Brookhaven Park

By Jack Rightmyer

As an avid cross country skier for over 40 years, I thought I had discovered all the best places to ski in the area such as Garnet Hill, Lapland Lake, Mt. Van Hoevenberg, Cascade, Pineridge, and a variety of other areas in Vermont. I also ski at numerous state parks and fields close to my home in Burnt Hills, but it was three or four years ago when I received a call from my friend Janine who informed me that I needed to go to Brookhaven Park, about ten miles northwest of Saratoga Springs.

“Is it on a golf course?” I asked her. “I played golf years ago at a place called Brookhaven.” “Yes, it is,” she said, “and the trails are expertly groomed. There’s plenty of parking, and on the weekends, they even open up the clubhouse for food and drinks after you ski.”

Now, I’ve skied on golf courses before. They’re OK, but you still feel like you’re on a golf course. My favorite time to ski on a golf course is at night during a full moon when the snow on the open fairways is aglow. What I’ve always loved most about XC skiing is getting into the woods and off the grid. Golf courses rarely provide that type of thrill.

Janine was raving about this place though, so the next weekend my wife Judy and I drove up NY Route 9N, turned left on Alpine Meadows Road, and 1.5 miles later we were at the parking lot. It was a Saturday morning, around 9am, sunny with bright blue skies, 20 degrees, little wind, and fresh snow that had fallen a few days before. A day like this and the trails would be packed at most of my favorite cross country ski centers and yet we were the only car in the parking lot.

What struck me first when I got out of the car was how beautifully tracked the trails were that began right at the parking lot. There was also an easy-to-read map and directions about where to ski and where to snowshoe and what trails were pet friendly. The trails were all color coded – green, pink, orange, blue, yellow and a florescent green – and they each included how long they were. I quickly added them up and said to Judy, “There are over nine miles of trails here and three miles of snowshoeing.”

We started on the 3.1-mile yellow trail that took us quickly down a sloping hill and into a thick forest near a running stream. The track was professionally groomed like anything you would see at my favorite ski centers, and we were the only people here. There were signs and even one-way routes to avoid any collisions. It was perfect for classic skiing, but you could bring skate skis and do some Nordic, especially on the fairways.

It did not feel like a golf course at all. There was one stretch on the pink and red trails where I felt like we were on a backcountry ski in the Adirondacks. We were skiing in what felt like deep woods beneath numerous pine and oak trees. There were numerous old rock walls and the serpentine trails took us up and down and all around like we were on some sort of Disney XC ski roller coaster. We could have stayed in there all day.

We did have to stop on a few occasions, take off our skis and cross over Alpine Meadows Road, but then very quickly we would disappear back into more woods, and still the groomed trail and the undulating hills reminded me of some of my favorite ski loops at Lapland Lake or Garnet Hill.

We were skiing on the blue trail, that would eventually bring us back to the parking lot, when we met Steve Schriber who was coming up behind us seated upon his snowmobile and grooming the trail. He stopped and asked us what we thought of the groomed ski trails.

Steve Schriber is one of those special people that many of us have in our towns and neighborhoods who love to make where we live a special place. He and his wife moved to Alpine Meadows Road back in 1990 excited to downhill ski as much as possible at the old Alpine Meadows (aka Adirondack) Ski Center just up the road, but unfortunately it closed down in 1993, after 45 years of operation.

“My wife bought us two cross country ski sets and by 1995 I was riding my old Ski-Doo and attempting to set up a few kilometers of skiing trails around our house,” he said.

Steve said he has always enjoyed building and maintaining outdoor recreational outlets for people. He grew up in a rural farm area around Amsterdam and through the years he has created a baseball diamond, a small football field, and a community ice skating rink. “The opportunity to provide cross country skiing for friends, neighbors and the community is a great outlet for me every winter, and I’ve been doing this now for 25 years.”

Eventually he began tracking the Brookhaven Golf Course with the owners blessing and continued doing so through 2010, except for the two or three years he had to lay low and keep grooming out of sight (off of the fairways), in response to snowmobile damage from others on the course. “In 2011, the Town of Greenfield acquired the golf course, and asked me to continue providing groomed ski trails,” Steve said.

In 2014, the town established a full-service restaurant, giving skiers an opportunity to get warm and socialize after skiing. Due to the pandemic, it most likely will not be open this season, but hopefully will return next winter.

When Judy and I got back to our car after our first visit, and after skiing for almost two hours, there were over 10 cars in the parking lot, and yet looking out over the golf course the place still seemed empty. We finished our day with a trip to the Haven Tee Clubhouse for a hot chocolate and a delicious brownie. It was the only money we had spent the entire day.

We have now had numerous visits to Brookhaven Park since that first trip, including the first Monday after Christmas, this past December. Again, we were the first car in the parking lot at 9:30am. It was almost 10 days after the 30-plus inches of snow, then the great warm-up and rain for a few days, but Steve had still gotten out there to track the trails. There were a few bare patches in the woods, but the fairways were beautifully groomed and fast, and we spent much of the day winding our way around on the pink and red trails – surrounded by all the tall hardwood trees.

Like biking and running, Nordic skiing will be a perfect way to enjoy the outdoors and stay safely away from others, during this pandemic winter. If you go to Brookhaven for XC skiing, remember there will be no place to warm up this winter, and like most activities you are always encouraged to go with another person. We were happy though to see two porta potties set up right by the parking lot.

To check on ski conditions go to Steve’s XC Trail Grooming on Facebook.

Jack Rightmyer (jackxc@nycap.rr.com) was a longtime cross-country coach at Bethlehem High School and today is an Adjunct English Professor at Siena College. He has written two books “A Funny Thing About Teaching” and “It’s Not About Winning.”