Red Trail loop, Ward Pound Ridge

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
10/28/2017	6.2 miles	2 hours 12 minutes	714'

Map: Pick up a map when you pay for parking

Parking: Enter park, pay for parking and keep driving straight until you see a sign for Michigan Road. Turn right on Michigan Road, and park at the end of the road (lower parking area). There is plenty of parking. Cost is $10 without a Westchester County Parks Pass. $5 with a Parks Pass.

Directions: Red trail loop.

After being sick last weekend, I was eager to get on the trail today. We needed to do a local hike, so we planned a hike in Harriman. As we were driving there, my car started sounding odd. We had just had our brakes replaced. We stopped, took a look at the area where the noise was coming from, and couldn't figure it out. We continued on, but the car was just not sounding right and getting worse, so turned around and headed back home before we reached Harriman. We tried to stay on back roads so we could drive at slower speeds. Once at home, we figured out the problem. The dealer had only tightened the lug nuts on 3 out of the 4 tires. The lug nuts on one tire had only been hand tightened and were becoming quite loose. Yikes! Hopefully this didn't cause any damage.

After fixing the tire, we had less time, and I didn't feel like driving far. We ended up heading over to Ward Pound Ridge. I generally try to avoid Ward Pound Ridge on weekends. It's usually a place I reserve for after work hiking in the evenings. Or winter hiking when I need to stay local. When we arrived, the parking area was packed. Oh dear. We had Trek with us, and knew we'd have to keep him on leash, which we normally do anyways at this park. We started out, and there were people ahead of us and behind us on the trail. Ugh. Way too many people. I had to stop multiple times in the first half mile to let other dogs pass us. So many people. Luckily after we passed the intersection with the Leatherman's Loop, the human traffic slowed down. There were a lot of leaves on the trail, yet there were still some green leaves on the trees. We did manage to take a wrong turn. Both Glen and I were embarrassed. This park is so well blazed and somehow we ended up taking a wrong turn at a T intersection. We've done so much hiking at this park, its easy to not pay attention.

Trek was glad to be out, despite being on leash. We didn't take him to Vermont, so it's been too long since he's gotten to hike. I tried out a new pair of Salomon trail runners. I like Altras, but I wonder if all of the falls I had in Vermont were at all related to me trying a different model of them. The Salomons feel comfortable except for the arch support. Next time I wear them, I'll try switching the insoles.

This is a very popular park. This hike was easy. This trails are very clearly blazed. The map also has numbers at intersections which correspond to numbers posted on trees.

If Trek looks kind of hesitant, it's because Glen never really walks with him on leash. Trek is confused, because I'm always the one at the end of the leash.