Hike #478 4/4/10
4/4/10 Hudson Palisades; Rockleigh/State Line/Tallman Mountain loop with Jillane Becker, Kyle Zalinsky, Amanda Rosenblatt, Eric Pace, Wayne Meiner, Jim "Mr. Buckett" Mathews, Carol Creamer, Rob Creamer, Chris "Cupcake" Kroschinski, Dana Miscia, "DJ Ray" Cordts, Chris Herbig, Russ "Lord Byron" Rapp, and Brian Connel.
The group along the Long Path, Tallman Mountain State Park
This hike would be another Palisades area loop, this time covering our first really significant section of Long Path on the Palisades within NY state and sorrounding parklands!
Like the other Palisades section hikes, I made this one a loop. We began at Rockleigh Nature Center, where the trailhead was right behind the Rockleigh Boro Hall I think it was.
Once everyone was together, we started heading up the trail. To see an excellent map of the preserve, check here:
http://www.nynjtc.org/files/RockleighLamontTrailMap_BW_2010.pdf
For a map of the Hudson Palisades in the area check here:
http://www.njpalisades.org/2008_map03.pdf
We started on the blue Hutcheon Trail, then turned soon right on Sneden-Haring-Lamont Trail. We continued on this past Sneden Ice Pond and turned left onto Roaring Ravine Trail and began ascending. While heading up, Jillane ripped her dress or something and had to go back. I gave her my car keys and she headed out to the mall to find something better.
The rest of us continued up to the end of this trail, then turned right onto Lamont Rock Trail. The trail had left Rockleigh Woods and entered the Lamont Reserve.
In the Lamont Reserve, Bergen Co NJ
We left the Lamont Reserve and followed a woods road, some of which had some blazes, into the Alpine Scout Camp property. It looked seldom used. The first building we came to was easy to get into. I think I climbed in through a window and we all went in to hang out for a while. The upper level balcony part strangly had no steps or a ladder to it, we had to climb to get up!
Building in Alpine Scout Camp
After we left this place, the road out there became much nicer. It led out to a parking area of the scout camp. We took a break here and then followed a connector trail that led over to the highway, 9W, and then over the Palisades Interstate Parkway via footbridges. The connector trail intersected the Long Path near the Womens Federation Monument castle. We took a break here, then took a side trip south along the unmarked trail along the cliffs to a sort of peninsula of rock that had another view we'd not yet seen. We then went back on the Long Path. Kyle and Amanda continued south on the Long Path thinking that was the route I'd take. Kyle was like that, he liked to get ahead, and he didn't like it when he was wrong about something. For most things he had good sense and we didn't have to argue about much at all. He picked his battles well.
We continued back on the Long Path north to State Line Lookout. I hurried ahead of the group to meet up with Jillane, who parked at that point to join us.
At State Line Lookout, NJ Palisades
We stopped at the concession for a while to get some nourishment, and then continued along the Long Path north. We crossed the state line and descended a bit over the incredible stone steps.
Stone steps on the Hudson Palisades, Long Path
There were fantastic views in this area, and we soon reached High Gutter Point, one of the best of the day with vertical standing rocks and great views north to the Tappan Zee Bridge.
View along the Long Path, Hudson Palisades just over the NY line
View from High Gutter Point, Hudson Palisades
We continued down from here along more steps and such, then crossed a stream to where the Shore Trail left the Long Path. I'd already covered the Long Path out to the road before, as Kyle, Wyatt Hassler, and I ran it on the previous Palisades hike.
Eric and Wayne were concerned about the ascent coming up (and they were right to be), and so I gave them directions on how to meet up with us further on by staying slow on the Long Path. The rest of us continued down the Shore Trail steeply.
At the bottom, we reached Peanut Leap Falls at the ruins of the Italian Garden known as Lawrence Garden.
Peanut Leap Falls and the ruins of the Lawrence Italian Garden
The Peanut Leap Cascate is one of the most beautiful falls I've ever seen.
Swing at Peanut Leap Falls on the Hudson
We hung out here for a while. A few of us let the water from the falls run over us, while Jillane tried out the swing she liked.
Italian Garden and Peanut Leap Falls area.
Brian and I both tried climbing up the rope swing and being a little nutty. I knew this guy was going to fit in with the group just fine.
I got the group back together and we moved on upstream along the Hudson for a short distance, off trail.
At the bottom of the Hudson Palisades just over the NY line
We continued below the cliffs until I could see houses just to the north of us. It was then we began climbing up. It was incredibly steep, and all of the rock was very loose. A fall would likely kill anyone. Furthermore, large loose rocks that were falling down could also have taken out anyone. I asked everyone to fan out along the slope as not to hit anyone directly behind them with loose falling rocks. I was able to get up pretty quick, but I went back to help Jillane, although she was handling it very well.
Climbing the Palisades off trail
I gave Kyle a hard time for bouncing around on a large rock that was directly above Jillane. He got really angry with me, saying "What do you think I'm going to try to kill Jillane???" Of course I knew he wasn't trying, but from my angle it looked like what he was doing was dangerous. I was really worried and realized we should never have tried this route, but I couldn't have known just how bad it was going to be. Even Carol and Rob's dog Bruce was having a really tough time getting up. We kept with him and made sure he got up alright too. Mr. Buckett was injured on his way up, I think he got hit in the head, and I think Herbig was hurt too. Once everyone was to the top, at the Lamont Doherty Observatory, we took a long break. Some of the group tried going down hill to the left, though we were supposed to go to the right. We had to wait for everyone to regroup. I apologized to Kyle for freaking out, and kept hugging him, but he didn't seem to receptive to it.
