How climate change threatens ice boating on the Hudson River - Times Union

How climate change threatens ice boating on the Hudson River
A photo from the only day in 2023 that many members of the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club were able to ice boat on Great Sacandaga Lake. Frank Foster

RED HOOK — Richard Aldrich lives in the past.

The 82-year-old is a 10th-generation descendant of New York’s once-prominent Livingston family — though from the looks of him, you couldn’t tell. On a recent day, his white hair was messy and he wore a frumpled flannel shirt with suspenders twisted over his shoulders. He shuffled quickly through the dining room of his home, Rokeby, a 43-room stucco mansion built in 1815 on 420 acres in the Dutchess County hamlet of Barrytown, passing portraits of his ancestors painted by the prolific Ellen Emmet Rand. The house is like a museum, and Aldrich is its main steward responsible for upkeep and preservation.