Bear Mountain State Park

This was the second time we were going hiking in a month and I was pretty excited! Bear Mountain State Park was recommended by the hubby's colleague and it had also shown up in my fall research.

The state park is under an hour from Jersey city. This time I didn't make anything for the trip, so we picked up egg and cheese sandwiches from a cafe near by and headed out right on time.

Our drive was through NYC, and once we hit the Palisades Avenue it was extremely beautiful with lush green trees leaning on both sides of the highway. Some of the trees had a tinge of yellow, so Fall is surely coming!  

Palisades Interstate Parkway

There are a couple of scenic overlooks on the Palisades Interstate Parkway, and we ended up stopping at the state line outlook for some quick pictures. We got a pretty good view of the Hudson River and Connecticut on the other side. It turned out to be a cloudy day, so some of the pictures lack sufficient natural light. Several bird watchers had stationed themselves at this outlook and were apparently tracking the migration of some of the birds to South America! Pretty cool stuff, in my opinion.  

Hudson river

The state park was quite crowded, with lots of people out to picnic. We took a stroll around the Hessian Lake. The easy trail was about 1.5 miles long. The state park was also hosting Oktoberfest - so there were lots of shops, food and of course - beer! I happened to find a nice lil piece of jewelry for myself and was delighted! 

Willkommen to Oktoberfest 2013

The stroll was extremely scenic, and we got some decent pictures of the lake with the mountain behind it. Reminded me a bit of Lake George, but the Adirondack mountain range was much bigger.

The trail around Hessian Lake 

A view of the lake

On our way out of the state park, we drove up the Perkins Memorial Drive to get to the mountain peak. We climbed all the way up to the tower to get a 360 degree view of the area. We could also spot NYC in the distance. We spent some time on the peak, soaking in the beautiful moments and views of the mountains. It was beautiful! 

Perkins Memorial Tower

View from the tower

Mountains overshadowed by the clouds

It was finally time to head back home - and guess what - the sun finally came out! Wish it had been sooner. Oh well, a great trip nonetheless - would definitely want to go back in the fall. :)

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.

A lone snail that was in no hurry to go anywhere!

Fall is coming!

Never seen orange colored mushrooms before.