Su's cooking corner: Hiking with friends over Labor Day Weekend

We (the husband, our friends and I) wanted to go on a nice, not necessarily long hike before the winter kicked in. We wanted something that was a within an hour's distance from Jersey city. Definitely didn't want to be stuck in any of the labor day weekend traffic! Came across Wawayanda State Park on yelp. It had decent reviews and it's website listed over 60 hiking trails, a lake, and some sort of a beach. Perfect!

Wawayanda State Park - on the trail

We set out at about 10 in the morning. We had decided to make a picnic out of it, so had prepared some stuff at home. It took us about 1.5 hrs to get there, which wasn't too bad. The drive to Wawayanda State Park was extremely scenic, with lush green trees along the way and sunflowers peeking out now and then.

Once in the park, we headed to one of the several picnic tables that were available. We had a pretty good brunch with home made aloo poha and bread poha accompanied with some hot tea. Sorry, no pics - as we were super hungry by the time we got to our destination. :D

After the heavy brunch, it was time to burn it off with some good hiking! We met a park police official who pointed us to a trail based on our requirements, which were about 1 to 1.5 hrs of hiking with some scenic views. So based on his advice we decided to take the Wingdam trail, and head back when we hit the Pump House trail. The hike was about 2 miles long that led us deep into the woods. I would say the trail was between easy to medium intensity.

Iron furnace we came across on our way to the trail

It was a really nice hike - we came across flowing water where the guys got a tad bit adventurous, some fallen branches that made for some cool pictures, several orange colored mushrooms, earthworms (yuck!), even a snail. At one point - we heard something quickly jump out of our way, it turned out to be a chameleon - but I didn't get a glimpse of it. :) Here are some pictures from the hike.