Who says New York City is all pavement and buildings? Oh, that was me. NYC is far from my favorite place on this Earth. But, as you can read in this blog posting, only a short distance north of the city, there are wonderful hiking opportunities.
Of course, I recently wrote about my short, but beautiful hike in the Shawangunks. I will also never forget thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail and seeing the skyline of NYC (complete with the world trade towers back then), then camping in a remote section of the Bear Mountain area where we were surrounded by blueberry bushes resplendent with big, juicy ripe blueberries. My trail name was “Blueberry” so, I lived up to my reputation and devoured massive amounts. Rich had to pull me away to keep hiking. Then too, a thru-hiker we had recently met invited us to a party her friends were throwing in Bear Mountain State Park. They fed us – it was glorious, especially for ravenous thru-hikers. I have a photo of Rich sitting at a picnic table in Bear Mountain State Park with a shit-eating grin on his face. We were happy campers. Lemstar, the hiker in whose honor the party was thrown, is still a very good friend of ours, even though the hike was 11 years ago.
So, I take it back. The “greater” NYC area is not all pavement and buildings. I’ve enjoyed some wonderful hiking experiences there.
Yes there are some very nice areas there. I spent about 6 years near NYC.