Quick walk – Bear Mountain Bridge and Park

Yesterday I had a quick solo afternoon walk over Bear Mountain Bridge and into the Bear Mountain State Park, The Appalachian Trail literally goes through the picnic area of the Park, before turning up to the west and over Bear Mountain.

If some of this seems familiar, well this was last November Walkin’ the Bear Mountain Bridge 

Looking west, from the east end of the bridge – that little inlet …

And north. The green bump is Sugarloaf hill, not to be confused with the other Sugarloaf in the Hudson Highlands, which is about eight (?) miles further north up the east side of the river. For great views from the further north Sugarloaf Mountain go here and/or here.

 

Spot the bear. This is literally the lowest point (120 ft.) on the entire Appalachian Trail – see the sign in the next picture.

 

See?

Hessian Lake in Bear Mountain State park. The AT runs along the edge of this popular spot for picnickers coming up from NY City.

The picture below was taken at the base of the wide trail that starts up Bear Mountain from the picnic and play area. It describes all the work done over the course of three years (I’d read about it in the AT Journeys bi-monthly magazine which members of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy get) to re-route and repair the Trail going over Bear Mountain. I still have not done that portion of the NY Appalachian Trail (but it’s coming up!) and it will be very interesting to go down the huge stone steps that were built on the southwest side of Bear Mountain.

Here’s the view looking south from the bridge, as I went back to the car on the east side.

Total walk took 66 leisurely minutes. The AT guidebook said the round trip was 2.6 miles; but it didn’t feel quite that far.