A short hike

Last week, myself, Heather and two of her friends went on a hike. One of her friends is possibly doing a Kilimanjaro trek next year so needed to try out some new boots. Plus I get out of the house and get to see another new part of America!

We hired a car and drove the 50miles from the centre of Manhattan to the Bear Mountain area. This involved heading over the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey, up the Palisades and back into New York state.

Bear Mountain Bridge

We parked at the Fort Montgomery State Historic Site car park and once we'd found where the start of the route was, it was fairly straight forward. I even remembered how to read a map.

But what with everything being back to front in this country, I found out that the dotted line on the map turned out not be a thin wooded trail like back home, but instead a larger forestry road.

Short and steep was the order of the day:

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Popolopen footbridge

The footbridge was all smashed up from the last storm in the area but luckily the water was low enough and there were enough stones to make our way across while staying dry.

Once over the water it was a fairly steep climb but really enjoyable. Bone dry rock but even had to use my hands a lot to pull myself up. Once we got to the top the view was superb.

The same bridge we were level with at the start

As the area has some old forts and historic battlegrounds, there is a cairn at the top in memory of fallen comrades.

Plus it borders the US West Point Military Academy so we could hear gunfire from the top of the hill away in the distance.

The weather was again, really hot and sunny but luckily there was so much shade on the route otherwise I would have struggled. I took a litre of water with me, but we had to stop at some guys house in the woods on the way down to refill our bottles. When you start to run low on water and are a little dehydrated it's really easy to see how you just want to pour all of it over your face.

For the whole route I've never seen so much wildlife under your feet. Centipedes, tonnes of those big daddy long leg type spiders, ants. Even seen the tail of a snake slither away under a rock. A big hawk circling the top of the hill. But the big winner on the day was this guy right by the side of the road.