Looking to Ride the Rails to Trailhead

[Teacher & Snacktime]

I'm planning a section hike of the CT stretch in May, and am planning to take the Metro North to the trailhead. I know that there's a station stop right on the trail about 8-9 miles from the CT border. This appears to be called the Appalachian Trail Station Stop (though the Metro map has the stop farther north and I'm rather confused).

The next stop on the line, the Valley-Wingdale stop, has a 1.2 mile walk (mostly dirt road) to the trail, but the total distance to the CT line is only about 4 mi.

Has anyone tried the Valley-Wingdale stop? It works for us logistically by making the Ten Mile River Shelter accessible on day one, but I don't want to commit to it if there's a reason to steer clear.

[BillyGr]

Yes, the Appalachian Trail stop is right on the trail and you are fairly close on the miles (from the book I have, which is a few years old it shows 7.1 to the CT line and about 2.8 additional to the Ten Mile River Lean To (so just about 10 mi total) - there is probably an extra few tenths added since then (I know of one small re-route, but there may be more).
Overall, a good chunk runs thru a nature preserve and has quite a long boardwalk section which makes it a relatively easy portion (the reroute mentioned was to make the climb part into the nature area less steep).

Note that the AT stop is only used on weekends (and it looks like only a couple trains in the AM from NYC stop there) so timing your trip would be the hardest part.

Looking at the next station (which is actually labelled Harlem Valley-Wingdale, I think from the name of the Psychiatric Center and town) - it is hard to figure out how far to the trail.

From the station location shown on the MTA site, the streets don't continue directly toward the trail (partially due to the site of the center mentioned).

Using this map for the Nature Reserve:
http://pawlingnaturereserve.org/map.php (which also shows the AT stop at the bottom corner):

It looks like you could access the orange trailhead from the HV-Wingdale station via back roads (that may be what you had listed as the 1.2 mi walk, plus another mi or so on the orange/green to the AT), which probably cuts off 2.5-3 mi of AT, so not a great deal of distance difference. The only benefit is that station has more regular trains than the AT stop.

One other option - from the HV Wingdale station, you could follow Route 55 North/East for about 3.5-4 miles and turn off on Hoyt Road for just a couple tenths - this would bring you to the trail right at the CT/NY line and is shorter, but requires walking a larger main road.

[Teacher & Snacktime]

https://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=HM+Valley-Wingdale,+Dover,+NY&daddr=New+Rochelle+Rd+to:41.634057,-73.550549+to:Appalachian+Trail+to:Appalachian+Trai l+to:Hoyt+Rd&geocode=FZVWewIdhmOd-ynZX55gzV3diTGBv0-729Nm7A%3BFcxFewId8Zqd-w%3B%3BFURUewId-P-d-w%3BFXdgewIdzhie-w%3BFVBkewIdNSye-w&abauth=512846e82v5AmhMaJjWFyj2Psui00dRhG7Q&aq=t&vps=25&jsv=447b&sll=41.633142,-73.552576&sspn=0.004691,0.009431&vpsrc=6&hl=en&dirflg=w&mra=mi&mrsp=2&sz=17&via=1,3,4&num=10

Thanks for the response and info. This is the route I had in mind...the distance seems to work well for us, but I was wondering if anyone knew a reason why it would be inadvisable.

I could also take the AT station stop and just limit the first day to the Wiley shelter.....but that makes the second day really short (about 4 mi) or we could stay at the Garden Center the first night and make the 10 mile trek to Ten Mile River the next day. Or we could....the list goes on and on.

Basically I'm trying to give my grandson the most authentic AT experience while working out the logistics of how far we can travel in a day...decisions, decisions.