The Timp, West Mountain Shelter, Cat's Elbow, Bald Mountain, Dunderberg Mountain

August 13th, 2011 between 10 and 11am I park my dad's car at the pull off near Jone's Point on 202 / 9w in Rockland County. The actual entrance into the 'woods' is about twenty yards south of the parking area. Initialy the trail winds through a blanket of what I like to call vine monsters or vine caves. Two asian men hike out and I step off for them and then at a small junction swerve around a lost couple's lunging husky. The grade becomes steep right after the vine monsters. The first switchback turns away from some heavily etched trees, showing names and signs people have left over many years. Just ahead of me a short stone tunnel sits below another switchback. A rock staircase or two and some exposed rock outcroppings and you are at the first junction. I will descend the trail that comes down off the front of Dunderberg later and end up at this junction. Taking the left fork, through some really great open forest area, I hike up the gradual trail. It fucking winds around and heads east for a bit. The trail generally aspires to the west though, into the park, along the ridge. The forest before The Timp is amazing. Out on The Timp is very pretty. A woman parked up there feeds her dog. I see more women comping up from the Timp's Pass. It's a short mile or so over to West Mountain. An older bro who wouldn't shut up just at the rising arc of West Mountain kinda tails my ass. Four asian's lunch on a rock and two bros smoke in the shelter, which kinda looks uninviting on the inside. I eat lunch. I head over to Cat's elbow, and it's real pretty over there. This is the thing to the south of West Mountain. After coming down of Cat's elbow and crossing the Timp Pass again the trail slopes east wart and then bangs north up an insanely steep grade. I took a break at the red-blue trail junction and consider heading back on blue, the way I originally came over Dunderberg. A deer with two small horns, not yet antlers ate shit out of the leaves about thirty yards from me. I try to sneak up on him and record him up close. The trail descends and then heads east towards Dunderberg. Oh first you come to Bald Mountain which pokes out towards Bear Mountain, then you duck back in on the ridge for a few miles of gradual slopes and thin forest (evidence of the forest fire a few years ago still existing in randomly burned dead trees). After what seems like the summit of Dunderberg you go through this little forest on top, like a covered trail, tunnel type section that fun walking through. Then I start heading down. I neglect the little look out trail cause my feet are really hurting me at this point. I think I've gone about 8 miles or 9 miles so far. I drink some stream water here. I'm on the graded section that was part of the old spiral railway project of 1890 or something. You go down this graded little ridge that awkward cause it's all stones for footing. Then you're back at the junction. Very fun hike. Saw a turtle, a frog, a deer with antlers.

a man-made cave intended to channel the spiral railway through the obstacles of natural dunderberg

















looking up at west mountain from the timp, the shelter is tucked in at the top there

















some of the pretty ass grasslands in the pass between the timp and west mountain























somewhere on cat's elbow maybe, inwards near the timp or past it you get this sweet peak of the hudson below verplank

Jay Range, Jay Mountain

Dateline: August 5th, 2011. Tom, Jamie and myself in Tom's FTC and Mike, Erika and Ruben (dog) in Mike's Honda Fit leave the Wilmington Notch campsite in Wilmington New York and head for Jay. We drive and drive, believing to be somewhat lost on a road that turns into a rough gravelly ride. We make a few split decision turns at two forks and come to cars parked on the side of a nice paved road. We hiked the Jay Range in an out and back, actually hiking out one peak further than Jay Mountain to a higher peak. The yellow marked trail rises at a steep grade for the first mile and a half with one down and up in the beginning. Once you reach the first look out where we ate apples, took pictures and rested there's a little more hiking steep grade until you break out onto the ridge. The trail along the ridge crosses a nice flat open rock area. There's a couple false summits. So many blueberries. Nice cloudy day, with sun breaking through.

Anthony's Nose

July 23rd, 2011. It was 99 degrees. I left late in the afternoon in my father's car. Parked at Bear Mtn Historic Toll House around 5 - 5:30pm. The blue blazed trail climbs and descends the several rock outcroppings of the mountainous rock between the toll house and the summit, above Bear Mtn Bridge. It's 6.5 miles, out and back to the summit. I ate a sandwich which I bought earlier from Edwin's deli on the summit. It wasn't good. There was no one else on the trail.

Sunk Mine, Clarence Fahnestock State Park

On July 2nd, Liz and I hiked into Fahnestock wilderness from the first parking location on route 301 heading east from route 9. We followed the red trail south and made a left onto the yellow trail. The yellow trail lead up past a giant boulder and down a narrow lane of bushes. It became swampy and buggy. The trail disappeared into a swamp, in fact, and we had to bushwhack around it. On the other side of a shallow march we found the blue trail and back tracked on that a bit. We found the blue / yellow junction and stuck with the blue trail, passing where we originally emerged from the whack. We detoured off the blue trail after a brief slope and bend to try and spot the cave. After not finding it we hiked the blue trail for a 1/3 a mile into a wide dead-leaf valley between open rocks on either side. The entire landscape exists under a canopy of a few giant trees. The trail banks left and after the rock walls become drastically higher the trail descends and the walls end. Here we got off the trail to look for the cave / mine. We had to hike up a ridge of the valley and descend the other side. We almost slid directly into the mine which would have killed us. We had just seen a baby hawk or something teaching itself to fly. Then we went up the ridge a little more to eliminate any possibility of that not being the biggest cave. It turned out to be the cave in my opinion. We pushed through swarms of tiny buggies and some pricker to find an easy few steps naturally existing in the jagged edges of the cave. Then we came to the dark mouth where a dead tree lies in the caves throat. I went in to the bottom of the cave. Liz stayed a little ways back. We hiked out onto a road which brought us around to a blue trail that skirts a little reservoir. Then we reconnected with the red trail, having to just cross over the yellow which would have been smart to avoid in the first place. Took about 3 or 4 hours. We gained about 400 feet in 3 1/2 miles. Nice beer, clams, and burgers afterwards.