Hike #915; Melrose/Bronx to Fort Lee

Hike #915; Melrose/Bronx NY to Fort Lee NJ

2/18/16 Melrose/Bronx to Fort Lee NJ with Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell and Dan Asnis. - Metrotrails

This next hike would be another point to point one in New York City mostly, and a rather spur of the moment planned connection to some places I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time.
There is so much to New York City. There’s really not enough time in a lifetime to do it all. It’s been so long we’ve been hiking the city, but surprisingly we’ve not branched really very far east onto Long Island or the rest of NY, despite the fact that it would be easy to do so, and it even includes good greenway routes. I started looking at a promising route to the east toward Pelham Bay.

In Crotonia Park

The hike as it unfolded would not reach Pelham Bay, nor would it be much of what I had originally envisioned, but it was great.
The hike came about not on a whim, but out of necessity from our previous NY City hike.
On the holiday hike, I got a ticket for an open container. I had been handed a can of Four Loco, and was apparently seen with it. Police pulled over, but when they stopped I no longer was holding the can. Others in the group were plainly holding them, but still I was the one that got the ticket. When I called the Bronx court, they told me I had to show up. I knew I could easily fight this if it was going to be a problem, since I wasn’t holding anything when they stopped, and they had no evidence. I also had witnesses.
Determined to make the best of the situation, I planned a NY City hike starting at the court and heading eastward from there. Several people signed up, but only Dan and Uncle Soup showed up for it.
I parked at a good spot at Short Hills Station, where I met Dan, and he hurried to catch the train. We got held back first because we were told to switch trains in Hoboken, and we should have done so in Newark, then Dan’s Metro Card got eaten by the machine. He had forty dollars on it, so we had to have an employee wright him a voucher for the money. By the time we got to the city, switched trails to the subway at World Trace Center, and got off at Melrose station, I was going to be a half hour later than when the slip said I needed to be. I wasn’t really concerned. This was more a pain in the ass than anything else. I didn’t know how long this would take, and what kind of day we’d be able to have.
We met Uncle Soup at the court, since we were behind getting to the city. I had Dan wait outside while Uncle Soup and I went in, because he could watch my backpack. I realized I had all sorts of trail work tools in there; a pair of dikes, probably a knife, which I didn’t even think about. I even had a credit card knife in my wallet I had forgotten to take out. Fortunately, the NY police were really cool and friendly as ever, and didn’t give me a hard time about it. I just had to leave that and my camera in a tray at the door, and they’d give it back to me when I left (even though they said I shouldn’t even have the credit card knife in NYC).
While on line, a guy was waiting to get in, playing music. The police asked him nicely to turn it off, and he just gave an attitude. He didn’t at first, and after he complied he still kept giving them lip. The guy obviously wanted a fight, and ended up being taken away by four police. It was really amazing to see how quick responding and professional these police were. I really mean it when I say, this was a class act, they were actually nicer about dealing with this dirtbag than they needed to be, and responded in almost a perfect mechanism, looking out for one another and the public. I could go into greater detail with the professionalism of what I saw, but the point is I was incredibly impressed.
We headed to the upper level, on a stalled escalator, and I went to the clerk at the counter. Soon, names were called and we lined up. I actually felt pretty comfortable. I’m sure everyone thought I looked out of place. Uncle Soup and I were the only white guys there, and I know a lot of people who would be scared shitless really for no good reason other than the situation is different than what we’d see typically.
We soon went into a courtroom, and just waited till our names were called. I spoke my mind on the issues, and the guy basically told me I could fight it, but then said “But do you reealllly want to wait for trial? This is twenty five bucks...”. It was no criminal record thing and such a small fine that I just agreed to take it and be done with it. I paid the $25 and we were on our way. It was an interesting experience I’m glad I had I suppose. The show alone was worth more than $25 to me, and it was still early enough that we could cover a lot of ground. This was behind me and we could enjoy the rest of the day.

Negative thought needs a place to dwell. It has to exist or there wold be nothing to define positive thought. It cannot be eliminated, so in the same way a Vulture opportunistically seeks dead flesh on which to feast, negative thought will seek out a host that will nuture it’s need for self-definition.
I won’t be that host. I have been dealt a shitty hand from time to time, but I always turn it around as best I can. We were on our way and the remainder of the day would be great.
I could not for the life of me figure out which way to go in the city. Fortunately, Uncle Soup knows his way around pretty well, and when I immediately went the wrong direction, probably twice, he pointed out where I was going. I went over the maps on my phone to see what would be the best thing. I decided that I didn’t know the public transportation around Pelham Bay well enough to go that way, so we would instead try to make a connection to the Bronx River Parkway, which would open us up to three or more hikes I could host at any time (thinking of connectivity).

