Long Path, Landing Road Southbound to Route 9W, Hudson Palisades

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
3/17/2018	7.7 miles	3 hours 52 minutes	2,146'		95.8

Map: NYNJTC Hudson Palisades Trails, Map 110

Parking: End of Landing Road where it is blocked off. There were many signs about dogs as we drove in. Areas where no dogs allowed. Signs saying dogs are allowed only May through September. My map says dogs aren't allowed on the bike paths.

Directions: Head south on the Long Path from the parking area. Hike to where the trail joins Route 9W. Turn around and head back on the Long Path. Turn right on white blazed side trail and take it to the road. Turn around and return to the Long Path. Turn right on the Long Path. Continue north. Turn left on yellow blazed side trail and take it to the road. Turn around and return to the Long Path. Turn left on the Long Path and return to parking area.

Our goal today was to find an 8 mile hike. We are trying to gradually increase our weekend hike mileage to prepare for a hiking vacation. We headed back to the Palisades area. Our hike looked a little short, so we added a couple of side trails to it. The white trail was muddy and overgrown - not really worth taking unless you are doing a loop with the bike path. The yellow trail was more snowy and brings you to a major road with a parking lot on the shoulder. It appears many people take the yellow trail to the view where it ends at the Long Path.

We figured there was enough snow meltage in the last week that we could get by with trail runners. My feet were so much happier. We ended up carrying microspikes, and actually used them at times. That's the first time I've worn microspikes with trail runners. They were a bit loose, but it worked well enough. The temps were around 28 degrees when we started. It felt windy, so at times it was quite bitter, especially since this is a ridge walk. At other times we were warm. We saw many more people than we did last week. Trails still were mixed conditions - dirt, snow, icy patches. We looked up a lot to see if we could spot any bald eagles, but sadly saw none. I was so thrilled last week to see my first one in this area. We mostly kept Trek on leash for this hike. There are some cliffy areas, plus we periodically would run into other people/dogs. I did catch someone's loose out of control dog for them (the dog wanted to visit Trek). This hike has nice views of the Hudson River and the Tappan Zee bridge.

Trek looking out at the Tappan Zee bridge