Perkins Hike
We set out from Brooklyn, New York on Saturday, June 15th towards Bear Mountain State Park in New York. The drive took maybe 2 hours.. we stopped and got our favorite veggie sandwich from Frankies Grill in Croton on Hudson, NY. Its great - foot long, on super soft white bread, with a ton of vegetables, avocado, Italian dressing, its the best. We got our sandwich to go, grabbed one more coffee from the cafe across the street, and got back on the road.
We arrived at the parking lot for the hike at maybe 11:15am. We set off following the directions I downloaded on All Trails, and almost immediately got lost. The trail was described as “easy” but we somehow didnt notice the rock stairs built into the first rock section, and assumed we would have to climb straight up it, and tried to go around it, which did not go well. We eventually realized “this is not gonna work” and turned around the 10 minutes or so that we lost, and got back on the correct trail and realized “oh, theres stairs here. Duh.'“ After realizing the trail was full of steps, it made us more confident to navigate the hike.
It’s part of the Appalachian Trail, and so there are AT markers on it. It’s easy enough to follow those markers, and eventually that trail splits off into others. As we continued on, the trail actually went over two road sections. The first section, a set of road cyclists were climbing up the road, and one was descending the other lane. I was so jealous. I have to come back up here and ride as soon as I can, I thought. We continued on and ran into fellow hikers every 30 minutes or so before reaching the crowded areas.
This hike is a long hike that actually goes to the observatory itself, which is not featured here in photos. I do have a couple photos from the Sony of it but they didn’t turn out very well, so you’ll just have to find them elsewhere online for that visual representation.
One thing we loved about this hike, as you can see in the photos, is the views aren’t relegated to just the peak. You go around the perimeter of the mountain, so for like an hour leading to the peak, you have really good views to your left. All the stairs in the beginning make it really easy to climb a lot of elevation fairly quickly. Theres no scrambling here, and its just generally a really good hike. You go up stairs, then along mellow fairly inclined trail to the top.
Once you get to the actual top, it is, sadly, a parking lot full of people. I mean, its ok, because it is an observatory in a tower, which is unlocked and you’re able to climb to the top. The views from up there are great, but again, not featured here. Our favorite part of the hike was by far the hike itself, not the peak.
As we got to the top, we looked for somewhere to eat our sandwiches away from the crowds of people. We finally did on a rock in the shade up the hill from the main path, which was full of tourists, kids and families, and lots of other park enjoyers. Its great to see these kinds of areas so well utilized. We had our lunch and continued back down, which was a bit shorter than the climb up because it sort of loops around to the long flat trail that you get on after the first set of rock steps. We went through the remainder of the trail, over the two roads, (only saw one cyclist this time) and back to the car. Both of us said what a great hike it was, and about 2.5 hours after starting, we were off on our way back to town for some much deserved ice cream. I got rhubarb crumb.
