nature-you.org Blog

Ideally matching between Nature and You
May 27, 2007

Never had so many people signed up that had to wait until Saturday evening to finalize the carpool arrangement. We had totally 30 participants that luckily I could arrange them by 3 cars in Manhattan, 3 cars in Queens, 1 car met at Palisades and 1 car met at the Picnic Area. I had changed the hiking from 3 reservoirs into Kanawauke Picnic Area in order to get better viewpoints, keep away from flies or mosquitoes and implement a matching game during the hike. It turned out the weather, the location and the participants had ideally matched to make this the most successful trip of Nature-You ever.

Every element ran so smooth that we had entered the Picnic Area around 9:15am which was early enough to waive the parking fee. After the registration, restroom calls and briefing, we started the long line march on Route 106 to approach the trail head. The weather was forecasted rain and cloudy but we found no trace of rain would fall before heading home. We had pretty lake views from Lake Kanawauke and Little Long Pond. The upslope on unmarked section gave everyone a chance to test their breathing mechanism. When the journey started on Yellow trail, we started the matching game. They had to find 6 spots which I had pictured before and printed on the game sheet. Even the prize would be given later because I had forgot to bring them, most participants interested in the game and paid attention to the trail while hiking. The wide open view on Bowling Rock gave everyone the first shock about beauty of nature. We saw some nature artworks on the trail. The snack time at Bald Rocks Shelter gave everyone a chance to socialize and taste the chocolate brownie from Jessica.

The trip continued on R-D gave everyone numerous chances to see different wide screen views over this rocky area since the trail was lying on the ridge of Hogencamp Mountain. The comfortable breeze at the ridge had compensated enough for the walk under the sun. The 360 degree views to the area gave everyone a new experience of hiking. The participants were attracted by the huge stones scattered on the way and tried their best to move or change the settings of nature. They all failed but left us many memorable pictures of enjoying the trip. We were all set free from daily office work and had fun with old or new friends. Chung Chuan climbed up a trunk to test his limbs coordination which he didn’t do that for many years. Our pace was slow enough for photo taking and appreciation of nature.

Ship Rocks was an ideal spot for lunch because of enough shades for such a big group. We tasted the treat of tea eggs from Jessica and a huge cold watermelon carried by Michael, the Prince Watermelon. The trip continued on the ridge gave more chance of seeing the nature. They all said we should come back to see the foliage in fall. After visiting Times Square and back to the Yellow trail, we walked through a forest of high straight trees. The last mile was easy and relax. The trip finished by another watermelon sharing at the parking lot.

It looked like everyone enjoyed the trip and knew what hiking would be. For the group of Fannie, Lisa, Cheryl, Jessica and Alice, they learned there was something better than shopping. For the group of Candy, Amy and Susana, likely they would stop dim sum on more Sunday mornings. For the group of Wendy, Moon and Kelly, they would have more topics to share with their peer groups. For the group of Audrey and William, they would have another healthy activity to do in weekends. For the group of Tom and Chung Chuan, they could be proud among their co-workers. For the families of Greibrok and Huangs, they would find one more option of family activity. For the artists and new friend, Simon, Chia Mei and Jenny, hopefully refresh themselves from the nature. For old friends of Nature-You Club, Fong, Yim, Jessica and Yung Sheng, they all added one more pretty stamp on their Passports. For me, it would be followed by a challenge that how to make a trip better than this.

Both ends of Pine Meadow Trail
May 26, 2007

All New York hikers should know the popular Pine Meadow Trail or at least the Visitors Center at Seven Lake Drive, but how many of them had hiked end to end of this 5.5 miles trail? Most people hiked from Visitors Center to the lake and turned back after lunch. Actually, both ends of the trail were …

We parked closed to the Visitor Center and started our Pine Meadow Trail full course mission at 9:30am. We had new friends, Xin Sheng and Ivy; new NYC friends, Bo Bo and her sister; regular NYC friends Yim, Little Fong and Karen today. We walked an extra mile on the main road to reach the trail head that rewarded us with a view of a fairyland of grassland. The first mile of Pine Meadow Trail was like a virgin land, such a frontier that looked like no one knew its existence. It was because there was no parking or restroom at the trailhead. The river was not rapid, just running quietly with light music rhythm.

