The Indian Ladder Trail is open from early summer to mid- November, 8:00 am until sunset, weather permitting.

Nearby at Thompson's Lake, is the Emma Treadwell Thacher Nature Center, which opened in July 2001[2] and has permanent and occasional displays for the public to view.

From the top of the escarpment, which reaches 1300 ft (400 m), there are fine views of the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys as well as spectacular panoramas of the Adirondacks and Green Mountains of Vermont.

They have used Facebook, Twitter, a website and petitions as tools to help them show their discontent and become more organized in their efforts to stop the park's closure.

State Senate leaders held a press conference on March 24, 2010 at the capitol, where they said $11.5 million would be restored to the budget to keep parks open.

From the Indian Ladder parking lot, the visitor descends 60 ft (18 m) to the base of the escarpment via a metal staircase.

In April 2004,[5] the then New York State Governor George Pataki, announced that 1,800 acres (7.3 km2) of Thacher Park and nearby Thompson Lake were to be turned into a bird conservation area.

The Helderberg Plateau comprises a series of limestones of early Devonian age and is one of the most fossiliferous regions in the United States.

The park is a window in to New York's geological history, as the rocks here take us back in time hundreds of millions of years.

In the 1800s, some of the world's most renowned pioneering geologists, such as Charles Lyell and Amos Eaton, visited this location due to its robust fossil assemblage.

During this time James Hall, New York's first state paleontologist, frequently visited the Heldeberg Escarpment, making observations and documenting the unique fossil assemblage.

The Coeymans Formation is a more massive limestone, appears bluish in color, and contains corals and brachiopods, notably gypidula coeymansensis.

Due to its predominant limestone bedrock, the park features karst topography which includes numerous disappearing streams, caves, sinkholes, and grikes.