Arden Valley Road to Bear Mountain Inn

Day Eleven
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Tiorati Circle to Bear Mountain Inn
13.6 miles

By this time, we are three days behind our projected schedule, so any shuttles or lodging I had lined up was nil at this point.  We called 446 Taxi Service (listed on the A. T. Conservancy Shuttle List) to meet us at Bear Mountain Inn and taxi us back to Tiorati Circle for $20. 

We started hiking at about 8:30 a.m. and hiked until 4:30 p.m.  We are slackpacking today for the first time so it is much easier on us.  However, the terrain is also quite different.  For the first time in New York, there were no boulder scrambles. 

It was warm, beautiful weather, lots of good views and lots of dayhikers in this area enjoying a great day to be outdoors.  In several places there were nice stone steps going up the mountain instead of the usual natural rocky terrain, especially around Bear Mountain.  Someone has done a lot of hard work maintaining the trails. 

As we approached Bear Mountain from the south, we could see a tower on the top with bear rock face around it.  We eventually made our way to it.  The trail goes right around the edge of the mountain and around the tower; however, we got sidetracked by a soda machine.  Too bad.  There were lots of people loitering around the rocky edifice at the southeastern edge.   We meandered around drinking our soda and talking to an inquisitive man about the Appalachian Trail.   Then we saw where the trail picked up again, and after finishing our drinks, we took off down the trail.  We never did go to the overlook!  It dawned on me later that that’s where the view of Manhattan would be.  That’s what all those people were enjoying.  Dang!  We missed our only clear view of the Manhattan skyline!

The well maintained trail comes up behind the Bear Mountain Inn and Hessian Lake.  A beautiful spot.   After a pleasant day of hiking, we drove to Fishkill, New York and spent the night in the Quality Inn.  But not before stopping at Cracker Barrel for a delicious home-cooked meal.  I had no idea they had Cracker Barrels this far north.  They even had grits from Georgia on the menu! 

 

 

William Brien Memorial Shelter

Palisades Interstate Parkway to New York City

View of Perkins Tower from south

 

Perkins Tower

Perkins Tower

Manhattan Skyline from Bear Mountain - courtesy of George Weaver

Hessian Lake

Hessian Lake

Bear Mountain Inn

Bear Mountain Inn



Zero Day

Day 10
Zero Day in Mahwah, New Jersey

After a restful night, we got out and headed to Walmart in a nearby town for some resupply items.  On the way there, we ran over something on the interstate and soon heard our tired bumping along.  Uh oh, a flat tire! 

Let me tell you, it’s very stressful to stand there on the shoulder of the road and watch Wait-up change a tire with the traffic whizzing by.   I’m sure it was more stressful for him since he was the one changing the tire.  Lol  We had a full-size spare tire, but now we have no spare.

We spent parts of the next several days trying to find a matching tire for our car. 

Nevertheless, we finished our shopping and made it back to the hotel.  This time we had figured out how to get to it so didn’t have that problem again.  Sonny and Tony’s delivered spaghetti this time, and we went to bed early.  Tomorrow we start out hiking again.



Buchanan Mountain to Arden Valley Road



Day Nine
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Buchanan Mountain to Arden Valley Road/Tiorati Circle
9.6 miles

Inside our little tarp tent, we have just enough room for two sleeping mats and our backpacks by our sides.  We can sit up, but not stand up inside it.  We have been warm and dry inside, but I can tell when dawn is coming because it seems to be the coldest right before and at dawn.  The temps have been moderate though, high 40’s, low 50’s at night and mid to high 60’s in the daytime. 

As I lay in my sleeping bag in the pre-dawn hours, trying to stay warm I could hear the world outside waking up.  An airplane flew over and I wondered where it had come from and where it was going.   It was probably the first flight of the day out of New York City.  Another flock of geese flew overhead.  Wait-up was snoring quietly next to me and I lay very still so as not to wake him.  I knew when he woke up, he would arise immediately and the day would begin.  I was in no hurry. 

