Breakneck Ridge MLK 2008

Woke up early this morning packed heavy (for safety, and training purposes) and hopped into Elie (What we affectionately refer to our Element as) and headed up the Palisades to Cold Spring to hike Breakneck Ridge for the first time, knowing only two things....Its generally crowded with hikers, and in my book its difficulty level is Buttkicker. So I figure excellent its 19 degrees, today is a good day to hit the trail and have it mostly to myself. Indeed the trail was rather empty, only a few troopers out, and it was a Buttkicker assuming you scrambled well, otherwise Facekicker may be a more accurate difficulty level. Here are a few photos of the initial scramble to the first peak.




Straight up that rock basically (thank you wikipedia for the pic)







Side View...not quite doing it justice though







Other Side.....thats more like it


the pictures almost do justice to the awesome scramble that starts about 5 minutes into the hike, next best thing to experiencing it for yourself would be video, but what kind of idiot scrambles with a video camera.....well a quick youtube search and the answer is several idiots.




I have to say I have never attempted anything like this and it was really a thrill and a test of my abilities both mentally and physically, the hardest part was probably not expecting it to be this difficult, and having decided to pack an extra 40lbs on my back. I took it slow and really thought it out and did the first scramble safely but still the adrenaline was pumping through my body like never before. Oddly enough the first bit of the hike is the hardest with only one more difficult scramble, then slightly more sane terrain for the rest of the day. Of course I didn't know this so I stopped to take what I thought would make a nice last picture.






No Fear?







The serene Hudson River calms me down.


I caught my breath collected my thoughts and headed on. At first glance of what lay ahead on the trail, I believe my first thought is are you &$*#@ing kidding me





The 2nd scramble


but a couple minutes into it I realized it was far easier than what I had just done so I trekked on.



Sidenote: If anyone is hiking Breakneck Ridge and finds one red ems glove it's mine I can pick it up if you have it.



the biggest challenge on the second scramble was that is was colder and there where a few ice patches so I had to tread carefully. I got to the top fairly quickly and snapped a few pictures from the highest peak on this hike.





It almost looks drinkable






The hot sun made it feel much nicer than 19 degrees







Hey you got a lot smaller







See its bigger from the bottom fancy that??

I forgot to mention that I was trying out my new safety toy. The Garmin etrex Vista Hcx and I had a trail map so how could I possibly get lost right? So I can't make sense of either and I am convinced that the GPS has something wrong with it and the map is wrong, I bump into a trio of Hikers and ask them how much longer until the end of the Breakneck trail. 1.5 hrs they reply which makes no sense to me but since they started in that direction I take their word for it. I hike for another 20 minutes and I meet up with a red trail so I whip out my map and look for the place where red and white meet...hmmm...ok this isn't good its going to let me out about 4 miles from my car and I'd prefer not hike 4 miles of road...what I don't understand is how I managed to miss both the blue and yellow blazed trails that seem to join with the trail I am on well before it meets red. So I turn around and head back to find these other blazes. I find myself back where I met the last group of hikers and now I am really confused. Where the heck are these other trails? I guess I can just go back the way I came. Figuring I have no other choice I head back trying to ignore the fact that these scrambles going down are well, maybe not possible for me. As I start to head towards the second scramble I see another group of hikers and figure I can ask them if they know where the trails I am looking for are. As they approach I hear one of them yell "Hey I know you from the climbing wall?" Wow what are the chances, I met this girl last Thursday climbing at the North Meadow Rec Center in Central Park and we bump into each other in the middle of the woods. Freaky. Anyway we start talking and it seems they aren't quite sure where to go either so we decide to join forces and figure it out. Turns out the reason I couldn't find anything is, as it happens when you climb straight up you really haven't gone anywhere as the birds fly, and so I was looking about 4 hrs ahead of myself on the trail. After I got over the disappointment of realizing that pushing myself to the limit for 3 hrs had me close enough to the car to hear the alarm go off, we all headed out as a group and finished up the trail in about an hour. Although I initially wanted to spend the hike alone it was a good stroke of luck that I bumped into these folks, and not just because one of them had chocolate covered pretzel...though that helped. Can't wait to do this one again, and maybe my glove will still be on top of the mountain.





Reality check