Up Beacon Mountains; 1st summer hike!

UPDATE: My friend Karen (another Faranda Partnership Hiker {FPH}) sent me this – Mt Beacon Incline Railway  

Wow, this past Saturday what a great day hike, with my hiking buddy Jeanne Marie (our wonderful spouses both opted out, or rather never opted in). Here’s the wiki for Beacon Mountains. And here’s an excellent description of the full hike, including distances, and elevations – Hike the Hudson Valley – Mt. Beacon

From Beacon North Mountain

If I’d known what an under 4-hour-or-so-up-and-down this was, I’d be doing it every summer.

Not without it’s funny bits – I thought we were going up South Mountain first, and only figured out we’d gone up North Mountain when we checked a compass as we headed to the second mountain, and figured it out …  Not exactly Hawkeye/Daniel Boone stuff.

Then on the way down from South Mountain, made a wrong left turn, for a 30 minute total delay. As we were backtracking a couple near the turnoff also started down the wrong way, because they were “following us.” Bad idea.

Plenty of people made the first part of the hike – up North Mountain – without any equipment or bag. As you can see, the view from there is tremendous. It is a straight up hike and took us just over 45 minutes to get to the viewing area (you can’t go all the way to the top, with it’s communications towers). It’s about a 2 and a half mile round trip. As we were going up, we were passed by a guy running up (in his mid 40’s) who also passed us as he was going down – and we were still going up.

At the top of North Mountain are the remains of an incline railway, which used to bring people up to a casino and hotel.

JM and I. She makes the picture. Duh.

From the North Mountain prominence, at 1210 feet.

The bridge of course is the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge.

Most people don’t go on to the higher South Mountain, which is one mile south, but we did. At 1610 feet I think It’s the highest point in New York, east of the Catskills.

On the way to South Mountain I snapped this – very rare when a couple is sharing a backpack for the lady to be carrying it. BUT he told me “Sir, I usually carry our three year old.”

The southern top with Jeanne Marie taking the lead to the tower.

Some views – not quite as neat as from North Mountain.

From south Mountain, here’s the top of North Mountain – with the communications stuff.

Below, looking southwest and zooming in; the crest just to the right of center of the picture is Storm King, on the other side of the Hudson. Storm King is facing Breakneck Ridge – you can see the lush green back of Breakneck.

A further zoom-in to Storm King. The rocky outcropping between 1 & 2 o’clock in the picture – Jeanne Marie and I had our picture taken there last summer!

And here is that picture, from June 16th, last year.

Top of the tower – and it was a little scary with the wind!

Straight down the tower. Weird being up there …

A couple of things we spotted on the way back – this is for you, Kathy.

And this guy! Just as we were getting back to South Mountain, Jeanne Marie spotted him/her?

I call it a black snake, but JM says it’s a “black rat snake”. Because it eats rats, I guess.

A good five feet long.

the walk back down was uneventful. Total round trip about five miles (including our getting lost down the wrong trail) or a bit more. It was a leisurely four hours in gorgeous weather. Will have to bring Brigid up this summer.