A few weekends ago, my roommate, Caitlynn and her boyfriend, Javi, dragged me out of bed way too early. Not the most delightful of people in the wee hours of the morning–this being before 9AM on a Saturday, after all—I grumbled, and slowly pulled myself together. “Who’s ready for a hike??” she said, as I wiped the sleep from my eyes. While my bed seemed much more enticing than a jaunt in the fresh outdoors at the moment, I slung on my clothes and Caitlynn, Javi, our other roommate Holly, and I hit the road. Our destination: Hudson Highlands State Park.
The Hudson Highlands are an expansive area and almost completely undeveloped, on the east side of the Hudson River, just north of the city. Easily accessible via the Cold Springs Metro North station, the park offers a perfect day trip that gets you out of the city and into the great outdoors fast. Better still, we had secured a friend’s car for the excursion, allowing us to forego the trek from Bushwick to Grand Central to catch the train. While having a car makes getting to the trailhead easier, without walking for half an hour beside a two-lane highway, the only downside to driving is getting stuck in traffic as everyone and their mother tries to get out of the city on a Saturday morning.
Traffic aside, we happily rolled along up through Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Yonkers, with only a few wrong turns along the way. Humming along to folksy country, we passed around a thermos of rich dark coffee, and I had never been happier to be out of bed on a Saturday morning. The scenery slowly shifted from city to wood and before we knew it, we were driving right along the Hudson. As we got nearer to the town of Cold Springs, Javi started scanning for a local farmer’s market that his friend told him to check out on the way. Right on the side of the NY Route 9D we found the Boscobel House and Gardens, home to a small but AMAZING weekend farmer’s market. We stocked up on cherries, bread, the most gorgeous heirloom tomatoes, and herbed goat cheese, planning on having a picnic at the summit. Truth be told, most of it was gone before we even got on the trail. We got back on the road, drove straight through the town, and stumbled upon the trailhead for Washburn Trail.
