HIKE NYC

“with this impending transit strike coming up, it looks like I'll have to hike either from Penn Station(4 miles one-way) or from Flatbush station (mileage yet undetermined). I think it's going to be interesting and almost hope it happens. I might even carry a pack. Maybe we can meet up and make it a group hike.”

“you work downtown, right Wolf?”

“A twansit stwike? No! I gotta wight to Mayah Bwoomboig about dat!”

“Don't Geo! He may make you pay a toll...”

“Ya mean like a toll tale Tweebeyad?”

“downtown, yup. Company says I'm on my own.”

“Groan...”

“We live close to the Flatbush LIRR station. Hope it doesn't come to it, but I may be talking to you about this.”

“do you guys backpack through the city in NYC?”

“I can see it now...meet at the latte shop on 5th...hike to the sears tower. we'll camp out under the bridge and then we'll hike down to brooklyn and set up camp at the brooklyn bridge and then back to the latte shop and then go home.”

“I was pulled into the office and it seems that im the only one in Brooklyn with a car.


yes, i was volunteered to pick up 2 co-workers and drive them to work...”

“sears tower? huh?”

“i don't know NY very well. i think that may be in Chicago.”

“Chicago is one hell of a detour!”

“Just sub the Empire State Building, Bink!”

“okay thanks,..yeah i meant the empire state building.”

“If you're going via the Sear's Tower, you might as well zip by the Eye Needle.

Btw Wolfie - borrow Goretex's ice axe. After all, I watched "The Warriors" so I'm an expert at city hiking.”

“Pennsy, "we gotta bop our way back to Coney."

treebeard - how far do you think it is from Flatbush station to Wall St.? I'm wonderin whether it's better to walk from - Penn or Flatbush?”

“Bummer, that sucks.”

“In Philly the traffic runs more smoothly when SEPTA is on strike.”

“nah, it's gonna be great. the city will be in chaos. I'm a sucker for chaotic situations. guess I'm just deranged that way.”

“So, is it true? do you guys hike in the city with packs and everything? wth?”

“Most of the people you see backpacking in NYC are homeless, Bbinkley.”

“know what you mean, wolf. I have a certain taste for that too. Love when the city gets crippled by a blizzard or something like that. Everything shuts down... it's cool, but this one would come at a bad time for me. my company is moving and I'm getting a lot of overtime right now. I really need the money, so I don't want to screw that up. To answer your question, Penn Station may not be any closer than Flatbush. In Brooklyn, you would just walk over the BB and then you are right by the Woolworth Building. Not sure where you go from there to your place.”

“lmao, Sant!”

“My brother-in-law bikes or rollerblades to work sometimes. Its a pretty speedy way to travel in NYC, though I think most people biking are crazyyyy to intermingle with those nutty cabbies. My brother got clipped once, while rollerblading. The guy didn't even stop, since it was only "minor".
=:0

Funny story about NYC...
Most of my family lives in the city, so I make a pilgrimage usually every month. Once in a while I manage to drag Dare with me...
When we visit my sister, we take the S from Port Authority. It never fails that Dare asks "is this our stop?" ummmm, honey, this is the S...it only makes ONE stop

Our cover is blown...we exit the train with shame, while surrounding New Yawkas smirk.
;o)”

“Oh, how embarrassing for you Amy. I'll bet he even tries to start up conversations with strangers on the S.

"Hi, how are you? My name is Dare. What is yours?"
reply: #@$* yo mama!!!”

“So AmyG are you going to make it Sat night?”

“At the threat of the last transit strike, my job didn't plan any place to keep a bike and I doubt they will this time. I'll be walking, from Williamsburg to Herald Square.

But I'm one of the ones that kinda likes biking in traffic when I have to... it's much more intense and demanding than mountain biking. Relatively safe if you keep up with the speed of traffic and don't get pinned to one side.

As for hiking the city, yeah all the time. Being near a bridge helps a lot with this. I tend to do a circuit into Chinatown, down to Tents & Trails,m maybe a waterfront, through Chinatown again, buying the best fish I had found going through the first time, then a bookstore and back over the bridge or a subway from Union Square. The northern tip of Manhattan has wonderful walking as well.

A big fanny pack or knapsack fills up with books, tuna and bagels and whatever weakness hits me at Tents & Trails.....”

“Mapleleaf, Wolfman, I moved from Brooklyn 5 years ago to Seattle, WA.

Warren, bought my first pair of boots and tent & trails. The salesperson wasn't knowledgeable & neither was I. I bought boots that were too tight for hiking, and wore them twice.”

