J.Dub
Active member
My partner Paul and I climbed Breakneck Ridge over the Memorial Day weekend as one of our final training hikes for our upcoming Rainier trip. I've wanted to hike Breakneck for several years and just never found the right confluence of free time/partner availability/good weather/etc. Arguably, we should've gone to the Catskills or ADK's and done a day-long slog up a high peak rather than the shorter/steeper scramble up Breakneck, but both of us had other commitments that precluded such a trip. So, off to the Hudson Highlands we went.
We left CT early and drove over to Cold Spring, snagging the final parking spot in the small lot right next to the tunnel. After a last bit of water and liberal applications of both sunblock and bug spray we shouldered our big honkin' backpacks and hit the trail shortly after 8:30A.
While most of the trail up the buttress is 3rd-to-low 4th class hiking, there were a couple spots where I chose the alternate easier route (marked with X's). Had I been carrying a daypack -- or no pack, like most of the other hikers we encountered that morning -- these sections would have provided a fun bit of almost-climbing. But the 65lbs of lovin' on my back was throwing off my CoG in a major way, and since I don't have much experience making technical moves carrying that kind of load, I didn't relish the thought of missing a mantel and ending up bouncing all the way down to Route 9D.
On the way up, we were passed by a quartet of young, fit, attractive hikers from NYC in their Spandex shorts and Reeboks. I think they considered us a bit daft for humping our big packs up the hill like we were -- they had one daypack amongst the four of them. Our two groups leapfrogged each other for most of the hike, and we enjoyed chatting with the two couples and even exchanged picture-taking duties on the summit.
Arriving at the two main outcroppings on the trail, we were treated with outstanding views of Storm King across the river, as well as Pollepel Island and Bannerman's Castle just to our north. A quick water and GU break and we were back at it. Once top of the ridge, we picked up the red-blazed Breakneck Bypass Trail to the north and started our descent. I used my trekking poles, so as not to trash my knees, and ended up ahead of Paul for most of the descent. In a short while we hit the yellow-blazed Wilkinson Trail, where we were greeted with a most distasteful present.
Much to our disbelief, some miscreant/inconsiderent bastard felt it necessary to take a crap right at the base of the tree with the trail junction sign on it! As G.O.B. Bluth would say, "Come ON!!!" How frickin' hard is it to walk a couple hunnert feet off the trail before dropping trou? Or, God forbid they hold it, as they were only about 15 minutes away from downtown Cold Spring at that point (10 minutes of hiking and 5 minutes in the car).
UGH!
The Wilkinson Trail returned us to Route 9D, where we passed a long line of cars parked on the shoulder, as both parking areas were now completely filled. Arriving back at Paul's Ford Exploder, it felt extremely good to take the packs off! By this time (11:15ish) it was starting to get warm out, and we complemented ourselves on getting our hike completed before the temps got uncomfortable. Another benefit is that we arrived home in time for lunch!
FYI, if anybody happens to know the total mileage for the White-Red-Yellow-Rt. 9D loop that we hiked please shoot me a PM, as I've not been able to find a map that indicates the distance, nor do the trails show up in my NatGeo TOPO! software. (Seemed like around 3 miles or so.)
PHOTOS
We left CT early and drove over to Cold Spring, snagging the final parking spot in the small lot right next to the tunnel. After a last bit of water and liberal applications of both sunblock and bug spray we shouldered our big honkin' backpacks and hit the trail shortly after 8:30A.
While most of the trail up the buttress is 3rd-to-low 4th class hiking, there were a couple spots where I chose the alternate easier route (marked with X's). Had I been carrying a daypack -- or no pack, like most of the other hikers we encountered that morning -- these sections would have provided a fun bit of almost-climbing. But the 65lbs of lovin' on my back was throwing off my CoG in a major way, and since I don't have much experience making technical moves carrying that kind of load, I didn't relish the thought of missing a mantel and ending up bouncing all the way down to Route 9D.
On the way up, we were passed by a quartet of young, fit, attractive hikers from NYC in their Spandex shorts and Reeboks. I think they considered us a bit daft for humping our big packs up the hill like we were -- they had one daypack amongst the four of them.
Our two groups leapfrogged each other for most of the hike, and we enjoyed chatting with the two couples and even exchanged picture-taking duties on the summit.Arriving at the two main outcroppings on the trail, we were treated with outstanding views of Storm King across the river, as well as Pollepel Island and Bannerman's Castle just to our north. A quick water and GU break and we were back at it. Once top of the ridge, we picked up the red-blazed Breakneck Bypass Trail to the north and started our descent. I used my trekking poles, so as not to trash my knees, and ended up ahead of Paul for most of the descent. In a short while we hit the yellow-blazed Wilkinson Trail, where we were greeted with a most distasteful present.
Much to our disbelief, some miscreant/inconsiderent bastard felt it necessary to take a crap right at the base of the tree with the trail junction sign on it! As G.O.B. Bluth would say, "Come ON!!!" How frickin' hard is it to walk a couple hunnert feet off the trail before dropping trou? Or, God forbid they hold it, as they were only about 15 minutes away from downtown Cold Spring at that point (10 minutes of hiking and 5 minutes in the car).
UGH!
The Wilkinson Trail returned us to Route 9D, where we passed a long line of cars parked on the shoulder, as both parking areas were now completely filled. Arriving back at Paul's Ford Exploder, it felt extremely good to take the packs off! By this time (11:15ish) it was starting to get warm out, and we complemented ourselves on getting our hike completed before the temps got uncomfortable. Another benefit is that we arrived home in time for lunch!
FYI, if anybody happens to know the total mileage for the White-Red-Yellow-Rt. 9D loop that we hiked please shoot me a PM, as I've not been able to find a map that indicates the distance, nor do the trails show up in my NatGeo TOPO! software. (Seemed like around 3 miles or so.)
PHOTOS
