No disrespect to New York City’s status as the cultural center of the world, but since I’ve moved here, I’ve been equally impressed by its proximity to natural wonders. In the thick of a metropolitan bustle of hot asphalt and skyscrapers, take a subway about an hour south and you’ll arrive at Coney Island and the Atlantic Ocean, a teleportation as strange as passing through a wardrobe to enter a fairyland of fauns and witches. Take a train about an hour in the opposite direction and you’ll find yourself amid mountains.
A band of nine of us took that route this morning from Grand Central to the charmingly named Breakneck Ridge, located in upstate New York in Hudson Highlands State Park, which borders the Hudson River and straddles Putnam and Dutchess Counties. The Metro North train station there was built solely for the purpose of hikers such as ourselves and in fact there’s little other reason to debark at it. There are no ticket machines, billboards, parking lots, roads or even garbage cans. There is a large “Breakneck Ridge” station sign on posts that someone or something had knocked it down. We showed our appreciation to the MTA by placing assorted change on the rails in order to later retrieve the train-flattened discs, unaware our winding trek would take us 5.5 miles south to the town of Cold Spring.
The trail rises 1,250 feet around the first 3/4 mile alone, rocky with strenuous and tricky climbing. But there are flat spots at which to pause and take in awesome views of the river and the surrounding hills, heavy with forest and tops invisible with morning mist. During our initial ascent, buzzards circled lazily overhead, presumably hoping the “breakneck” half of our place-name might come true. At an outcropping planted with an American flag on a tall pole, we could better see Bannerman Island, home to a castle built in the early 1900s to store munitions and now in ruins. As we watched a freight train skirt the west bank of the Hudson, I realized I’ve never been at a vantage point at which I could see an entire train laterally at once; the thing must’ve stretched a mile.
Wind and overcast skies shrouded the hike until the afternoon sun burnt off the gloom; I discovered later I was a literal redneck from sunburn. It was good hiking weather but I frequently peeled off layers only to put them back on a short time later. In the woods, kamikaze clouds of tiny black flies dove-bomb us; waving around the stalks of wild chives we picked didn’t deter them for long although we then smelled more of onions than sweat.
I learned that Dr. Martens shoes make for not-unpleasant hiking boots. They’re heavy and 90% comfortable—the skin over the lower part of my Achilles tendons wasn’t blistered but sore by the end of the day. But the traction of the thick, grippy soles facilitates clambering up and down rocks and the shoes’ sturdiness won’t bend a foot that slips between rocks. They also worked well when I ventured off-trail, attempted to navigate a steep decline, slipped on a pile of leaves and slide-tackled Vincent.
We packed water, light lunches and fruit and everyone seemed to have brought his or her own trail mix. Here’s the recipe for mine. It’s salt-free, energy-packed and sweet (the only added sugar is from the dried cherries) and probably moderately healthy. Its yield I will describe as “filling a gallon Ziploc freezer bag to bulging capacity so that everyone says, ‘That’s a lot of trail mix!’” I still have a bunch left if you want some.
Jason’s Breakneck Trail Mix
- 20 oz dried cherries
- 16 oz raw whole almonds
- 16 oz pepitas (raw pumpkin seed kernels)
- 15 oz raisins (one box)
- Throw it all together in a bag.
Having lost sight of any blazes near the end of our descent, we exited the woods through the backyard of rich people, their low-slung house of long horizontals resembling something by Frank Lloyd Wright. After a detour through a centuries-old graveyard, we wandered the streets of Cold Spring, lined with quaint clapboard homes featuring wraparound front porches and carefully tended gardens. As I’d assume is the case with many small towns of the Hudson Valley, the main street contains chiefly antique shops and restaurant-bars. We chose Cold Spring Depot, nearest the train station, and negated any health benefits gained from our exercise by knocking down greasy food and several beers.
I took these snapshots during the hike with my Lomo LC-A on Kodak 100UC film, which is overkill for a camera this cheap. I then had jpegs output directly from the negatives by a nice guy at the Penn Station Duane Reade. They turned out blue but were even bluer before my quick-and-dirty Photoshop Auto Color adjustment.
