The Old House at the Shandaken Wild Forest Trailhead

This is an old house that I use to practice my drone flying. It's located near the Lower Birch Creek trailhead at the Shandaken Wild Forest in New York. It's a popular place for local drone pilots to learn new skills and keep sharp on existing ones between missions.

Link to Pilot Institute Drone Flying 101 course

This house used to be owned by a dentist named Dr. Otto Reisser and his wife Elisabeth. Dr. Reisser died in 1996, and Mrs. Reisser in 1997. In her will, Mrs. Reisser left the house and property to the caretaker with the stipulation that he must live on the property. Otherwise, it would be deeded over to the state.

The caretaker already owned a home, however, and declined the inheritance. The parcel became part of the State Forest lands on March 26, 1999.

The land and house are now a trailhead at the Shandaken Wild Forest, part of the State Forest Preserve managed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. It's designated as the Lower Birch Creek Mixed-Use Area.

Aside from the old house, the area has picnic tables, a small pond, and a porta-potty. None of them would make it much of an attraction on their own, but it's pretty luxurious as trailheads go.

Quite a few local drone pilots also use the land as a practice and free-flight area. I've been using it almost since the first day I owned a drone. The house itself has a big "X" on one side, meaning it's slated to be knocked down; so I figured no one would especially care if I accidentally broke one of its windows or something along those lines.

I've become rather fond of the old house, though, and still go back there to practice whenever the trailhead isn't full of tourists. I also use it to test different video settings, to practice specific skills, to become accustomed to new controllers, or to test new equipment.

Here's one of the first videos I made of the old house in Shandaken.

This video was shot with an Autel EVO II Pro 6k drone, using a PNY Pro Elite Micro SD card, and edited using DaVinci Resolve Studio.

Special Offers
Get an Amazon Prime 30-Day Free Trial
Try a Kindle Unlimited Membership Plan