sheadwaters and dammed the brook to createSurprise Lake Camp, where Jewish boys from theLower East Side ofManhattan could get away from the city during the summer. Its early alumni includedEddie Cantor, who later said it was at the camp that he realized he wanted to be an entertainer. After going through several organizational parents in its first decades, the camp assumed control of its own affairs in the late 1920s.[10]
During the camp's early years,Chicago diamond merchant Sigmund Stern, one of the EA's board members, was building anestate for himself on 650 acres (260 ha) of the brook's lowerwatershed. The mansion and outbuildings were made of stonequarried from the southwest corner of nearbyBreakneck Ridge. Within a few years of its completion, Stern's wife died, and he no longer wished to keep the estate. He sold it to Edward G. Cornish, thenchairman of the board of theNational Lead Company, one of the group of 30 companies whose share prices comprised the initialDow Jones Industrial Average. Cornish and his wife moved in during 1916 and named the estate Northgate.[11]
That same year theCatskill Aqueduct was completed through the property and across the brook. On the section above it, Cornish and his wife decided to establish a modeldairy farm. They cleared the land and built bridges, a barn and other facilities along the brook. Farther upstream, they built another dam to provide water for the dairying operation.[11] Local newspapers carried regular accounts of the record-breaking production the Cornishes' cows achieved.[12]
Despite the fact that it was responsible for their own home, the Cornishes grew concerned about the effect of quarrying on the Highlands. The mass ofBull Hill was not enough to prevent them from feeling the vibrations when explosives were used to loosen stone at the quarry on the mountain's other side. In 1936 Cornish offered to donate the entire estate to the state for use as a park upon his death to prevent it from being used for quarrying.Robert Moses, the state parks commissioner at the time, rejected the offer as Cornish had already put in placedeed restrictions that would have forbidden any commercial exploitation of the property, and in any event he considered the land too rugged and unsuited to the intensive use the parks he had developed were intended for.[11]
Two years later, Cornish died at his desk in Manhattan; his wife followed him two weeks later. Their heirs, battling over the estate in court, did not move into the property and were not as diligent in maintaining it. As a result, it began to show the signs of neglect, and in 1956 a fire gutted the mansion. Six years later, the remaining heirs sold the land to Central Hudson Gas & Electric, the Mid-Hudson's majorutility,[11] which planned to build a 600,000-kilowattpumped storage power generating station on it.[13]
But, in the face of opposition aroused by the larger power plant proposed byConsolidated Edison forStorm King Mountain across the Hudson, which led to a landmark court ruling and spurred the growth of modernenvironmentalism, Central Hudson dropped the plan five years later and sold the land to the state's Taconic Parks Commission, a predecessor agency to its current owner, theNew York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (OPRHP). In 1970,Laurance Rockefeller, brother of New York governorNelson Rockefeller, bought some other properties in the area where industrial development had been proposed such as Little Stony Point andBannerman's Island through thefamily'sJackson Hole Preserve. They were then donated to the state as well and combined intoHudson Highlands State Park,[11] which has subsequently been expanded to include other discontiguous parcels along the east side of the river fromPeekskill toFishkill.[5]
The ruins of the estate remained, making the trails in the area a popular destination for hikers. All continued to deteriorate asreforestation continued. The dam in particular began to fail and leak. In 2011 OPRHP removed it, finding it too expensive to repair. It told the state'sDepartment of Environmental Conservation (DEC) that doing so would also be beneficial as "it will result in the restoration of the original streambed and riparian area."[14]
The Breakneck Brook valley runs parallel to some of thefaults in that area ofPhilipstown, along withFoundry Brook, theHudsontributary to the immediate south.Bedrock in the valley is primarilypyroxene-richgneiss, while nearer the mountain summits it is moreanorthosite-richgranitic gneiss. The latter is especially resistant to weathering anderosion, resulting not only in the height of the peaks but the steep cliffs and slopes below them.[9]
The faults were steepened by glacial pressures as theWisconsin glaciers moved south. Eventually they covered the mountains completely. When they melted they left behind the soil types that still dominate the Breakneck Brook valley—glacial till in the higher elevations, and a layer ofkame-like water-sorted sedimentstopped with till closer to the brook.[9]
TheUnited States Geological Survey treats Breakneck Brook and the similarly small tributaries to its north inDutchess County as a singlewatershed for data purposes.DEC follows the federal lead in its own data,[1] but classifies streams separately for regulatory purposes. Under those regulations, the entire brook and Surprise Lake are considered Class B waters,[15] suitable for primary and secondary contact recreation, and fishing.[16]
While Class B waters are not considered hazardous to aquatic life, it is unlikely to harbor any fish species commonly found in the river. In a 2006 paper on the role of the tributaries in shaping the river's fish population, Robert Schmidt ofSimon's Rock College and DEC biologist Thomas Lake expressed doubt that any river fish ventured into tributaries like Breakneck Brook distinguished by steep drops they took just before reaching the river. "They have probably been inaccessible to Hudson River fishes since the glacial lakes filling theHudson Valley drained," the authors wrote.[17]
