Hike #735; Nyack and Piermont Loop

 Hike #735; Nyack and Piermont Palisade Loop

11/3/13 Nyack and Piermont Palisades Loop with Jillane Becker, Jamie Becker, Brandan Jermyn, Justin Gurbisz, Michael "Lerch" Clark, Steve Levy, Mark Norman, Jennifer Berndt, Cory Salveson, Chris Herbig, Jack Lowry, Susie Duncan, Tom Vorrius, Janice S., Ellen ?, Terri Allen, Tim ?, George ?, Marcello ?, Nidal Ghanim, Ted Wright, Angela Wright, Monika Kwiecinska, "Maya" Beata Blatkiewicz, Bernie Fitzsimmons, Monika Kwiakinska, Serious Sean Dougherty, Daniel Stone, ?, ?.

The group on the Joseph Clarke Rail Trail

Our next hike would be a loop around the NY Palisades, a different variation on one I had done for Halloween 2010. At that time I had an idea of a loop I wanted to do around Nyack and Piermont following the Long Path south, then returning on the abandoned old Erie Railroad line. This time, I had a similar route following the parallel trails to the Long Path, retracing a few steps, and returning via the rail line along the west side of the Palisades formation rather than the east like before. I made the meeting point the Palisades Mall in West Nyack, along the hillside of the Mt. Moor Cemetery which is sorrounded by the mall parking lot.

Since it was the Halloween hike, we wore different crazy costumes, or some of us did. I wore the cape I'd gotten from Jillane in 2010, with black pants and a red velvet shirt. Herbig dressed up as "Quail Man" from the Doug cartoons. Serious Sean had a great Cat in The Hat Constume with a skateboard. Lerch had his suit with the white mask. We must have looked like quite a bunch. A security guard pulled up to us and asked what was going on when he saw us all there.

This hike ended up being an interesting character study. There is a fine line between people who are part of the Metrotrails "Family" and those who have come out for the first time from different groups. It's also different when someone comes from an organized group as opposed to those who come through friends. In that way the group grows in more of an Athenian Greek way, with the stories of our adventures told as they would be in a pre-literate culture (note that I say "pre-literate", not "illiterate", because the ancient Greeks were not stupid by any means, they simply did not have written language). Like the Homeric epics, our stories are told to friends who want to be a part of it, and people come in with the idea that this will be great, or crazy, or whatever picture is drawn by those who tell of it.

In contrast, some of the participants come through organized groups, where descriptions with mileages and schedules are drawn out, and questions are answered weeks before the hike takes place. Like the latter day interpretations of myths, what gets put down in print solidifies itself as fact in the minds of those who do not know any better. These are the people who have it engrained in their minds that only boots must be worn hiking, cotton is evil, and going off marked trails is too dangerous. Often times, worlds collide and the "proper" hikers are drawn into our world where the fabricated rules do not exist, where the stories of where we've been are told in all their glory, lavishly illustrated in words by those who have joined us. Those hikers take the step from their image of hiking to join a different family. Still, some prefer their own predefined image.

We started this loop by walking Rt 59 along the south side of the mall. Without him noticing (probably because of this blinding white sock thing he wore over his face in addition to a suit), I put the "Michael Clark for Mayor" signs on Lerch's car, the ones I'd picked up in south Jersey previously.

We had to stop by a Dunkin Donuts I think it was because just about everyone had to use the restroom. With such a large group it always takes forever. There were over thirty out of fifty something that signed up online. While everyone was waiting around, I climbed a large metal container with Justin and Lerch. There was some industrial center where there was stuff Justin was interested in climbing.

We continued over Rt 303 and and then turned right on Greenbush Road. This took us past some sort of yard with interesting art stuff on display, then eventually to the trail head to Buttermilk Falls County Park. We kept to the left out of the parking lot on the blue blazed trail, which was well built into rocks as it made it's initial ascent. It took us up over a slope, then to a level area where the outlook was to Buttermilk Falls. It was disappointingly dry on this day. We walked out onto some of the rock outcrops along the falls before moving on.

The trail continued up hill to a couple of nice overlooks. The first one was somewhat obscured by trees, but the second was a great overlook to the southwest. We took a quick break here and then continued down hill, on the narrower trail leading to the White Trail. We turned left here, and then began to climb again to cross Schuyler Road. The White Trail continued to the trail leading into Blauvelt State Park and the former Tweed National Guard training place.

We followed the trail across the Bradley Parkway, and eventually it intersected with the Long Path. We followed the Long Path for a little bit, and then when the trail turned right, we continued straight to visit the tunnels and target walls.

The state park is situated on an area that was once a firing range. This system of tunnels paralleled target walls to allow for the safe passage of troops while gunfire was happening. The entrance to the tunnel appeared before us soon. The first one was by far the longest, and really cool to go through. Everyone in the group did it this time except Jillane who tried to walk along the top. She got to the other side but there was no way down, and she had to take the trail.

We went all the way through the tunnel, singing along with Jack who played the guitar all the way through. The tunnel comes out in a room with an almost completely gone old stair case about thirty feet up. Somehow, Justin had already managed to get up there by this point, and was holding onto this awful contraption! We had to go through one room, then get out by way of a hole in the concrete wall parallel with one of the target walls.

We followed the target walls, with a couple more abandoned buildings to the right until we came back to the Long Path. Jack handed off his guitar to climb through at one point, at which point Serious Sean surprised us with his ability to play, as he began shredding on the carbon fiber beast!

From here, there was a second tunnel I'd not gone all the way through yet. A few of us decided to go for it, and there was an easy hole to climb out of on the other side. A lot of  us managed to get out the hole. It had to be done this way because the tunnel had completely collapsed ahead.