After passing the Visitor Center, we hiked 2 miles on the most popular part of Pine Meadow Trail until we reached the most popular lunch point at Pine Meadow Lake. The geese were there busy approaching hikers for a treat as last week. Our new hikers got their first solo photo with the pretty lake. As closer to the noon time, the weather was getting more humid. It was not a perfect day for long hike. Our trip continued by going around the north rim of the lake. We saw two pretty lake view lunch points on the way that likely we could find new lunch places instead of the one which was being heavily used. There was also an abandon house at the lakeside.

We walked away from the lake to touch the other remote section of Pine Meadow Trail. This section was not popular because no great views and distance too long to turn back from other trail. It was indeed an ideal section for spiders to catch their lunch. I broke so many spider webs since I was the first one on the trail and brought back web remains on my backpack and face.

When we reached the Yellow trail that supposed the trail end of Pine Meadow Trail according to my 2003 edition map, I found the trail was extended to the left. We decided to hike 15 more minutes if I could catch the new trail end to complete the mission. It was too bad that the trail continued like endless. Being not having an updated map so no idea about how many more miles in front of me, I decided to retreat. We walked back according to my plan and took lunch at the good viewpoint over Ramapo Mountain.

It was too humid today to hike under the sun, so it was quite exhausted for new hikers. After visiting the High-ceiling Shelter and the Egg, I led the group to cut back to the lake by an unmarked trail and walked back along Pine Meadow Brook by Kakiat Trail. We had done 11 miles and kind of mission completed at least according to my 2003 edition map.

The youngest trip leaders
May 20, 2007

When I checked the weather online early at 6:30am, it said few shower all day long and thunderstorm after 4pm. Should I trust the forecast and cancelled the trip? I doubted because when I watched out through the windows, it was dry and even sunshine fell on my car. I struggled for 10 minutes and decided to take chance since I didn’t want to disappoint about 20 hikers who were eagerly willing to hike today.

Six cars met at Palisades Parkway gas station with 21 happy faces. I was extremely happy as I could tell no way to rain under such blue sky and sunny day. There were a lot of new faces including 2 small kids. The youngest one today was 6 years old, Crystal and the senior today was Yung Cheung Wang who had retired for years. I had Chris’ family from Long Island, Huang’s family from Queens and Zhao’s family from the Bronx.

To give everyone a wake up call, I decided to add a minor difficulty by hiking up through the rocky trail instead of Pine Meadow Trail. Since there were new hikers, I took the chance to teach them basic navigation and hiking technique. Our little kids, Crystal and Han Yang (8 years old) showed interests. The rock climbing made the mothers busy to safeguard their children. In return, we came to a few pretty river side sites where we had beautiful scene and music of running water. We reached the best lunch point viewing the huge and quiet Pine Meadow Lake at noon. Jessica served us with her famous tea eggs.

After taking group picture at the Lake, we started our trip back. Han Yang and Crystal volunteered to take the lead after learning how to read trail marks. They were exciting to be leaders so they took the first break after an hour. All adults were following without complaints. We stopped by a site where we could safely touch water and played stone jumping game.

To list all first time hiker with Nature-You, including: Huang’s family, Candy’s family, Zhao’s family, Mr. Fang, Mr. Wang, Zhong Yuan, Kelly, Xin Li, Rosa, Maria and Yvonne. I got the feedback that this was a perfect trip to start. Pei Pei said she would like to hike on this route every week because the trail was easy and the lake was beautiful. Even those who could hike more didn’t feel boring because we had pretty weather, pretty sceneries and pretty kids with us.