Bronx

We ended up heading to the northeast a bit, on streets that were oddly oriented to the northeast. It looked on the maps like they were park lands, when really it was hospital campuses.
There are always really interesting buildings in the city, and I never tire of walking city streets, no matter where they are, greenway or not. There is always stimulation all around us.
We continued alogn St. Augustine, which was a nice street with some views, because it was at a higher elevation. We continued in that northeast route, which became Franklin Ave, and ended at Crotona Park.
The park was rather huge, with some neat rock outcroppings immediately visible in it.

Indian Pond at Crotona Park

We crossed Claremont Parkway in the park, then headed on a paved path for a bit toward the center. There is a small pond known as Indian Pond, with an old bath house or something on the shore, so we walked along the shore of it, and headed to the building, as I audibly announced that it was so that Dan could have diarrhea. He’d respond “Noooo, I don’t have diarrhea!!!”. Unfortunately for Dan, diarrhea or no, the building was closed.
We headed across the park off of the paved paths, over more rock outcroppings, and returned to the main paths near Crotona Park East, a section of it blocked off at the northeast corner. We headed down steps to reach Southern Blvd.

Crotona Parkway Malls

Crotona Parkway continued north from there. The highway had one of the little swaths of land they call a “mall” in the city, and this one was the Crotona Parkway Malls. A nice paved pedestrian path was between two sections of highway, and a good route for us to continue on to the north.
We had a really pleasant walk to the start of the larger Bronx Parkway, a swath of long green space surrounding the Bronx River. This is the easternmost spot I had decided to get to after abandoning the idea of going all the way to Pelham Bay. The Bronx Zoo was the first thing we came upon, but it was a pay area so we didn’t bother to try to go in. Maybe we’d come back to visit another time.
We stopped for a bite at a McDonalds in this area. It was pretty busy, but not too bad. We immediately noted the difference in attitude people have. A lot of people seem very angry in this area. A guy was in front of us, and the clerk accidentally took a customer who was before him, and the guy butted in shouting that he was next. “Next Time!! Next time you..” he was saying, extremely angry. He went on to order his food, and he followed his order with “You better get it right!”. He walked away firmly, like every muscle in his body is flexed at all times; his blood pressure must be through the roof. How someone can go through life with so much anger all of the time is beyond my understanding.
We continued north with Fordham University on the left, and then the Botanical Gardens on the right. I figured it’d be a good spot for a group trip to visit the gardens one day. It was right next to a train station, making access easy, and I wouldn’t have to lead the group through this rough neighborhood we just passed.
We reached some paved paths coming together out of Bronx River Parkway when we reached the Mosholu Parkway.

Mosholu Parkway

We turned to the left here. The paved pathway paralleled this pretty highway heading to the northwest for a bit.
We crossed over a few streets and remained on the pathway heading through the Bronx. My plan going this way was to connect to Van Cortland Park and the Old Croton Aqueduct, which would connect this hike with everything else we’d ever done. I had several ideas of where we could go from there. I would just watch the time. I had a meeting I wanted to go to later in the night, and I thought I could get home to get to it by seven in the evening, but I found out later that the meeting was at six, and our plans changed accordingly.

Mosholu Parkway

I watched the maps as we walked, and crossed each road. We passed through a tunnel under I think Jerome Avenue, as well as another rail line, then reached Gun Hill Road.
I had already hiked the Old Croton Aqueduct completely as a series, but it’s a little sketchy how to follow it in the Bronx. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find it where it comes out of Van Cortland, because it was such a weird spot. When we got to Gun Hill Road, we turned to the left and crossed. Paved pathways continue through to other parts of the park, but I wasn’t sure which one would get me to the aqueduct route. After we crossed, I looked at the GPS, and realized it seemed wrong.