We left camp around 7:40.  I thought it was going to be a short day, and it was at only 9.6 miles, but we walked for 8.5 hours.  On previous sections when we had 10 miles to do, we would be finished in 5 or 6 hours, depending on our stops.  What gives? 

There were several hard rock scrambles, particularly on Buchanan Mountain.  We thought we had reached the summit last night, but found out we had not quite done so.  Then we reached Agony Grind on Arden Mountain.  Ugh! 

At the bottom of the hill before going out onto the road, we found a supply of water left by the Tuxedo Trail Angels.  We topped off our water bottles there.   Just a short while later, at the next road crossing there was another supply left by Trail Angel Headley along with a tarp covering and some chairs.  We rested in the chairs for a little bit, but the fresh fruit and water was all gone.         

 

We entered Harriman State Park and it was like another world after the Agony Grind.  There were several day hikers in the area.  I commented that I could understand why the day hikers came up this side of the trail and not the other side of the road going up the Agony Grind.  This side was pretty green mountainsides with wide paths.  It was still rocky, but not nearly as torturous.

A beautiful pond was on top of the mountain, it obviously was the destination of the day hikers.  We hiked around it as we went on up.  Then we found the Lemon Squeezer.  We had to take off our packs to get through it – it was pretty tight.  We met a couple who were doing a flip-flop hike and had 400 miles before completing the trail.  They were headed south and had just come through the Squeezer. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We started counting the roads about this point.  We had 5 to go before we reached the 6^th one where we were parked at Tiorati Circle.  We went through a beautiful meadow before reaching our road where the fall colors were really beginning to show.  Fingerboard Shelter was closed due to renovations. 

 

 

    

 

We have never been so glad to reach our car.  Nine days is the longest we have ever been away from it.  We were thoroughly whipped.  We wanted a luxurious hotel (not a motel) and food delivery!   We went to Comfort Suites in Mahwah, New Jersey.  After a good long time trying to get to it (long story, lol), we finally made it there and the clerk provided us with a menu from Sonny and Tony’s Italian Restaurant.  Within a few minutes, we were eating a very fine buffalo chicken wrap with all the trimmings.  

Arden Valley Road at Tiorati Circle



Greenwood Lake to Buchanan Mountain

Day Eight
Monday, October 3, 2016
Greenwood Lake, NY to Buchanan Mountain

 

We got a pretty late start this morning after leaving the motel at around 8:00.  We stopped at the Quick Mart for breakfast on the recommendation of the lady at Linden Motel. They had a deal of a breakfast roll with egg, meat and cheese and coffee for something like $4.99.  We found as we later walked up the street that there are plenty of places to find breakfast.  We then went to a little market and picked up a few items to take with us on the trail before heading back up the .9 to the trail.  (Add that to our ten miles today.)

 

 

 

 

Before long we reached NY 17A where we were looking forward to eating lunch at Hot Dogs Plus.  Uh oh, Hot Dogs Plus had a sign – it’s closed on Monday.  Just our luck.

  

Hot Dogs Plus, closed on Monday



 

So I sat on their picnic table while Wait-up up trekked down the hill and around the corner to see  if he could fine the Bellvale Creamery.  He soon came back and said he had found it but it didn’t open until 12:00.  Well, it was almost 12 and we decided it was worth the wait, so we both went back the .3 to the Creamery.   They obviously are very popular as cars were already gathering in the parking lot.  They have several picnic tables overlooking a beautiful view beside their building.  We each chose a flavor of ice cream and sat at the picnic tables and thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was one of the few New York stops that we were fortunate enough to hit at the right time.  The New York deli hop was not working for us to well. 

 

It was a fairly easy day with a rock scramble at the Eastern Pinnacles, another at Cat Rocks, then we took the blue blaze around the third one.  Other than that, the path was not too rocky and pretty level.   