Breakneck, break records
May 13, 2007

Yim said it was the only time that I was punctual to meet the Manhattan group today, what a credit. In fact, she could tell because she was usually at least 15 minutes ahead waiting at 62nd Street & Lexington. We had a small group of 4 today to challenge the Breakneck ridge likely because of mother’s day effect. In order to avoid traffic, I moved the hike early again so we were ready to climb at 8:30am.

The trail was so quiet because it was early. It was all their first time looking up on the steeply rocky Breakneck trail. Nobody shouted nobody fainted even though all of us were not in good conditions. Yim didn’t sleep well yesterday; Gao Ling threw up on the trip of driving to the trailhead; Miu had long lasting problem on her right foot and I didn’t sleep well because of allergy.

Our pace of rock climbing was slow and careful. For a few times, Gao Ling had to use 6 points method (hands, knees and toes) to climb the rock. Yim seemed had the best condition now by seeing her moving so smooth. My breathing was bad as I had almost running out of tissues to clean up my nose. My eyes were itchy so my vision was not clear. It was a record that I had missed the trail marks during the lead for 4 or 5 times. As promised, the gorgeous views over Hudson River gave good refreshments to all girls.

We took lunch at Sunset Point observation platform. There were no annoying bugs under such comfortable wind breeze and sunshine bath. We all agreed would stay to sunset if we lived around this neighborhood. The route of going back on Yellow trail was so long. Luckily, there were some viewpoints on the way so we didn’t transform into a walking machine. We were back to the car before 2:45pm. We spent a few minutes on the rail track of Metro North which was running next to the parking lot.

Since the Sunset Point observation platform is so special, it is highly recommended to reach there. In order to complete the 8 miles route, we should start early. I usually lead only 6 miles on this trip because if we normally start the climb at 10am, we don’t have enough time. Today’s test set a good model.

Biking vs hiking
May 6, 2007

May 6 was the same day of Five Boroughs Biking event. My experience remind me that the traffic would be bumper to bumper on any road intersected with the biking route for at least 6 hours. To avoid any chance of being trapped into the car lines, we had to change the place of meet into Flushing and Palisades Parkway. Yim made the biggest commitment by going to Flushing from Manhattan early in the morning. I had Xiaw Chen’s group from Brooklyn and Chris’ group from Long Island to meet the group at Palisades Parkway. We had totally 15 sign ups today.

After greeting with each other, Jessica led other 3 cars to reach the trailhead even though the direction was not accurate. We had 14 hikers and 1 fishwoman because Jessica injuried her ankle. The upslope raised us to see the American Indian Teepee and then a gorgerous view over Tappen Zee Bridge. The shadow of the mountain on Hudson River looked like oil spill. On the top of Hook Mountain, we saw the million dollar houses built along the Hudson River. The weather was so nice and scenery was so pretty that we posted a lot of picture at this spot. We met a large group of young hikers on the way. The downslope brought us back to the quiet Nyack Village after passing a plantation of huge vegetation.

We saw Jessica at the river side where she stayed there fishing but did not catch anything. We saw a family catching 5 or 6 eels and some cat fishes. There was a elder saying that eating fish from Hudson River should be limited to once per one or two months. It was because the water in Hudson River has been polluted, eating too much fish from that might put our health in risk. Thomas stated the view of Tappan Zee Bridge was beautiful and today was his 1st hiking after 20 years. After enjoying Jessica’s tea eggs, Michael’s yellow melon and nature’s enough sunbath, we started our easy way back.

The flat biking trail along Hudson River was so relax that no one would ever think about the last challenge was coming. We met that group of teens again because we walked just reverse direction. After climbing the long steep upslope, our vehicles were found in front of us. Looks like everyone enjoyed today’s course because of good weather, good viewpoints and mixture of easy and challenging slopes.