Old Croton Aqueduct in Van Cortland Park south

While looking up and down from the phone and trying to figure things out, I saw a guy wandering through the woods across the way, at Mosholu Golf Course, in a swath of woods. The area was now looking familiar to me, and I pointed out to Dan and Uncle Soup that I believe the aqueduct went through a triangle piece of preserved land. To the south, it went to the Jerome Park Reservoir, or parallel with it.
I crossed right back over at Gun Hill Road again, and walked the narrow grassy swath toward the woods below that golf course. Sure enough, there was the trail route, better delineated than it was the last time we walked it. It was now surrounded by fencing to show where to walk. We headed into the woods here.

Old Croton Aqueduct trail

We were soon in a good section of woods. Cars on the highway were very audible, but it was still pretty nice because we really looked like we were in the woods. All of the recent snow melting made much of the natural treadway of the trail slippery to walk on, but we managed. In some areas, it was interesting to see a stone promenade peeking through. I wondered if any of that was original to the design of the aqueduct, or much later. The OCR when developed was considered to be a pedestrian walkway on top.
Heading north, the natural pathway of the aqueduct reached a paved pathway of the Allen Shandler Recreation Area. In the woods, the trail had somewhat new good blue blazes, but when we reached the paved path, it looks like park employees have painted them out with a brown spray paint. There are now new green signs that read “Old Croton Aqueduct” with arrows on which way to go. I could see painted out blazes the entire route to the north to 233rd Street. We turned left at the road, following more signs across to more of Van Cortland Park on the other side of the interstate.

New path to Old Croton Aqueduct

On the other side, there was a very new path, complete with some nice stone stairs, heading down through the woods to get to the next section of Old Croton Aqueduct. I thought that was really cool; when we tried to hike it before, it was sort of a mess and we kind of had to know where we were going to follow the route. There were some blue blazes, but many were faded. Even today, if those blazes were not in place in some areas, no one would know where they were going. We took a break at the highway, and went over to a convenience store along the way before continuing on the path to the aqueduct.
When we returned to the actual Old Croton Aqueduct again, there was a homeless guy sleeping with a pile of stuff there. Blue blazes were confusing, leading both to the left and right on the aqueduct.

Old Croton Aqueduct

The Old Croton Aqueduct is really nice to the north, and it’s amazing that this is still considered NY City. Really the nicest part of the Bronx. We followed the historic route from here through the woods.
This aqueduct was opened in 1842 to carry fresh water from the Croton River in upper Westchester Co south to NYC after they had dirtied all of the fresh drinking water supply. It was designed to drop a foot per mile.

Weir on Old Croton Aqueduct

We continued north and came to the first extant weir on the Old Croton Aqueduct. These were designed to drain the aqueduct during flood times or if maintenance was needed. It’s amazing these stone behemoths still exist as well.
We continued until we could see the homes in Westchester County, at the city boundary, and turned left off of the historic aqueduct route to descend west. Another pink trail turned to the right on our way there, with standard turn blazes. I always love seeing that and need to take pictures, to prove that standard trail marking even takes place in the largest metropolis in the world.
Soon, we reached the Old Putnam rail line route. This historic railroad route is now a trail all the way from Van Cortland Park north through Westchester County and then up through Putnam County. It’s one of the longest rail trails in the east. Unfortunately, all of it in Westchester is paved and hard on the feet.

Old Putnam rail line

I love walking the Putnam line in the city. The ties are all still in place and it just looks really cool. I think a lot of it was sort of ruined to the north, but the cyclist groups love it because they can go super fast on it.

For those of us who do long distance hiking, the pavement seriously detracts from the enjoy-ability of it all.
We continued to follow the Old Putnam line south, around more golf course lands, then over Van Cortland Lake to a former station site, where the awning for passengers still stands. We continued on the right of way a bit further south from here, and climbed to turn right on Van Cortland Park South. We followed this road under another active rail line, and up hill slightly to Irwin Avenue. We turned left here, then right up a very steep set of stairs to get to Waldo Avenue. We followed this road to the south for a bit.

View from Waldo Ave

The road merged with Greystone Ave, and then ahead we would lose elevation after climbing up the steep stairs. We opted to turn right and then left onto 235th Street, which was a short out and around on Riverdale Avenue. We followed 235th to the west for a bit, and stopped at a grocery store for some snacks and drinks before moving on.
We made a left on Arlington Avenue, then turned right on 232nd Street to cross Henry Hudson Parkway. On the other side, we went left on Henry Hudson Parkway West.

