Or how I missed the 9:21 train by arriving at 9:20...
Date: September 23, 2012
Location: Harriman State Park, NY
Fall has almost arrived in NY/NJ. The persistent humidity that was the bane of July and August is gone. There is a mellowness in the weather now ("season of mists and mellow fruitfulness"?) which makes this a perfect time for a hiking excursion. Today seemed exceptionally so. There had been some rainfall last night and as I hurried out of my apartment building this morning, the air was bracing and had a "washed clean" freshness. It was my intent to catch the 9:21 a.m. to Tuxedo and then follow the Kakiat/HTS/etc/etc. trails to Lake Wanoksink. But alas, I (who usually arrive excessively early to catch planes and even trains) was overconfident, and left barely in time to arrive at Hoboken Terminal at 9:20 a.m. The 9:21 was nowhere to be seen...I had missed it! If only I had anticipated a greater than one minute clock skew between my cellphone's time and NJT's...
The next train to Tuxedo being 2 hours later, I decided to take the 9:25 a.m. to Suffern instead and do a mini-hike on the Suffern-Bear Mountain (SBM) trail (on which I had done a longer hike last year). The southern stretch of the SBM is not the most interesting trail around, and I was not particularly enthused at the thought of repeating some of it, but the weather was too splendid to give up on a hike completely. Having arrived in Suffern around 10:40, I made my way to the trailhead (follow Chestnut, turn left on Lafayette, turn right on Orange, walk along past the underpass, staying to the right side of the road, to get to the trailhead), and headed up. This stretch of the SBM is evidently infrequently hiked...the trail was not in great shape and there were thorny shrubs growing all over. It took me barely 10 min to get to the first viewpoint (an exposed ledge overlooking the NYS thruway). There is a second one marked on the trail map a little higher. I did not plan to go much further on the trail today and so I spent time exploring the sequence of exposed ledges between these two viewpoints more thoroughly than last time, and realized that there are actually several viewpoints in between that offer slightly different views. I finally found a perch on one of them and idled for almost an hour before heading back. I boarded the 1:12 p.m. at Suffern which actually got delayed by half an hour (now couldn't this have happened with the 9:21 a.m. instead?). However, I did eventually get back with enough time and energy left to do some Sunday afternoon chores, and so all's well that end's well, I guess!
Date: September 23, 2012
Location: Harriman State Park, NY
Fall has almost arrived in NY/NJ. The persistent humidity that was the bane of July and August is gone. There is a mellowness in the weather now ("season of mists and mellow fruitfulness"?) which makes this a perfect time for a hiking excursion. Today seemed exceptionally so. There had been some rainfall last night and as I hurried out of my apartment building this morning, the air was bracing and had a "washed clean" freshness. It was my intent to catch the 9:21 a.m. to Tuxedo and then follow the Kakiat/HTS/etc/etc. trails to Lake Wanoksink. But alas, I (who usually arrive excessively early to catch planes and even trains) was overconfident, and left barely in time to arrive at Hoboken Terminal at 9:20 a.m. The 9:21 was nowhere to be seen...I had missed it! If only I had anticipated a greater than one minute clock skew between my cellphone's time and NJT's...
The next train to Tuxedo being 2 hours later, I decided to take the 9:25 a.m. to Suffern instead and do a mini-hike on the Suffern-Bear Mountain (SBM) trail (on which I had done a longer hike last year). The southern stretch of the SBM is not the most interesting trail around, and I was not particularly enthused at the thought of repeating some of it, but the weather was too splendid to give up on a hike completely. Having arrived in Suffern around 10:40, I made my way to the trailhead (follow Chestnut, turn left on Lafayette, turn right on Orange, walk along past the underpass, staying to the right side of the road, to get to the trailhead), and headed up. This stretch of the SBM is evidently infrequently hiked...the trail was not in great shape and there were thorny shrubs growing all over. It took me barely 10 min to get to the first viewpoint (an exposed ledge overlooking the NYS thruway). There is a second one marked on the trail map a little higher. I did not plan to go much further on the trail today and so I spent time exploring the sequence of exposed ledges between these two viewpoints more thoroughly than last time, and realized that there are actually several viewpoints in between that offer slightly different views. I finally found a perch on one of them and idled for almost an hour before heading back. I boarded the 1:12 p.m. at Suffern which actually got delayed by half an hour (now couldn't this have happened with the 9:21 a.m. instead?). However, I did eventually get back with enough time and energy left to do some Sunday afternoon chores, and so all's well that end's well, I guess!
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| Leaves glow in the sunlight... |
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| Serpentine highways bisect the landscape |
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| Pretty leaves |
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| Fall cometh... |
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| Trains in NJT's Suffern yard |
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| A bumblebee buzzes around some wildflowers |
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| Photographer's shadow (with wildflowers) |
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