Nikon Overlook Park, Clausland Mountain County Park, Blauvelt State Park, Sean Hunter Ryan Memorial County Park, and Stephen Rowe Bradley Town Park

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
3/31/2017	9.5 miles	1,656'

Map: NYNJTC Hudson Palisades, Map 109

Parking: Nike Overlook Park, road off of Tweed Boulevard

Directions: From parking area, take short blue loop. Return to parking area. Cross the street onto the orange blazed trail. Where the trail splits, turn left on the orange trail. Turn right (northbound) onto the Long Path. Stay on the Long Path until it intersects with a white blazed trail in Sean Hunter Ryan Memorial County Park. Turn left on the white blazed trail. Pass an orange blazed trail but stay on the white blazed trail. Cross Bradley Hill Road and start following a red blazed trail. Turn right onto a white blazed trail. Turn right onto the Long Path. Take a left at the second intersection of the orange trail in Nike Overlook Park. Return to car.

Our goal today was to hike 10 miles. Our map doesn't have mileage on it, so we just had to guess. We only came up .5 mile short, so we did pretty good. I find the trails around the Palisades hit or miss. Some of them are nice, some of them are too trashy for me. I mostly liked this loop hike. We saw a few walkers and a few mountain bikers. The main part I didn't like was passing through an area for an old firing range and target walls. This area had a ton of graffiti. The cement walls were particularly targeted. Trees in the area were also spray painted. I kind of wish they'd just remove the old wall and cut down the vandalized trees. Make the area pristine, in hopes that vandals would lose interest. The rest of the hike was pretty nice. This hike had a few road crossings, but no road walks. We left the Long Path shortly before it would become a road walk. I did keep Trek mostly on leash. I let him off a little and he raced way in front of us. I wasn't so happy about that so put him back on leash. He's got way too much energy this spring. It must be the limited winter hiking - maybe he has spring fever. The highlight of the hike was seeing a red fox with a big bushy tail in front of us. It trotted away and then stopped and watched us.

Today I tried yet another new pair of shoes. They are Salomon's. My original Salomon's are size 7.5. The toe box is a little narrow and the shoe is too short, but overall, I like the shoe. I decided to go up a full size, to 8.5. I wore them today for the first time. Woohoo - my toes felt fine. I wasn't hitting the front of the shoe. The width was tolerable. But......after a couple of miles I could feel my fascia tearing in my arch. I've had plantar fasciitis twice before, so this is a scary feeling. My arch was not happy. I'll try them again, putting in separate insole, to see if it solves the problem. I'm wondering if the arch support is in the wrong place for my foot since I sized up so much.