Henry Hudson Bridge

When the road turned away, there was a sign stating that the bridge was closed until 5 pm or something, or the walkway. We went through anyway and didn’t see anyone, unsure if that meant the pedestrian route or not. No problems anyway. At the other side, we turned right, and descended on the pathway below the bridge and into the Inwood Hills Park.
Inwood is the only completely natural original piece of Manhattan Island remaining. I’d only hiked it once with Cupcake and Jaque a few years back, but really loved it then.

View from Inwood Hills Park

I’d realized at this time that I was not going to make the meeting, so I made a few phone calls. I also got a message from an Express Times reporter about the Warren Highlands Trail and the future plans. We chatted for a bit and made plans to meet the following week to discuss it.
Since time was not of the essence any more, we could enjoy the walk through. We followed a path near to the water, then headed right up through the center of the park. I had not seen this section before, because we stuck to the top of the hills the previous time.

Spuyten Duyville Creek

There were great views into Spuyten Duyville Creek and the cove at the park below, as well as back at the Henry Hudson Bridge. We then cut through a deep section and went by some interesting old rock shelters, which were reportedly used in the past by native Americans. I had read about these in the New York Walk book, and had always wanted to visit, but never got around to it.

Caves in Inwood Hills Park

Uncle Soup and I went up to the second set of them we came across to have a look around. He pointed out as we walked up that these paths to the caves were at one time paved, though no attention to them had been paid in a very long time. Much of it was covered over by leaf litter. There was a bunch of crap in the first little cave, as someone had obviously been staying in it, but the second one was free of debris of any kind. We decided not to try to go into any of these at this time, and continued on through the park to the south.
We soon came to some more rocks, this one with some sort of odd hole in it. I went over to find that it was one of those unique erosion holes.

Erosion rock

This was one of the largest ones I’d seen, in a sort of Schist rock. It was so perfect that it looked at first like someone might have drilled it in order to get some sort of anchor in, but that was not the case.
We continued to the south and gained some elevation, with more trails going off to the left and right. We passed a little camp site, and took the trail off to the left to get a nice view to the east. We then got on an unpaved foot path over to a more used wider path. This one took us out to Payson Avenue at Dyckman Street. We had to just go a block on Payson to get to Fort Tryon Park from the southern end of Inwood.

Inwood Hills view

We started heading up the regular pathway into Fort Tryon Park, which I’d done with the group before, in early 2010, but then saw an abandoned trail off to the side of that, leading generally to the same area, to the Cloisters, so since there was only three of us I decided we’d try it.

Abandoned trail to the Cloisters

The path wasn’t in really bad shape at all as far as trails are concerned that we are used to walking, but it was rather bad for some NY City standards. The steps were uneven and some sections busted up a bit. There were some sections of tree down over the steps, but it was nice this time of year because it provided a different seasonal view. We reached an access road, and the steps were clear on the other side leading up hill to The Cloisters.
The Cloisters are an amazing place, because they incorporate parts of five old European Abbeys that were dismantled and re-assembled in a new configuration with some modern buildings. The building was assembled in the 1930s to hold Rockafeller’s collection of European art including the famous Unicorn Tapestries.

The Cloisters

We continued on paths out to the front of the building, and the walkway along the top of the NY side cliffs. There are great views here of the Palisades cliffs in NJ, and the sun was starting to go down over them which was just amazing looking. We could see clearly up the river as well, with a calm blue on the water.

Sunset over the Palisades from Fort Tryon

We turned left along the top, heading to the giant archway where the entrance to the park is. Just beyond that is the Heather Garden.
The last time I was up there around 2010, I noted that there were some good looking paths down below all of them that we used on that loop hike, and I wanted to come back to explore them. Apparently many of them were closed.

Hudson view from Fort Tryon Park

This time, instead of the easy way, we headed across the stone arch, then turned right. Some paths led us out and around, and to a nice pavilion with a good Winter view. We then descended further to the base of the arch, which carries the access road to the Cloisters. We walked a path toward it, which employees had been dumping mulch on. They apparently don’t want anyone going that way. We continued through the arch, and there were steps to an abandoned trail on the left.

Abandoned trail on teh cliffs

The trail was really pretty nice. I believe the only reason it would be closed is because there is limited room within the stone culvert for people to walk. There were no real washouts or anything. We made our way up along the path, which came out to he main path above near the Heather Garden. Where it joined the other path, someone had been dumping tons of Christmas trees on it to deter people from walking it. We just walked on top of the wall.

