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

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
03/11/2018	6.5 miles	4 hours 8 minutes	1,715 feet

Map: NYNJTC Hudson Palisades Trails, Map 111

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: The trail crosses Landing Road right next to the parking area. Hike north on the Long Path to Route 9W. Hike back the same way.

I was eager to get out and try hiking somewhere new today. We had to stay local, so I chose this part of the Long Path. We've never hiked here before, surprisingly. We decided to wear boots. Oh how my feet long for trail runners! Soon, very soon. This hike has lots of hills, so it provided a good workout. The snow conditions varied - from bare ground to postholing in 10" of snow. It wasn't worth bringing snowshoes, because everyone else had already postholed, and the deeper snow sections didn't last long. The snow was slushy, but we both weren't feeling like microspikes. Hiking was slow, less than 2 mph. I want to move faster! It was definitely good training though. We hiked down to 9W, where the trail meets a side trail to the bike path that can be used to form a loop back. From what I read, dogs aren't allowed on any bike paths here. I did look down and saw dogs on the bike path though. We decided to hike back the way we came and not take the bike path. We'd get a better workout that way after all. This hike is on a ridge, with good views of the Hudson River.

On the way back, I looked up and saw a bald eagle sitting in a tree right in front of us. Neither of us have seen one in the wild, so we were just star struck. It was large and stunning. It watched us. I tried to quiet Trek's jingling tags, but the eagle decided to fly off. Glen wasn't able to get a photo of it in the tree, but did get a blurry photo of it flying away.

Glen's Strava app and my Garmin watch had very different mileage for our hike. I did some research and found this very helpful guide which has mileages: https://www.nynjtc.org/book/long-path-guide-softcopy. We didn't quite make our 7 mile goal today, and Glen was feeling too tired (heavy boots suck), so we ended back at the parking lot instead of trying to add in extra hiking.

Trailhead

Old cemetary

Bald eagle taking off