“A fun time for me and my hubby would be to ride the train to the brooklyn bridge with our bikes in tow, stop half way across, sit on a bench and have a few drinks that we brought. Then proceed to ride around the city (late at night).

We sat in Central Park (not to far in from te entrance) and hang out, and watch all these men go behind this one bush. Either a man or woman was back there, but judging by the men going back there, it must have been a man, a very busy man.”

“On occasion I've met less than knowing staff at T&T but that has always been the exception, not the rule. It's the only quality outdoor store in the city in my opinion.

The Brooklyn Bridge walk is my favorite "the bars are closed lets watch the sunrise" walk”

“ok so if us New yorkr's have to "hike" to work,
who is doing the daily trip report?

becasue if I really have to deal with this crap, i want to be able to b!tch a little!

ps, if this really happens, I have room for 1 more in my car if anyone needs a ride into the city.”

“maple, wish we could make the trip - it sounds like a fun group. Dare and I leave verrrry early Sunday for the start of our belated honeymoon/vacation.

Next time...
:o)”

“lipstick hiker - that's very funny, my brother moved to Seattle about 5 yrs. ago as well!”

“If you want to try urban hiking, just try the Lenape Trail through Essex County, NJ. As reported in the Star Ledger:


Trail mix -- We follow a little-known trail through hill and dale -- and even Newark's Penn Station

Saturday, December 07, 2002

BY PETER GENOVESE
Star-Ledger Staff

Six a.m. Late October. The Route 1 & 9 bridge over the Passaic River between Newark and Jersey City. A truck, gears churning, rumbles down Doremus Avenue, on the Newark side. Broken bottles crunch underfoot. Scraps of paper cartwheel down the street. Four figures march silently across the bridge in the darkness, like characters in a cold war thriller.

The scene looks faintly sinister, but it is just the beginning of a walk in the park. A very long walk, actually, through many parks.


Information from our Advertisers




"Watch your back," Kevin Murphy says as the four men dash across a curving highway ramp.

The trail they are following, such as it is, leads to a scary-looking, garbage-strewn passageway under an overpass.

"This is like a stage setting for 'Terminator 2,'" says Dan Hurley, his steps quickening.

A pit bull, snarling, presses its face against a fence. A freight train clickety-clacks across a trestle. The sky lightens.

"Danger. Do Not Enter," says a sign on a fence. "Premises protected with high voltage security devices. Will cause bodily injury and/or death."

Hurley and his companions are on a 34-mile hike from one end of Essex County to the other, following a well-marked but little-known path called the Lenape Trail. The trail, the brainchild of West Orange resident Al Kent, winds through county and local parks, down Main Streets, past homes and shops, over highways, under power lines, behind backyards, at one point goes right through Penn Station in Newark, at another, circles in Nutley what undoubtedly is the county's most fanciful home garden.

The trail takes in some of the county's wilder places -- the Mills Reservation in Cedar Grove, the Eagle Rock Reservation in West Orange -- and some of its most heavily trafficked areas, like Ferry Street in Newark and Franklin Avenue in Nutley.

Afterglow Avenue, Pilch Street, Peckmantown Lane, Normal Avenue, Yantacaw Brook, Charm Acres and Swinefield Bridge are some of the more intriguing place names on the sometimes flat, sometimes torturous, always fascinating Lenape Trail.

The trail, dedicated in 1982, gets thousands of visitors every year, even if many people, driving down such popular thoroughfares as Ferry Street in Newark and Belleville Avenue in Belleville, or walking through such well-used tracts as South Mountain Reservation in West Orange and South Orange, don't always realize they're on the Lenape Trail -- even if it is well-marked and easy to follow.

"My favorite part (of the Lenape Trail?)" Al Kent asks as he hikes through the woods near the Highlawn Pavilion in West Orange. "Oh, gosh, they're all my favorites."

Kent, former chairman of the urban trails committee for the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club and now senior trails coordinator for Morris County, came up with the idea for the Lenape Trail, which runs through 17 of the county's 22 communities. The Lenape Trail is part of a more ambitious vision, and path: the Liberty-Water Gap Trail, a planned 156-mile route from Jersey City to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. The route, about 80 percent complete, also is Kent's idea.

"Many people in West Orange don't know this exists," says the 74-year-old Kent, standing on the banks of glittering Crystal Lake in West Orange, set improbably behind a bowling alley off Mount Prospect Avenue.

The Lenape Trail is not some bucolic walk in the woods. While it takes in many of the county's parks -- Branch Brook Park in Newark, Belleville Park, Clarks Pond Park in Bloomfield, Verona Park and Becker Park in Roseland, among others -- it is firmly grounded in the "real world," zig-zagging through neighborhoods and dilly-dallying in downtowns before darting back into woods and fields. When a visitor notes the trail's allure is in its variety, Kent smiles appreciatively.