Fort Tryon Park

Once we climbed over, we continued on the regular public path to the south. I had been through this one before, which loses some elevation and passes through an incredible section of stone arch along Henry Hudson Drive. Quite a beautiful spot. Uncle Soup particularly loved it.

Fort Tryon Park

The trail continued on the other side up somehow as I recall to the left, but we didn’t go that way. There obviously used to be a crosswalk or something over the highway, which is long gone. That area is blocked off as a sort of little garden. Another path goes straight along the cliffs, a bit narrower, to a little overlook of the Hudson that was really nice. There were no trespassing signs beyond there, but a trail continued with a fence over it.

Abandoned trail

We decided to try to follow this path too. I do remember seeing it very well. I don’t know why this one would be closed either, it was in pretty good shape save for some fallen branches and a few weeds. If it were opened, it’d certainly be clear.
The path was weird in that it came out right onto Cabrini Blvd at a closed gate. We simply climbed over it and were out.
While crossing over, there was a guy pushing a baby carriage that just turned around the other way. I laughed as he left, citing that he probably wanted NOTHING to do with these crazies coming over the gate!
We had discussed taking the subway south from this point and then the train back from Manhattan, but then I brought up how we’d handled the last hike, the first Sept. 11th National Memorial Trail one: we walked across the GW Bridge and took a bus to the light rail, and how easy it was. Plus it was only $3.30!
Uncle Soup and Dan were both up for this, so instead of the original plan of just walking to the subway, we improved the hike immensely and headed south to the George Washington Bridge.

Sunset from George Washington Bridge

We climbed to the bridge, and reminisced about how we walked across in 2010, and Uncle Soup ended up sitting by a girl shooting up heroin underneath the walkway. Craziness!
The sunset was absolutely outstanding from the bridge, with it’s orange against the dark sky and deep blue river.

View from the GW Bridge of Manhattan

The lights are always amazing on that bridge. We made our way all the way across and into Fort Lee NJ. The wind on the bridge this time of night made us quite a bit colder than we had been before, but overall the temperature wasn’t all that bad.
Once we got to the Fort Lee side, we turned left, also on the route of the Long Path, and headed just a little south to a right turn on Central Ave to Bigler Ave to Main Street. It was an easy short walk up to the bus stop in Fort Lee, and I remembered Euin telling us that the bus actually comes ever so many minutes. It’s among the most convenient places we’ve ever hiked!

GW Bridge

Sure enough, we barely had to wait any time at all, and the bus pulled up. I asked the guy if he was going to North Bergen Light Rail Station, and he said he was. On we went, and Uncle Soup was good enough to cover mine and Dan’s fares heading south!
The bus ride went by quick, and Uncle Soup said usually his luck doesn’t work out so good. Just as we got to the light rail station and crossed the tracks, the train pulled in, and with pretty much no waiting on the platform, we boarded the train and were headed south! This was just amazing.
I suppose it was a bit too amazing, because the train passed our station without stopping. We needed to get off at the Hoboken transfer spot, but this one continued on. Someone told us we just had to get off and get on the next northbound one to go through. That really hardly took any time either, and we were there.

NYC view

Where we got off of the train in Hoboken, there was a great view of the city. It was much easier than when I’d taken the train from this place in the past. We just got off and got to the regular Hoboken rail station in short order.
I noticed on the wall of the historic station a marker with an old photo, then noticed it was from the John Willever Collection. Mr. Willever lives only a few blocks from me in Washington, and I had the pleasure of hiking with him and covering some of the Lehigh and Oxford Railroad, and he showed me firsthand where exactly the original Lackawanna/Warren Railroad alignment went in Oxford.
I mentioned to the guys that this was an odd trip, or few trips, because the previous hike we had crossed the GW Bridge, we crossed it this time, and we’d be crossing it again on the very next hike, the next Sunday. I really never do such similar hikes so back to back, in order to keep things different.
The great thing about this was, it really wasn’t the same kind of hike at all. The waterfront from Battery Park north in NY is extremely different than the hike we did here, and both are far different than the waterfront on the Jersey side. They’re all really great hikes.

2016 is still proving to be one of the best starts to a new year yet, though I must say all of the fun we had in January 2015 was pretty outstanding. Although some of those Jersey Perimeter hikes turned off a lot of folks, some of them are a very tough act to follow....but we have some truly great stuff coming up.

Ham