Our online raffle to accompany our fundraiser opens on July 15th and will be live until August 15th. Prizes will be handed out at the entrance to our Preserve (pictured above) on August 22nd, 2026 at 5pm.
Thanks for your support of the Catskill Water Discovery Center!
We hope to see you on August 22nd!
Go here to purchase tickets for our August fundraiser.
We hope to see you at our August fundraiser!
Thanks for supporting the Catskill Water Discovery Center.
Todd Spire of Esopus Creel has generously donated a four-hour guided fishing tour to our online raffle, which is part of our summer fundraiser that takes place on August 22nd, 2026. The raffle goes live online on July 15th! Watch out for details coming soon.
As if summer could get any more exquisitely beautiful here at the East Branch Nature Preserve, but now the historic train runs alongside the trail.
On Saturdays throughout July and August, The Delaware & Ulster Railroad operates scenic train rides out of the Arkville Depot, making for a picturesque sight at the trailhead four times a day.
So now we have two spectacular vistas to enjoy: one on land, and one on water to accompany the hiker on this gentle trail.
On Saturday July 4th, as the vivid green leaves wavedly lazilly overhead, protecting the trail from the heat of the scorching summer sun, the large engine Delaware & Ulster train trundled past the trail at the trailhead. First you hear a gentle whistle in the distance, then comes a series of frequent dings, and chugging of the engine as the train approaches the entrance to the preserve. The train runs backwards on the return journey and when it does this, you will hear two long whistles and a series of shorter whistles until the train passes.
It’s a little magical, slice of charming heaven, especially when a sea of shining faces are all smiling at you as they glide by, waving.
Go to their website to book tickets. The train runs north-south from Arkville to Route 30 and then returns to Arkville and goes on for two miles towards Fleischmanns and back.
The cost of tickets goes towards necessary repairs to the track. Once these repairs are made, the DURR can conduct longer tours that go to the historic depot in Roxbury. Please support our local scenic treasures. Go here to book tickets.
Find more images and video on our Instagram page.
As part of Upstate Art Weekend, the East Branch Nature Preserve’s Outdoor Sculpture Series presents on-site, outdoor sculptures by artists Francis Cape and Daniel Weiner along the Preserve trail.
Working with EBNP and the Catskill Forest Association, Francis Cape repurposed invasive Norwegian spruce and Norwegian maple to construct a replica of an English blanket chest, echoing those once used by immigrant farmers in Delaware County. The work positions invasive species alongside contemporary immigration narratives, while invoking the site’s history as 19th-century farmland.
In response, Daniel Wiener presents a sculptural table for EBNP’s outdoor classroom that is both functional and expressive. Formed with epoxy clay into fantastical, animated forms, the table channels a shared emotional landscape shaped by uncertainty and dislocation.
Where Cape looks to the past – tracing histories of movement, settlement, and material transformation – Wiener gives form to the present tense: a collective state of being at a loss, wide-eyed with disbelief, open-mouthed with astonishment, and edged with quiet panic. Together, the works move between inheritance and immediacy.
Discover art, history, and the beauty of nature reimagined at the East Branch Nature Preserve.
Location: The East Branch Nature Preserve, 699 Co Rd 38, Arkville, NY 12406.
Time: 4 – 6pm, Saturday June 27th, 2026
On April 20th, hosted the public to watch the DEC stocking the EBDR river at the East Branch Nature Preserve with 750 brown trout. Last year, the board was approached by the DEC who requested to do the stocking. The board decided to accept and then permit fishing on the Preserve.
With a valid fishing permit, anyone can now fish on the banks of the East Branch Nature Preserve.
We are roughly one month into spring, with the spring ephemerals surviving despite the snow flurries and low temperatures yesterday. We have a patch of trout lilies, a little wilted but hanging in there:
This week board members walked the trail with a representative from the Catskills Forest Association and found out that we have several serviceberry trees on the trail, including one in bloom.
We found one ironwood with hanging catkins:
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With all the snow gone, it was time for a spring inspection of the trail around the East Branch Nature Preserve this week and there were a few surprises. A stand of birch (pictured above) in the switch-back turn in the northernmost part of the trail by the outdoor classroom were almost completely prostrate, as if they were frozen in time while taking their last bow to the audience. It’s likely they were dying and buckled under the weight of snow. There is another stand of birch nearby unscathed.
The lack of foliage and snow revealed more vines: black, gnarled, and striated, they wound around trees like the crab apples and ironwoods. This is not a common sight in the Catskills, especially seeing specimens that are so ancient looking – mummified, like they belong in the last Roman Empire. Who planted them and when?
There were the furry, sage green, first year basal rosettes of mullein scattered on the trail, and some new poop: we still have our prolific hunter in the south portion of the trail that for some reason makes it really obvious that they’ve been there, always fertilizing the trail itself. It could be an owl, coyote, or fox, but we won’t find out until we put up a trail cam.
The beavers have added a satellite work station to their staging area. There is a downed tree much further north towards the outdoor classroom. This tree is all alone in a little thicket, and it will either be dragged south to be part of the dam in progress, or used for a new dam, or maybe it’s a spare tree that the beavers have hidden in the undergrowth as an emergency. Nevertheless, those beavers have been hard at work over the winter, just like the rest of us.
There is a carpet of what looks like cow parsley by the main fishing sign, but this is to be identified by a professional. Cow parsley can be eaten, but has many poisonous, look-a-like cousins like cow parsnip and poison hemlock. The CWDC is in negotiations for a foraging walk with the Catskills Forest Association and we’re hoping that if we section off part of this carpet and refrain from mowing it, we can let it grow and have it properly identified by the CFA.
For now, the landscape is a dampened dreamscape in a haze of post-storm mist under a swirling foggy sky: russets, burnt siennas, ochres, umber and copper hues, with vivid greens yet to establish their presence outside of the handful of lush evergreens and the grassy parts of the trail.
We can’t wait to watch it wake up.
See you on the trail!
The East Branch Nature Preserve is special for many reasons, but one of them is that the western part of the trail is adjacent to the East Branch of the Delaware River. There’s nothing more calming for the spirit than walking past the river to the sound of rushing water and spring birdsong. The second reason is that fly fishing is permitted in the river from April 1st to October 15th. All visitors to the Preserve have permission to fly fish here. Go here to find out how to get your NYC fishing permit, which is very easy. Anglers are permitted up to five trout to take home and enjoy.
Today, the river was high due to last night’s epic storm that saw tornado warnings and a solid half hour of extraordinarily lively lightning that ushered in torrential rain. This morning it was humid and still, with a high temperature of 59F. At least one trout was spotted by the banks of the river.
See you on the trail!
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