All of the evergreens really pop out. I didn't even realize how much fucking moss is everywhere. It's absolutely beautiful and totally negates the fact that most of the forest looks like shit. I thought hiking was going to suck until the first snowfall but it's really quite nice. I spent about 7.5 hours outside today in ~32F. This is my first season trying winter hiking.
Bamboo forest in NY for some reason.
More moss
Moss inside an abandoned building
Rock totally covered in moss
I passed by a huge wall of this plant but didn't see it anywhere else. Not sure what it is. Besides moss, bamboo and this I saw some ferns and a few pine saplings.
>>2851614I've seen small areas of bamboo growing in the woods on Long Island
nice photos OP. this is really making me nostalgic for New England
>>2851672they're the deciduest
>>2851621This was in Garrison, Putnam County. I think it must have been planted there intentionally. It's in the most maintained and accessible part of the park.
>>2851717*looks it up* that's the hudson river upstream of NYCI went to the catskills for the first time in my life this year, interesting place, and i kinda did want to explore that part of the hudson - I know there's some sort of cliffs with a nice overlook somewhere around there not sure where exactly - but it seems like it would be crowded and highly trafficked and I'm scared of that.
>>2851721So I barely saw anyone yesterday, which may have been due to both the holiday weekend and the cold. I haven't explored the trails around Garrison much but I spend a lot of time north around Cold Spring and Beacon. My best advice for that area is go during the week if you can and start as early possible. Being on the train line and right near some popular tourist towns they usually get a ton of traffic on the weekends. Although I've been on some of the back trails there during the week and didn't run into another person for 3-4 hours.The Casino trail which goes up Mt. Beacon to the fire tower is an ecological disaster due to overhiking. All the soil and vegetation is worn away and it's just loose rocks the entire way up. It's actually my least favorite trail in the park and I've done literally every trail there. There are ways you can avoid most of it if you know your way around.I really like the Breakneck Ridge scramble but it's closed for at least another year because of construction at the trailhead. You can still do a big chunk of that hike but it's a bit inconvenient getting there.There are some other nice peaks in that park. Bull Hill is pretty popular. There's also Lambs Hill, Bald Hill and Scofield Ridge which are usually less crowded. I've actually never seen anyone on Bald Hill but I've only been there maybe 5 times during the week.It's a beautiful area, but as much as I love it I don't think I could live there because of how crowded it gets on the weekend. Maybe somewhere further north like Poughkeepsie or Kingston.
I like to camp amongst the evergreen trees in my green tent, I always try to get my tent into the most well-fitting place as to make it look as natural as possible. Like some sort of Feng Sui of forest dwelling. Sometimes I see the places where people choose to sleep for the night and it gives me a weary feeling. Look at how animals sleep - even apex predators - and there is some instinctive intelligence there.
>>2851613There is always a little bit that hangs around
man i am so glad i live out west this looks like shit
>>2851821it's actually a lot nicer than you think
>>2851821It's much cooler than how it looks from afar. I'm unironically looking forward to going back next week.
>>2851835what are the best bluffs overlooking the Hudson (preferably NOT near NYC itself)?
>>2851837The Hudson Highlands run between Peekskill and Beacon on both sides of the river. Most of the really famous views I've already mentioned- Bull Hill, Breakneck Ridge and Mount Beacon. Anthony's Nose is more south of this map towards the bear mountain bridge. I would say it's worth a visit although I don't find it challenging enough.On the west side of the river you have Storm King and Bear Mountain. I'm not too familiar with the rest of that area but I do know a lot of it is property of West Point and off limits. There are a bunch of parks on that side of the river too but I don't know how good the views are because they're farther away.I think you can probably find some hikes in the Catskills that let you see some of the river. That's way more scenic I've been to some overlooks out there where you might see one or two houses and then nothing else but mountains and trees.
>>2851844you said they were closed though, I want easy
>>2851845Breakneck Ridge trailhead and the first and most famous part of the scramble is closed. You can still access all of the cool vantage points it's just a bit more complicated. You go from CN to BR to BB to WM to NT to BR and back to CN.If you just want something simple do Bull Hill (WB to CN or WB to UC to CN) or the Casino Trail (CT to BR to the firetower). All 3 routes are between 4 and 5.5 miles. The firetower has better views but I'm not a fan of the trail itself.
>>2851898NH* not NT
>>2851898I only found this area once just scrolling through Alltrails looking for river views. I've done tons of different views of the Susq, and a few of the Delaware, but I don't think I've ever seen the Hudson from above. I mean ideally you want looking down the length of the river, but that's hard to get. I could have sworn the best view was those binoculars on the bottom left of the map near Little Stony Point on the yellow trail. Also Breakneck, even if not closed, sounds unfun - its mostly a scramble. Seems like there's possible alternate views elsewhere - you are saying what's marked South Beacon Mtn tower has the best views? But towers are usually annoying/scary to climb or fenced off or have limited open hours. I wish Alltrails just had marked spots of where the actual views are, you click, and it pulls up a large photo of a clear representation of what the view is from that location, we truly live in a primitive era
>>2851903Little Stony Point is fine if you're looking to get close to Hudson. It's just really short and right by the parking lot. If you go there I'd suggest at a minimum checking out the Cornish Estate ruins off of the CN trail. It's like a 15-20 minute walk from the trailhead. Picrel is the view from Breakneck Ridge you can see Little Stony Point it's that peninsula jutting out into the water. It's really small.If you have any apprehensions about the fire tower hike I'd say be careful. It's my least favorite trail in the entire park. But the reason the trail is so messed up is because of how popular it is. There are some ruins about halfway up that people sometimes use as an endpoint if they don't want to do the entire thing.There is an alternate way to the firetower that skips almost all of the worst parts of the main trail. I actually just found out about it recently while exploring some unofficial trails. Also it's accessible from the parking lot for Little Stone Point/Cornish Ruins/Bull Hill but that's a bit of a trek.
>>2851613>a couple of hundred yards from a house and a roadthats some deep woods ya got there. lol
>>2851622have another one
>>2851844Overlook Mountain by Woodstock has a firetower that you can see the Hudson from. Plus some pretty great ruins.
>>2851614>>2851621Bamboo was planted on a lot of homesteads back in the day. I see it a bunch in NJ and PA around the Delaware.>>2851619Looks like honeysuckle
>>2852148thanks
>>2852573OP here, I also got outside today. I was a bit disappointed by how little snow ended up falling here. That hour north really makes a big difference
>>2852575hour north? where is this? my photo is West Virginia. I slipped and fell and twisted my ankle capturing it (just getting out of the car). But I got the meme photo of the NRG bridge the day before so all is well.
>>2852576Oh I assumed you were at Overlook as that anon suggested. It's about an hour north and a half hour west from the Cold Spring/Beacon area. The snow that hit New York earlier this week didn't hit as hard as I was expecting. I was expecting everything to be covered by like 4-5 inches
>>2852577I mostly stay out of NY, it seems crowded and they love rules and restrictions and the speed limits are predatorily low in towns and change often in a Kafka'esque manner. I have been thinking I bet Letchworth Gorge is kino in the winter though (and dejeeted).
>>2852578New York is nice if you avoid the urban and suburban hellholes. Letchworth State Park is a good dividing line for that part of the state. South of there is more scenic and relaxed, with much friendlier people than north of there.
