The complete Torrey Memorial hike

For the third year in a row, I attempted to lead my club's annual hike to the Torrey Memorial. The first year we turned back very close to the memorial due to a thunderstorm. Last year we made the memorial but didn't complete the hike as planned due to pouring rain. So what would this year hold?

Good weather, and a complete hike!



I was also worried, I should mention, because I felt out of shape. I remember finding it a tough hike when I scouted it (to completion) last year. Somehow, though, it wasn't as bad this time. We may have hiked a little slower.

Much of the group didn't finish, although for the most part it wasn't about fitness. Some people had cars and needed to return to them; one hiker was doing the marathon in a week.

The hike went from Fort Montgomery to Central Valley, heading west across Harriman State Park, for nearly 14 miles, with a lot of elevation change.

Foliage on the Tanbark Trail

One of my hiking principles is "never spend longer getting to the hike than hiking." Sadly, this year I had managed to book up my weekends in such a way that I couldn't get anyway for a long weekend to enjoy the fall color. And the fall foliage report declared that this weekend would be peak color in the Catskills! Thus I decided to throw principle aside and daytrip up to the Catskills on a Sunday for a short hike.

There are only a few hiking trails easily accessible by bus. One of those is the Tanbark Trail, in Phoenicia, which has been on my to-do list for a while.

It turns out that it is a nice little hike. The map shows it as being something of a squashed figure eight (or if you prefer Greek, a theta), but I never did find any connecting trail across the middle of the loop. The irony is that the area in general is criss-crossed with old roads, so some kind of connector in the right place ought to have been easy to find.

Dater Mountain group hike

I was tapped to lead a Ramblers hike at the last minute, as the original leader had a minor injury. This meant I hadn't scouted it in advance, and some (well, most, as it turned out) of the trails were new to me. So the hike was something of an adventure.

We ended up hiking 12 miles, much of it rather flat for Harriman (about 1,700 feet of gain overall). It was a pretty hike, and the recent rain meant we saw a lot of interesting mushrooms.

Ferries, bridges, and Governor's Island

Sunday's Ramblers hike was an urban adventure in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Governor's Island. We walked about 13 miles all told, I think, nearly all of it flat and on pavement.

The photo above is of old military housing on Governor's Island.

Joining the crowd at Breakneck Ridge

On Saturday I hiked Breakneck Ridge with a friend. The weather was perfect, so as usual the hike was very popular. It's not exactly a place to go for solitude. But it still is beautiful.