After we got everyone together, we sent them ahead on the Long Path, while Justin, Lerch, and I went off to explore a different route a bit more. Justin had found the mouth of another of the old tunnels with a giant tree growing over the top. We went through this one, which had giant spiders it it, and it led to yet another target wall to the right. We followed the target wall which led to another protective barrier, but not with a tunnel. This one had stairs and such going down and then through doors to the other side. We checked all of these out following that wall to the left. Beyond this last wall there was another building we went inside. It had some sort of way into the bottom of it, but we didn't mess around for too long. I'd been in cell contact with the rest of the group and sent them ahead. The three of us would have to bushwhack a cut off to try to meet up with them.

We were now in view of houses from nearby developments, so we had to go left in order to get back to the Long Path. It got somewhat overgrown with multiflora rose and such on the way through, but I managed not to rip any clothing fighting through. This led us to a woods road that we thought might get us through. This was probably the old Camp Bluefields Road. There were a few people walking it, and we asked them how to get through. What it boils down to was that they were clueless where we were trying to get to, and they told us to go a way that would have taken a long time to get back around to where we were going. I don't know that they totally understood that we were going to Piermont even when we left.

We continued across the road bushwhacking, and we eventually hit the Long Path. We headed south to cross Marisco Court, then continued into Tackamack Park North, which was named for Tackamack, the Native American who changed his name to Jans Claus and acted as a deal maker between colonists and his tribe (though many believe he had no right to do so).

We continued on the Long Path, which took us by an old dam and pond, which we of course had to check out. We managed to keep going rather quickly through this property to reach the parking area on Clausland Mountain Road, named for the same Native American mentioned before.

All back together, we continued on the Long Path south from here, ready to turn left at the next orange blazed trail that would take us around an old Nike Missile Defense site. We all missed the first orange trail, which must have been obscure. I called ahead for everyone to stop, that we'd missed the trail and had to pay better attention to the next one. Marcello went way ahead and I couldn't get a hold of him. I put my number on the meetup group so he could catch us.

We found the other end of the orange blazed trail, which would work fine and we'd use it to get where I wanted to go in a slightly different route.

The orange trail took us out to another parking area on an access road, and the blue blazed trail headed into the woods to do a lollipop loop from there. We followed it all the way around the loop and almost made it to the parking area, but didn't see the unmarked trail I was planning to follow to the left, heading to the south.

We started bushwhacking and just randomly walking along the slope about where it should have been parallel with more of the former Nike Missile Base. Around the south side of the mountain we began to see old white blazes, on tags, that were never removed. I let everyone regroup at this point, and there was a nice somewhat obscured view to the south of the NY City skyline. We continued to follow the abandoned trail down hill from this point, which joined the Long Path once more, with all blazes closest to that trail removed.

We continued on the Long Path through the Rockland Cemetery. The trail took us out to Castle Road, and then on to Rt 9W. It went right here briefly, then left onto a clear path through the woods down hill to Crescent Road. The trail followed back streets to the Old Erie Path and Piermont Train Station, now a museum. We headed down hill from here on a nice descending path to I think it was Tate Avenue in Piermont where we stopped for some delicious pizza. I had a couple of amazing slices. While heading down hill, Serious Sean took quite a spill with his skateboard. Fortunately he seemed ok.

A few of us went and got drinks further up the street as well. Lerch got some sort of strong concoction which was really funny. Brandan, who is of Polish ethnicity, delivered a prologue to a joke that also served as the punch line while we walked: "So...A Polock, a  Wizard, and a Mormon walk into a liquor store...". I couldn't stop laughing at that one all day.

I got everyone together and we were soon on our way. We headed back up the Long Path to the Old Erie Path and turned left. The trail took us out under Rt 9W to the village of Sparkill, at which point we turned right onto the Joseph B. Clarke Rail Trail. The first section was an unimproved but clear pathway, then it led to the paved main part of the rail trail. It crossed King's Highway and then continued for a long stretch parallel with a utility clearing. It eventually gained some elevation to cross over Rt 303. The trail then ended at Greenbush Road.

As we entered Orangeburg, we turned right onto the active freight rail line headed north.

We followed the tracks for a while, and during the time two fast moving trains blew by us. That was a little nerve wracking. One of the trains going by killed a raccoon, or at least mortally wounded it. It was flailing about, and fortunately Tom was able to put it out of it's misery. That was definitely the most awful part of the hike. I wasn't expecting this track to be as active as it was, and so when we reached the Bradley Hill Road area, we turned off. A few turned off earlier than this and headed off to walk along 303. Eric managed to get to a diner, at which point 303 wasn't really safe to walk, so we agreed to go back and get him at the end.

We headed out to Western Highway, Rt 15 on the west side of the tracks, then continued north from there back to Rt 59. We crossed over the road and turned right on West Nyack Road. We were able to walk across the tracks on the path to connect to the other side, but three of the newbies opted not to go on even though we could see the mall. One guy was hurting pretty badly, and so George helped us by picking them up.

The traffic was pretty bad getting back up the entrance road to the mall.  Had I known it would be so bad, I would have used a different lot below as the meeting point for safety purposes. Still, we managed to get back to to the cars safely, and picked up Eric to get him back. Right next to his car, someone had a major fender bender in the lot. Fortunately none of our cars were messed up.

Some participants in this hike never returned for more. We can't please everyone. The premise of these hikes is that they are for everyone, but the events themselves are only for those open to enjoying something a little more extreme, and I'm fine with this. I accept that these people are not the ones who embrace the lore of the group. They are like the Roman post-literate cultures when I compare once again to Classical Mythology, who focus more on formality of written words than the ceremonious presentation of the engaged people.

They can have their way, I will have mind, and we can go in peace.