We headed through the property on some little roads, then into the woods on a small trail on the observatory property. The trail turned back toward Rt 9W, and so I realized we'd better bushwhack right more. We ended up somehow on the end of someone's driveway. I thought we were in trouble when I saw someone working, but it was just spanish speaking laborers doing groundskeeping. We continued out and were soon on Ludlow Lane. We turned left on Washington Spring Road, then right onto Woods Road. We followed this road for a while, and it was all private properties. The very last one I think had a big gate over it and we almost didn't go in. It was a good thing we kept going because we soon came to the direct trail connection to Tallman Mountain State Park.
We came to the bike path section of the state park, and turned right on it Somewhere in here we were reunited with Eric and Wayne, and we turned off the Bike Path and onto the unmarked side trail that went right along the cliffs to a great view.
Overlook on Hudson Palisades, Tallman Mountain State Park
We could see the grassy marshlands along the Hudson, and up river toward the Tappan Zee Bridge. This section seemed different than past Palisades views because of all the marshland in the foreground. We took a good long break here.
Overlook in Tallman Mountain State Park NY
Tallman Mountain State Park NY
From here, we continued on the unmarked trail out to the Long Path. When we reached that, we turned left heading back. The trail stayed inland from the cliffs, but not by much at first. It then turned right sharply and went through a section ful of berms and empoundment areas that existed for reasons unknown. Some sort of agriculture?
Group shot on the Long Path, Tallman Mountain State Park NY
The Long Path led us south through this weird area of berms out to the bike path further up, near some ruins of some sort, mainly just foundations. We continued along the bike path section out to Rt 9W. On this section, Kyle and Dana had a sprint race. Dana Miscia is an INCREDIBLE runner. She not only runs every day, she attends races on a regular basis. Kyle had begun smoking again, after a while of being a non smoker, in the Winter of 09, so one would not think that he stood a chance at beating someone like Dana. Still, Kyle was a guy with incredible energy and stamina, and though he was losing some of his energy and drive in recent months, he could still deliver like he did here. I can't believe he beat Dana. I'm sure she would have smoked him on distance, but Kyle had so much potential to do better. When we met we were making plans to run the Boston Marathon together. Then when he started smoking again that fell through.
After reaching 9W, the Long Path followed it south for a ways.
We continued through the Hamlet of Palisades, though no stores of any kind were open for us to get any food. Just after the intersection in this area we turned left into a day care school or some sort where the LP entered the woods again. We made use of the faucet on the side of the building to refill our water jugs. We needed it badly!
The trail took us through a somewhat wet area and then onto an old road, probably a former route of 9W. It then came out to the highway briefly and descended to a lowland below it. A lot of us missed that the trail went down there at first, and walked a bit of the highway. It was a good thing we did, because we found a very nice pair of Vans that were just Lord Byron's size!
Lord Byron got him some new shoes I tell ya!
We got back on the pathway just below the road, which was surprisingly prettier than I thought it'd be. I thought the entire section would be a road walk but it turned out to be quite nice.
Along the Long Path parallel with Rt 9W, Palisades NY
When the Long Path went back into Palisades Interstate Park, we continued along 9W to get underneath the PI Parkway. Amanda had lost her phone I think it was earlier, and they were going to bring it down to the gate house of the Lamont Doherty Observatory, along the Long Path, but it was not there when we arrived. We waited for a little bit, but we all wanted to move on. Kyle told Amanda he'd wait there for the phone to come, then run to catch up with us. He was annoyed with Amanda, and he'd bellyache that she forgets everything. I also remember thinking I'd make the same suggestion, knowing that if it came down to it I would be able to run to catch up. Kyle and I were so different, but had so much in common.
Passing under Palisades Interstate Parkway on Rt 9W
After passing under the PI Parkway, we looked on the right for the entrance to a woods road I saw on my areal images. I knew there was a road that once connected to what's now Lamont Reserve and so we were going to find it. We crossed over just past a gated roadway, then came to a paved abandoned road. It soon ended at a wide circular area, maybe intended at one time to be a cul de sac. We continued down hill from here along the abandoned rocky woods road. It became difficult to see, but we eventually came to the yellow blazed Lamont-Haring-Sneden Trail. We turned right and followed it, partially along an old woods road, back to Rockleigh. Kyle called me on his cell to tell me he'd gotten Amanda's phone, and was running to us. Before we'd even reached the yellow blazed trail he was in the woods on his way to us! I thought he might even catch us before we reached the parking area, but we got there just barely first.
Playing on the playground at Rockleigh
We goofed around on the playground until Kyle showed up, which didn't take long. Then Kyle and I wrestled in the grass for a bit. I had the upper hand though, because he'd just run quite some distance. We both had frustration to get out. He was goofing off on the ride in, and I ended up getting my first speeding ticket on Rt 80, which I fought in court and got reduced.
Still, we finished up the day on a good note and were all happy again.
Rockleigh NJ playground
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