Bear Mountain Loop, Bear Mountain State Park

ate	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
2/17/2018	4 miles	2.5 hours			55.1

Map: NYNJTC Harriman North
Parking: Bear Mountain parking lot, near the children's playground
Directions: https://www.nynjtc.org/hike/bear-mountain-state-park-0

I had originally wanted to head down to NJ to do a longer easy hike today, but Glen didn't wake up early, and a snowstorm was predicted in the evening. In addition, we ran out of heating oil in the morning, so had to deal with that before we left. Glen chose this 4 mile Bear Mountain Loop. We've done this loop before - its not a long hike, but it is definitely challenging. We brought our microspikes just in case we encountered ice - but never ended up using them. This is hike is best left for a dry day with no ice/snow.

The Major Welch trail starts on pavement, passing next to the lake. Then it leaves the lake and starts climbing. The climbing is tough. I don't remember if I have taken Trek on this hike before. In general, this area tends to be crowded with people and other dogs - so we usually leave him home when we hike here. I kept Trek on leash until we got to the rock scrambles. I let him off leash to negotiate them by himself. He met a couple of buddies (the human kind) on the way up. Another woman we talked to said - this hike was a wake up call - after not hiking much over the winter. No kidding! I was panting going up.

There are some really nice views both going up the trail and at the summit. When we got close to the summit (where the trail gets easy), we started encountering more people and dogs. Trek did really well despite having dogs run up to him. He worries a lot about other dogs. The summit was cold and windy. We were wet with sweat from climbing. I had to put on extra layers at the top so we could sit for a while and enjoy the view. We didn't stay long. We headed to the AT (northbound). The trail was re-routed onto the summit road for a short ways. We then headed downhill back towards the Bear Mountain Inn. I'm not very fast going downhill. I realized partway down another reason its best to leave Trek at home for this hike. My knees started hurting. The trail down has a lot of stone steps (which are amazing!), but they are hard on my knees. I don't use trekking poles when I hike with Trek on leash, and I was really missing those poles to take some of the load off my knees.

This is a good training hike! We have some work to do before we have our next hiking vacation.

Bear Mountain Inn - I always think of the field next to it as the perfect ball throwing location for dogs

Part way up - looking down at the Hudson River and Bear Mountain Bridge