"Some people can't do a trail that goes through neighborhoods at all," he says. "It has to go through the woods."

The Lenape Trail is certainly not meant as a one-day outing, but Hurley and Murphy did the entire 34 miles in one long recent day. Hurley, of Montclair, organized the four-man group. The freelance writer is a former reporter for the American Bar Association who 20 years ago sat down on a Chicago street with a 1923 Remington manual typewriter and started asking passersby if they wanted a 60-second novel. Thus began a career as "The 60-Second Novelist." Hurley has written more than 30,000 stories to date. He did not bring his typewriter along on the Lenape Trail hike. Traveling light was key, and there would be no time for rest stops, although the hikers did make a brief lunch stop at a Burger King in Nutley.

Kent's makeshift Lenape Trail guide (expected to be available in the near future through the mail or on www.lenapetrail.org) is a colorful, essential companion to those interested in experiencing the trail.

The first of the hundreds of yellow blazes that mark the Lenape Trail can be seen on a telephone pole at the corner of Essex and James streets in Newark. A sign welcoming all to the Lenape Trail stands at the Clifton and 8th Avenue entrance to Branch Brook Park. There is nothing about the trail itself, just a list of park rules and regulations (first one: "Place Litter in Garbage Receptacles")

In Branch Brook, the first county park in the nation, the trail passes a marker for Dewey J. Sherbo, a Newark cop killed in 1997 when his police cruiser crashed into a tree after he joined the pursuit of a stolen car. At the 292-year-old Sydenham House, Hobart Shelton tells the group about life as caretaker of the city's oldest private residence.

Shelton says the house is in "an ideal spot," and you just have to look across the road to see why. There are a half dozen horseshoe pits; Shelton said he is the reigning state horseshoe doubles champion.

The trail exits the park and winds into Belleville, down Joralemon Street, across Division Street, past the high school, and at one point -- on Ernest Street -- it circles the garden to beat all gardens, a sprawling tangle of lettuce, squash, pumpkins and other plants.

On Franklin Avenue in Nutley, the hikers pop inside Lotito & Sons, an Old World-flavored Italian deli.

"Nobody makes this," says owner John Lotito of his Italian Supreme sausage, made with prosciutto, provolone and sweet peppers. He smiles. "You see it anywhere else, call the police."

There is one scenic spot after another along the trail -- tiny Yantacaw Park in Nutley, expansive Eagle Rock Reservation in West Orange, rugged Mills Reservation in Cedar Grove, where a rocky outcrop offers a stunning, panoramic view to the west. One of the more surreal moments: walking right over the Garden State Parkway on a pedestrian walkway just south of Exit 151 (Watchung Avenue). The group trudges past World's End Farm in Cedar Grove, the trail making a sudden exit stage right into the woods. "Mile 17, we begin to exchange pain relievers," Hurley says as the hikers break out Advil and trail mix in Community Park in Cedar Grove.

There are glimpses into people's backyards, and lives -- a man digging a hole in his backyard, kids playing pickup football. At the Montclair train station, one hiker, Rich Sheinaus, leaves the group, citing obligations. Another calls it quits at the IHOP on Bloomfield Avenue in Verona, around the 20-mile mark. Hurley and Murphy press on. What Hurley considers the "ugliest" stretch of the Lenape Trail, a three-mile stretch, paralleling Route 280, that runs under power lines, is negotiated, fortunately, under cover of darkness.

"I had to test my blood sugar seemingly every mile," Hurley, a diabetic, would recall later. "It kept hovering near 'low.' I had to keep drinking juices and munching snack bars. But at that point, nothing was going to stop me."

The last few miles of trail "were definitely on automatic pilot," the Monclair resident said. "I was literally staggering along. Picture Arnold Schwarzenegger at the end of "Terminator,' when the cyborg is reduced to just a glowing eyeball and crawling arm. That was me."

He and Murphy would reach trail's end, at the former Center for Environmental Studies in Roseland, at 7:45 p.m., more than 13 1/2 hours after they had started on the Routes 1&9 bridge over the Passaic River. The river marks the beginning, and end, of the Lenape Trail; the environmental studies center is a short stroll from the river.

Hurley slept 11 hours that night, woke up to read the paper in bed for a few hours, then slept the rest of the afternoon.

"I've heard of forced marches, and that's a forced march," Kent said, laughing, of Hurley and Murphy's accomplishment.

"It's incredible to imagine that for soldiers in the Civil War, marching 34 miles a day was business as usual," an aching Hurley said.”