Description
PLEASE NOTE: French Creek Preserve is open during the fall hunting season. Written permission is required to hunt on Conservancy lands. To learn about our hunting program or to obtain permission to hunt, please visit our New York hunting information page.
Frenchman’s Bluff Preserve is owned by The Nature Conservancy and managed by the Tanglewood Nature Center and Museum. Check out the Tanglewood Nature Center’s website here to learn more about their visitor center, events, conservation work, and other trails. The Frenchman’s Bluff Preserve features over nine miles of trails, some of which offer exceptional birds-eye views of the Chemung River 700 feet below. The trails wind through open meadows, wildlife ponds and south-facing shale cliff and talus slopes, as well as eastern red cedar and heath oak forests that feature white, red and chestnut oaks. In the winter, the trail system provides great cross-country skiing and snowshoeing.
Frenchman’s Bluff is an example of The Nature Conservancy’s “conservation through partnerships” strategy. In 1980, 290 acres of the preserve’s original footprint was donated by Arthur C. Smith, Jr to The Nature Conservancy. In 1990, a 172-acre parcel adjacent to the park was purchased by Tanglewood Nature Center, which increased the preserve's size by 60 percent.
