A Hudson Valley Almanac day-trip guide
West of the Helderberg escarpment, the land climbs into a quiet upland of hilltowns — Berne, Knox, Westerlo, Rensselaerville — that feel a world away from Albany twenty miles east. This is high, remote, beautiful country: rare-breed sheep and alpacas, sugarhouses on hillside woodlots, grass-fed farms down dirt roads, a 4,500-acre wilderness, and a storybook hamlet with a waterfall at its edge. It's back-roads farming at its most authentic — small honor stands and by-appointment fiber farms where the discovery is half the point. (It's the southwestern companion to the Almanac's other Helderberg guide, which stays up on the Thacher escarpment.) Here's a Saturday circuit through the hilltowns.
Start in the hilltown heart around Berne, which has become a small capital of fiber farming. Helder~Herdwyck Farm in East Berne raises rare Herdwick sheep — the second flock in the United States and the first east of the Rockies, the very breed Beatrix Potter championed — selling Herdwick wool, roving, and yarn alongside pastured meats and eggs from a farm store. Down the road, Helderberg Alpacas keeps a herd of Huacaya alpacas bred for fiber, with yarn and farm visits by appointment, and Roots N Boots is a homesteader-minded nursery tucked into the escarpment.
For provisions, Frantzen's Scenic Acres Farm sells pasture-raised chicken, heritage turkeys, and brown eggs, and Partridge Run Farm and Apiary is open daily for raw wildflower honey and handmade soap. Then stretch your legs at Partridge Run Wildlife Management Area — 4,500 acres on West Mountain, among the highest ground in Albany County, with 40-plus miles of old fire roads and single-track, ponds, and waterfalls in the southern section. It's remote and largely unmarked, which is exactly its charm.
Loop west to Knox and Longfield Farm, a one-stop farm store with grass-fed and pasture-raised meats, vegetables and flowers, stone-hearth artisan bread, and local wool — a great spot to gather lunch. Nearby, Helderberg 1839 Maple & Vine is a boutique maple farm that makes not just syrup, sugar, and confections but a maple wine fermented entirely from its own syrup. Drop south to Westerlo for Eight Mile Creek Farm, a certified-organic family farm with a CSA, vegetables, grass-fed beef, and a homesteader-oriented nursery.
The day's gem is Rensselaerville, a beautifully preserved historic hamlet of white clapboard and stone that feels frozen a century back. At its edge, the Huyck Preserve protects thousands of acres around Lake Myosotis and Rensselaerville Falls, with quiet trails to the cascade — one of the loveliest short walks in the region. Kuhar Family Farm, right by the preserve, grows produce, eggs, and mushrooms and runs a small farm-to-table kitchen serving weekend brunch. Just outside the village, A Promise to Gaia is a 106-acre land-stewardship project with a nine-acre lake, native-plant sales, and a contemplative retreat.
Drift south toward the Greene County line and Heather Ridge Farm & Bees Knees Café in Preston Hollow — a diversified grass-fed farm with a store full of its own beef, lamb, goat, and chicken plus woolen goods, and a café serving a farm lunch on Saturdays. It's the natural place to end, and it sits right at the doorstep of the Almanac's Oak Hill guide if you want to roll on into the Durham Valley farms.
This is genuinely remote back-roads country, so plan ahead: many of these farms are honor stands or by-appointment (Helderberg Alpacas, the Zimmers), maple shines in spring during Maple Weekend, and the Bees Knees Café keeps a narrow Saturday lunch window — worth routing your day around if you want to eat there. Partridge Run is large, wild, and largely unmarked, so bring GPS and good shoes. Cell service is spotty up in the hilltowns; download your directions before you climb. And this loop hands off neatly to the Oak Hill guide at the Greene County line if you're making a bigger day of it.
The full Albany County lineup is on the Almanac: farms & food and maple.
Rare sheep on a hillside, a waterfall behind a white-steepled village, syrup boiled from the trees out back — one very good Saturday.