Hiking it

I think I've fallen in love again...with the great outdoors.

This weekend, my friend, Ryan and I went hiking just north of Cold Spring, New York. Wendy, my roommate, who's been on countless hiking and clmbing trips all over New York state, suggested a trail called Sugarloaf in the Hudson River Valley. Since I haven't hiked in years (alright, alright, almost 17 years), I wanted a trail that was manageable in a few hours. She's hiked it in about 2 hours so I figured I could handle it.

At 10:15 am on Saturday, Ryan and I hopped off the Metro North at the Breakneck Ridge stop. Literally "hopped off". Turns out there is no station at Breakneck Ridge -- just a set of wooden steps that the conductor called "vestibule" when he warned the passengers not to dawdle so we don't get hit by the next train. There were no signs to indicate where the trails might be. Luckily, there were other hikers who got off with us. We began to walk north along Route 9D once we made our way across the tracks and out onto the highway. After about 1/4 mile, we saw a small trail veer up east into the mountain, and we assumed this was the Sugarloaf Mountain trail.

Throughout the hike, we discussed how the trail didn't seem as easy as Wendy had promised. She'd said that Sugarloaf was flatter than Breakneck. Yet we found ourselves having to really hoist ourselves up rocks and ridges. After about 30 minutes of some off and on hiking and "scrambling", we ran into two women who were hiking with their dogs. They told us that in fact, we were on the Wilkinson Trail. We found out later that the Wilkinson Trail is on the Beacon Mountain Range, and was more challenging than Sugarloaf but merged with it at the summit.

We decided to push forward anyway because it would take too long to loop back. So after about a solid hour of hiking-scrambling-climbing, following trail markers, we reached the summit. What a breathtaking view! We could see the whole valley, Bear Mountain, and even some of the smaller towns on the western bank. We even spotted a few hawks circling overhead. Of course, Ryan and I joked that they'd spotted the amateur hikers and were waiting for us to get lost. Very Blair Witch...

As we were eating lunch, I noticed that the slab of rock I was on had grown colder. Suddently, I realized that the back seam on my jeans had caught a small edge on the rock and had begun to rip. Yikes! I began to laugh and Ryan asked me what was so funny. When I told him, Ryan couldn't stop laughing. Not just a "ha ha", but the kind of guffawing that made me realized he was truly laughing AT me. Great. Glad he got his chuckle in for the day. Sigh. As we stood up to start our descent, RRRRIIIPPP!!!, down to the back of my right knee. Double yikes!

After tying a long sleeved shirt around my waist, and giving Ryan explicit instructions to walk AHEAD of me, we began the walk down. Instead of heading back down the same trail, we decided to go down the other side so we could see more of the mountain. After about a half hour, however, we realized that we were that we had somehow begun to climb uphill again. After much discussion and nervous laughter (yelling "Blair Witch Project!" in between each forced giggle), we decided to trudge on as Ryan pointed out that we had been following the trail markers and we were bound to come to the end of the trail at some point soon. Good point.

More ups and downs (no, really), and in another hour or so, we realized that we were climbing toward yet another summit, but on the eastern side of the mountain. Double yikes. Both exhausted, we had little chit chat. Just the occasional "are we climbing again?" and "was that the actual summit?". We did reach our second summit of the day. Ladeedah. Needless to say, we didn't dawdle too long there.

So we took our second descent. After 1.5 hours of "do you see the next trail marker?" and "I wish I'd brought more water!" and "I could really go for some Korean BBQ and an ice cold beer", we finally made our way down to the highway. Except that we were over a full mile north of the train stop. Of course, there are no sidewalks on a highway. Silly me! There was no shoulder to speak of on this stretch, which befuddled us, since this was such a popular destination for hikers. Greeeat.

When we saw the train tracks through the trees, I think I actually applauded. Ryan managed a giggle. He'd been uncharacteristically quiet most of the walk along the highway. I will say, thanks to his eagle eye and ability to see the trail path better than yours truly, we made our way back with 20 minutes to spare before the train.

Within minutes after pulling away from Breakneck, the rolling of the train put me to sleep. And the next thing I knew, we were pulling into Grand Central. And in my sleepy fog, I mustered to Ryan that I was in too much pain to grab Korean BBQ as we'd planned. I think I was still asleep when we said our respective "have a nice evening."

One thing was clear, even as I was taking my second hot bath within 10 hours on Sunday morning. I had blisters all over my feet, I had done something wacky to my knee and it was swollen. My lower back was throbbing because I think I overreached when I was scrambling. And my quads were like jelly to the point where I could barely walk. Despite all this pain, I realized that I'd fallen head over heels in love with climbing a mountain. It wasn't just the reward of the gorgeous view. It wasn't just the work I had to do to get to the top. It's beyond words. All I know is that I can't wait until I can be out there, scrambling my way to another summit.