The Mohawk Valley is an interesting mixture of urban development, old mill towns and farming. Starting at Albany, you are looking west past the Pine Bush and Schenectady to the farm lands that line the valley, trimmed with the hills of Central Leatherstocking region to the south and Adirondacks to the north.

The Noses of the Mohawk River are a break in the hills where the Mohawk River Runs. This is a scared site for many of the Native Americans and an important travel corridor since the Colonial era. Today, this natural passageway is crossed by the Erie Canal/Mohawk River, then to the north of the river two railroad tracks, a two-lane section of NY 5. To the south of the river is four lanes of the NYS Thruway (built on filled in portion of the Mohawk River), and two lanes of NY 5S. There also is the Mohawk Valley Welcome Center, brought there by the Thruway Authority and Power Authority. This site has not always been considered that sacred -- the Sprakers Unlined Landfill for Canjahoharie's waste from the 1960s to 1980s is located one portion of the bank mined away for travel, and much of the travel corridors through the valley are built on rubble through former marshlands.