First hike of the season; up Sugarloaf Mountain

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Last Friday morning we had our first hike up a hill. We made the 2 mile round trip up Sugarloaf, a couple of miles north of Cold Spring. Joe and I had gone up the 900 foot high “mountain” last May. Tom Faranda’s Folly: Tom and Joe’s Sunday climb up Sugarloaf

We decided it would be a relatively easy first hike of the spring, just to see how we’d go. It turned out well, with Karen Riner, her daughter Lauren (who’s graduating in a couple of months from Johns Hopkins with a BS in nursing), and first time walker-with-us (but otherwise experienced outdoors maven) Hallie Flanagan Wolfe. Lauren was along to get the average age of the group down … but it was still the wrong side of 50.

Again, Tom with four women. It’s a tough gig, but somebody’s got to do it.

Here’s Karen and Lauren. Or is it Lauren and Karen?

After walking uphill for only a few minutes, the Gang of Four decided they had too many layers on …

A serious crowd –

Here we are at the top, along with the Riner dog, Emi.

At this point, there was a interesting discussion between Hallie and Karen. karen is a fitness instructor, so Hallie asked her about how to do a proper push-up, and Karen asked hallie about composting…

Karen then demonstrated how to do a push-up – not the ladies variety from your knees, but the full-fledged masculine variety, with only your toes and hands touching the ground. She did a number of them, and Hallie then followed suit.

   

Here are some views from the top of Sugarloaf, taken by Karen. The first being the dead tree which is kind of the signature image from the top, as well as Emi’s tongue, and then a view south down the Hudson. the large hill across the river is Storm King.

 

We wandered around for awhile on the top of the ridge, and then the gardener in Hallie took over …

Sugarloaf_climb_31408_055

Here are a few views north. You can just about see the Newburgh-Beacon bridge in the haze in the second one.

 

And of course we then had to head down…

 

A good morning’s walk. A little more sun would have been nice, but otherwise just about perfect.

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Further proof that there is a God

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Beer Helps Prevent Alzheimer??s Researchers from the University of Alcala in Madrid, Spain, in a report published in the January, 2008 issue of Food and Chemical Toxicology, pointed out that aluminum is neurotoxic and has been implicated as a causal factor in Alzheimer’s disease. But beer contains silicon, a substance that affects the bioavailability of … Read more

Identical twins have identical genes, right? Well maybe not.

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I always accepted the conventional wisdom on this. The Claim: Identical Twins Have Identical DNA – New York Times It is a basic tenet of human biology, taught in grade schools everywhere: Identical twins come from the same fertilized egg and, thus, share identical genetic profiles. But according to new research, though identical twins share … Read more

Good baseball article: how to throw a changeup

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I’m not a NY Mets fan, but here’s a really neat feature about their newly acquired superstar pitcher, Johan Santana. And he’s a rarity – a pitcher whose strike-out pitch is a changeup. Santana’s Changeup: Hitters Never See It Coming – New York Times Six years after Santana began meticulously honing his four-seam grip as … Read more

A recovery story

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Recovery from sexual assault – from Christianity Today Very powerful – you have to read the whole thing Calling on the Saints | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction Some have suggested that the church was partly to blame for my rape. They have a point. My husband and I had moved into … Read more

Darfur Update: “Scorched earth”

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Lives in the balance – Scorched-Earth Strategy Returns to Darfur – New York Times SULEIA, Sudan — The janjaweed are back. They came to this dusty town in the Darfur region of Sudan on horses and camels on market day. Almost everybody was in the bustling square. At the first clatter of automatic gunfire, everyone … Read more