Hiking around Big Pine Hill

I was supposed to do a scouting hike with a friend yesterday. But I overslept and couldn't make the Bear Mountain bus, which only runs twice a day. Instead, we decided to take the bus to Tuxedo, since there are many possible paths in Harriman from there.



We ended up taking the RD up to the Blue Disc Trail, which has several nice views along Big Pine Hill. One of them is shown above. We paused at Claudius Smith's Den before staying on the trail until it met the Kakiak, which we took out to Tuxedo. Our timing wasn't great, as we just barely missed one bus and had to wait almost two hours for the next train.

Shown below is the viewpoint by Almost Perpendicular, the last major viewpoint on the hike.



The loop was six miles with unknown elevation, although not flat.

Hudson River parks in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Westchester

This Ramblers club hike managed to go through a couple of parks I hadn't seen before, despite being in and close to the city.



We started at Fort Tryon and walked through Inwood Hill Park. The walkway over the Henry Hudson Bride is closed for construction, so from there we took the Broadway Bridge and headed west to Seton Hill Park and Riverdale Park.



Riverdale Park is a long, narrow stretch of woods on the western side of the Bronx. The Metro-North Hudson line is between it and the river, so there is no river access.



The next part of the hike wasn't quite as interesting, along Riverdale Avenue from the Bronx to Yonkers. Yonkers, despite being the fourth-largest city in New York, feels like everyone with money sends it all to New York City. But the daylighted Sawmill River in downtown Yonkers is nice.



We next headed to the Old Croton Aqueduct trail, following it north to the Untermyer Gardens. Now, I've walked past it a couple of times, but never been in. Apparently they've been doing a lot of nice reconstructive work on it, including putting a head back on the unicorn.

The gardens are quite lovely.



From the garden, we walked down to the nearest bus station, taking it to the 1 train back to the city. Our total distance was 16 miles.

Hunter Mountain the easy way

Maybe "the easy way" isn't exactly accurate - but getting to the fire tower at Hunter is easier from the top of the chair lift than it is from the bottom of the mountain.

We rode the Skyride up to the Colonel's Chair and hiked from there. The weather was nearly perfect, just a faint haze.

Since it was a Saturday, the cab wasn't open, but we hiked to the top of the stairs and enjoyed the view before heading back down.