Journal:

Hiker’s roles for helpless and nature
May 5, 2007

It was the first Level D hiking of NYC. The trip was not too difficult in elevation gain but 12 miles route was a demand on fast pace. We had 8 people signed up but only 6 hikers. The more important role of them were preparation of BBQ lunch at Tiorati Picnic Area.

The weather was still a little bit cold early in the morning. We started at 7:30 from Lake Askoti. The climb at the beginning scared Aliena and Karen as they were told first 4 miles were flat and easy. Before they got a chance to accuse me, they did enjoy 3 miles of flat and easy trail on Red Cross trail. At the junction of Menomine, we met 2 groups. We were stopped by 2 lady hikers who asked for directions. It was because the version of their map was probably 1990 that there were big changes on the trails of this region. I showed them my map and told them how to get back to their car. It was not the first time that I met hikers without a (updated) map. I would prepare a xerox copy of the map next time to help those hikers at risk. The other group was CMC’s 26 miles hikers, including: Mr. Chen, Chi Chan, George, Chung and a young man. They started early and had finished 15 miles when they saw us now (around 10am). What a fast pace they had! Were they running marathon? Aliena took this chance to discuss with Chung for a few minutes about CMC’s recent policy.

We reached William Brien Memorial Shelter by yellow trail and rushed to connect to R-D red heading Tiorati Circle because we knew the BBQ food were ready in an hour. The R-D trail was re-routed to hit Seven Lake Drive and merged with AT trail to hit Arden Valley Road. This change caused us 1.5 miles longer and an hour late for our lunch appointment with Jessica and Kenneth at Tiorati Circle Picnic Area. We had delicious chicken legs, steak, fish biscuit, squid and melon. I never had such a big lunch in the middle of the hiking.

When we were relaxing at the picnic table, we found smoke and fire spread from nearby upslope. I ran and reported it to the rangers office. Five to six fire engines and police cars were there in 5 minutes. We saw how the officers extinguished small mountain fire in 15 minutes. As a nature-lover, we should be very careful on handling fire in the mountain and reported any incidents when necessary.

In order to keep the trip only 12 miles as planned, I decided to take another route so we could have a shorter trip after lunch to go back to the cars.

April 29, 2007: Uphill, downhill

What do you think is more difficult, hiking uphill or downhill? We had a group of 18 hikers today to experience it. The eldest hiker ever, Wai-Ka (65 years old) would probably say downhill especially on the down slope trail which was full of sand stones and high steps.

A few people could not make to the trailhead except 18 people. We had a few subgroups today included Joseph’s, Wai-Ka’s, Gary Deng’s, Chris’, Kathy’s and a few singles. I found the composition of the team was energetic so decided to change the course. We would still hike 6 miles but added the portion of climbing Perkins Tower to have nicer viewpoints. It would also be double bonus because participants could earn both mileage and one of the 10 targets in the Passport.

The uphill portion was surprisingly fast. We didn’t have to take break too often. The viewpoints gave everybody enough refreshment because we could see the mountainous landscape of this area. We climbed 1,000 feet to reach Perkins Tower (1,300 feet) in 1.5 hours, it was a pace not bad. We met the group of 15 hikers of Hi-Camp which hiked up from other trail and a gigantic group of 100 High School students at the top. After a short moment of photo taking, we proceed to the hardest portion of the hike—going downhill to our lunch point at Recreational Area.

This part of AT trail was in very bad condition due to natural weathering and heavily usage. Rain and wind flushed away the top soil so the roots of pine trees were exposed to the air. Steps were high and full of sands and rolling stones added the difficulty of hiking down slope. A few hiking partners were forced to sit down on the trail. There were a few reconstruction projects on the trail.

We took our late lunch outside the Merry-Go-Round. I cut two honey dew melons to share and Gary returned with Ukrainian sausage. We finished the whole trip after fast visiting the deserted Doodletown Village. I thought everyone enjoy today’s trip because we would feel we had exercised and we collected a few images of pretty scenery either in our brain or camera.