Double circuit of Bear Mountain

Although Bear Mountain is one of the classics New York City-area hikes, I've never done it. And on this Ramblers hike at Bear Mountain State Park, I still didn't do it. Instead, we hiked around Bear Mountain twice, first in a large circle and then in a smaller one. The total hike was 13.3 miles with 2,228 feet of elevation gain - not bad for not actually climbing a mountain.

(Mind you, we did hike about halfway up Bear Mountain, and those are some killer stairs!)

The leaves are mostly fallen but there still was a lot of colors. That, combined with it being a sunny, warm day, made for a beautiful hike. It was no surprise that the Hudson River, with Bear Mountain on one side and Anthony's Nose on the other, was lovely, but I didn't expect the Popolopen Gorge near the end of our hike to be so nice. It was hard to photograph: In the summer, leaves would be very thick, but even at this time of year  trees obscure the bottom of the gorge in photographs, although the eye has no trouble picking those details out when actually present. The picture of Popolopen Torne below is one of the few good ones I captured.