(West Mountain Shelter (mile 1400.1) - South Mountain Pass Road (mile 1409.1))

At about midnight a whiporwil flew into the shelter and commenced to sing with the vigor of a fire alarm. The bird continued its auditory assault at regular one hour intervals, allowing me enough time to fall back into a deep sleep before rudely reawakening me.

We woke up around 6am and packed while appreciating the glow of the rising sun over the landscape. I began hiking a little after 7am leaving the shelter after Jasmine and a little before the rest of the crew. We weren’t in any particular sort of rush this morning. It was about 7 miles to the Trailside Zoo, which opens at 10:30AM, and then another 2.7 miles to the Anthony’s Nose Trailhead on South Mountain Pass Road, where we were planning to meet Jasmine’s parents at noon.

On the blue blaze back to the trail, I collected water from a gross stagnant frog pond. I still had a half bottle of fresh water, so the pond water was more of a “just in case” backup since the next and only marked water source for the next 8 miles was unreliable. After filling water, I realized that I had lost my 2 day old earbuds, which was annoying, but I would certainly have a chance to pick up some new earbuds in NYC.

After a little less than 5 miles, I reached Bear Mountain State Park. The trail up the mountain was partially paved, with ancient-looking stonework that seemed to be (unnecessarily?) supporting the rocky cliff to the left of trail. As I got closer to the peak, I could hear Katie, Puddin’, and Delta on the switchbacks below, so I opted to wait on a bench overlooking the Hudson from a rocky slab. We were doing well on time, so we moseyed along to the Bear Mountain summit, featuring trailside vending machines, fancy ladies walking tiny fancy dogs, a closed observation tower, and more views of NYC in the hazy distance.

We made our way down from the summit and into the Bear Mountain Recreation Area, which was nestled between in a field between Hessian Lake and the Hudson River. We were briefly entertained by the park’s “demonstration trail,” a tiny little loop which highlighted the different strategies and features of trail building and maintenance. I learned some new terminology, including “coping stones,” which are rocks placed at the edge of trails on the downhill side to help hikers avoid erosion and nasty falls.

We made our way to the Trailside Zoo a little after they opened at 10:30am. It was a bit surreal and undeniably cool to be following AT blazes though a zoo. After reading a few signs, I realized that the zoo was focused on native animals and specifically housed animals that had been rescued from injury or confiscated from illegal private captivity. Some of the highlights included the reptile house, a bobcat, a fox, and a black bear (who looked brown… the sign described it as a cinnamon color phase). Amusingly, the zoo bear was my first bear spotted on trail😅

We left the zoo and immediately found ourselves at the Bear Mountain Bridge, a massive suspension bridge over the Hudson River. The bridge offered excellent, if not a bit dizzying, views over the Hudson, with Bear Mountain behind us to the west and Anthony’s Nose in front of us to the East. Past the bridge, the trail followed along the road for about 0.3 miles, before re-entering the woods and climbing up the backside of Anthony’s Nose. We hiked for about 2 miles before reaching the Anthony’s Nose Trailhead on South Mountain Pass Road where Jasmine was waiting with her parents.

Jasmine’s parents, Acky and Samina, had apparently been super pumped to do trail magic, and had pulled out all the stops. They set a big beach towel on the ground and laid out a spread of fresh fruit (so much watermelon!), cookies, personal pringles cans, chips, and several Indian snack foods. As we were gorging ourselves, we were joined by a thru-hiking couple I had heard of but had not met yet: Pickles and Firedaddy. Pickles is a white girl with dreads, hexagonal glasses, and a gregarious personality. Firedaddy is her very tall husband. They were both charismatic, talkative, and funny.

After we had all eaten our fill, Pickles and Firedaddy hiked on and we packed things up for the hour and a half drive into Manhatten, where we stopped at Jasmine’s favorite pizza spot: Joe’s Pizza. We grabbed our to-go pizza and walked across the street to the tiny, triangular, Father Demo Square. We sat on a bench in the crowded square and dug into the pizza. The area seemed very familiar. As in I knew I had been there before on a previous New York trip. As I looked around, I realized we were across the street from Berber Street Food and Village Revival Records was just around the corner. I felt like a local recognizing all his favorite spots.

On our way out to Long Island, we drove along the southern perimeter of Manhattan. I spotted some new landmarks for the first time such as the Vessel and the Little Island. Once we got past Brooklyn, all the Long Island sites were new to me., and I watched as the city slowly transitioned into a sea of seemingly endless suburbs.