The best part about a great hike: all that walking around.
It’s great.
Some of the best landscapes inhabit hard-to-reach places. So this past Labor Day weekend I opted for wilderness woman over beach bunny.
Harriman State Park, Pine Meadow Lake is the surest way to release your inner Bear Grylls. Without all the fighting-for-your-life stuff.
That is unless you forget to bring your bear mace and a whistle….Probably not on your list of things to pack.
Maybe because you didn’t even know it was a thing…
Heads up: it’s a thing.
There are black bears and the occasional rattle snake in these here parts (luckily they were all on holiday at the beach while we were there, because we never saw any).
You’ll embark from Penn Station and take the NJ-Transit Port Jervis line to the Sloatsburg station. Just a few short blocks from the train are the hiking trails.
My boyfriend and I took the red trail all the way up until it spilled out into Pine Meadow Lake (which really needs another name because there are no pines or a meadow).
You’re hiking, you’re feeling one with nature, you’re hiking some more. One foot in front of the other. That’s the stuff.
Take a breather, enjoy the views, have a snack, pop a squat in a wooded area. Good, then you’ll be ready to keep going up toward the top of the climb, the trail comes out on a rock ledge with a panaramic southwest-facing view.
It took my boyfriend and I roughly two hours of trekking up fairly steep rocky terrain to make it to the grand oasis.
Crystal clear blue water with large rocks that all give you the opportunity to lounge on just the way Mother Nature intended. The lake is fed by a spring which is why it’s so clear, there’s no current strirring up anything.
If that all sounds a little too safe, there’s always cliff jumping.
Walk along the edge of the cliffs and you’ll see signs that say things like “No jumping.” That’s where you’ll jump.
Since there’s usually a crowd cheering from the jump point, perhaps you’ll receive a nice round of applause.
Swimming is great exercise for the whole body and also gives us a sense of freedom, it’s as close as it gets to (unsupported) flying. Maybe it was all the fresh air going to my brain, but there’s a nostalgia about Pine Meadow Lake that brought back fond memories of my childhood, and the summers I’d spent at sleep-away camp.
Doing shit that scares you as an adult is a good thing. It seems that as we grow older we tend to loose that fearlessness of the unknown we once had as a kid.
Every time your heart starts beating out of your chest from fear, being uncomfortable, or getting stuck in a new place where nothing is familiar, it’s a reminder you’re alive.
And every day you wake up healthy and pain free is a great day.