[Journal entry for April 20, 2014; Easter; Torne View Overlook, Harriman State Park, New York]. Dallas and I park at the Reeves Meadow Visitor’s Center, off of Seven Lakes Drive northeast of Sloatsburg New York. It’s a beautiful afternoon, with a blue sky and a sun that is getting low in the sky. The prominent cliff on Pound Mountain is lit up, with deep shadows bringing out its jaggedness.

We take the Reeves Brook Trail (blazed in white), southward. It follows Reeves Brook, a small tributary of the much larger Stony Brook that also flows by the Visitor’s Center. Reeves Brook is running strongly, owing to spring runoff. The trail follows the brook for while and we cross it several times, then diverge from it at a point where it flows down a steep hillside covered with large boulders, making cascades. The trail meets up with the brook again at the top of the hill, a terraced landscape where the brook makes a series of small waterfalls over low mossy cliffs. I bushwhack among the rivulets, while Dallas takes the trail. We pass pools and damp areas in which frogs sing loudly. This is the first year after the widespread frog die-off that has affected northeaster Unites States that I have heard anything close to their old numbers. Perhaps their population is recovering from the fungal disease that is said to be responsible. The trail crosses several rock ledges, one shaped like an arête, and skirts the base of several substantial glacially-plucked cliffs, all the while following the brook.

We then come to the junction with the Seven Hills Trail (blazed in blue). The intersection is at the base of a tall cliff, also of glacial origin, whose base is littered with huge rectangular blocks, some the size of small houses. This cliff is on the southern flank of North Hill. We take the Seven Hills Trail southward, away from the cliff and along a ridge that offers nice views towards the west. The late afternoon is a bit hazy, and the rolling wooded hills are indistinct. We soon come to the intersection with the Raccoon Brook Hills Trail (RBH, blazed in black), but pass it, for our destination, the Torne View Overlook, is a little beyond it. The area of the overlook is fascinating; the rounded pink rock ledges are picturesque and the sparse trees gnarled and stunted. The panorama is nice, but view the Ramapo Torne, a prominent hill to the south, is disappointing. The Torne draws its name from the Dutch word Tor, meaning Tower, and when viewed from the west does indeed have craggy upper reaches that are castle-like. Unfortunately, from the perspective of Torne View, it is just one more rolling hill of the Hudson Highlands.

We backtrack to the RBH Trail and take it north, across a sparsely wooded tableland, past patches of last year’s grass, meadows of blueberry bushes, solitary Pitch Pine trees and oaks, and large glacial boulders. The oaks are just beginning to bud. We rejoin the Reeves Brook Trail and take it back towards the Visitor’s Center. This intersection, too, is at the base of the North Hill cliff, and for a while we walk along its base. The sun is low on the horizon now, and we hurry back, so as not to run out of daylight, though we make two brief stops. The first is to inspect the route of the Seven Hills Trail as it ascends up the cliff, following a natural fissure in the stone. The second is to view once more the sequence of mossy waterfalls along Reeves Brook, now glowing yellow-orange in the almost-setting sun. We reach the Visitor’s Center a few minutes before sundown. We are in shade, but the cliff on Pound Mountain is still brightly lit up.

About three hours.