Fitzgerald Falls was completely dry.  That’s quite a drought!  There are some very nice stone steps going up the mountain beside the falls. 



Fitzgerald Falls, completely dry. 

We saw a few southbound thru-hikers today. 

We walked until around 5:00 and stealth camped on Buchanan Mountain.

 

Vernon, NJ to Greenwood Lake, NY

Day Seven
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Vernon, NJ to Greenwood Lake, NY
13 miles

Well, the night went pretty well.  We had no bear visitors, our food bag was intact and we slept alright.  We got on the trail about 7:30.  As soon as we stepped back out onto the trail and went forward a couple hundred feet we saw a big white tent off to the side in a clearing.  Uh, we were so close and didn’t know there were other people around.  Don’t know what was going on there.

  

Wawayanda Mountain



Wawayanda Mountain loomed in front of us, really high and really steep.  It was about a mile and a half to the top of it.  We felt like we had really accomplished something when we reached the top. 

It was rainy, cloudy and gloomy all day, knocking out our views.  On top of that, we were warm and sweaty inside out ponchos, especially after tackling that high mountain. 

We reached the New Jersey/New York state line – a simple painted indicator on top of a mountain. We took a picture of our feet, one of us in each state.

Almost as soon as we crossed the state lie the terrain changed from rocky path to huge boulders.  I never saw so many boulders in succession to be scrambled over. 


Prospect Rock

 

We soon reached a notorious point on the trail –Prospect Rock , the highest point in New York . On a clear day, they say you can see the skyline of Manhattan from here.  We didn’t have a clear day – which was our story on most of our days in New York. 

We climbed a ladder made of rungs in the side of a boulder.  That was fun.  Rock scrambles galore!  It wasn’t so hard to do, it was just tiring – all the bending, stretching and reaching made me feel like I was in a bootcamp.     

Wait-up slipped on a wet boulder and fell on his hand again.  Number four!

We saw a sign for a park office, so we went in search of it.  It was .4 down a side trail.  We bought snacks out a box the clerk had, and filled up our water bottles.  I never did know what park it was.  It’s not listed in our Hiker Companion.

The Greenwood Lake Vista Trail is a .9 blue blazed trail leads you right into the village of Greenwood Lake, New York.  We took it.  In addition to the 13 trail miles, the side trip to the park office and this trail, we covered 14.7 miles today. 

It was 6:00 p.m. when we walked into Greenwood Lake, coming out on the trail behind a building that had school buses parked.  We kept walking until we saw someone to ask directions to the main street and kept on walking.  We came out on a corner where Murphy’s Pub was located, went in dirty as we were, and had hamburgers.

We had called ahead and booked a room at the Linden Hotel for the night.  That was after we made numerous phone calls to Anton’s on the Lake.  I actually talked to the fellow there once and he told me he had openings for Sunday night, but when I tried to call back to book it, he never answered the phone again.  We were going to get him to slackpack us and stay with him a couple of days, but I never could get him on the phone again, and he didn’t call me back after I left two phone messages asking him to. 

So we made our way on down the street to Linden Motel after eating.  It was dark by this time.  A police car was parked beside the street and moved down behind us as we walked.  The motel was located off the main street behind  a bank.  It looked like a normal house that we went to and the sign said ring the bell.  A man came to the door and we told him we had called about a room, he said his wife was coming.  She came and led us out the front door, down the street and turned down another driveway to the back of the building.  The motel rooms were underneath the back of the house, with an enclosed walkway running the length of about five or six rooms, which all faced the lake.  We saw the next morning that the view of the lake was beautiful.  I’m sure in its day, the motel was very nice but it is very old and rundown now.  The room we had was adequate with a kitchenette, a couch, and a double bed all in the same room with a shower in the bathroom.  It was $80 cash.  The only real complaint I had was that the bedding smelled sour and I smelled it all night because I did not sleep well.  But Wait-up slept just fine.  (Pictures of Linden Motel on next page.)