[Journal Entry for March 6, 2010] Today is a beautiful, spring-like day with a clear blue sky and temperatures in the high forties. I park at the Tuxedo – Mount Ivy (TMI) trailhead on Diltz Road in Mount Ivy. I am hiking light today. I’m carrying a water bottle, a map and compass, snowshoes and poles, and my camera. The temperature is warm enough that I keep my hat and gloves in my jacket pocket. More than a foot of last week’s snow remains on the ground, and at 9 AM it’s still crusty, but I expect it to get slushy as the sun warms it. This part of the trail is well-travelled enough that I boot it, carrying the snowshoes slung over my shoulder with a strap.

My route first takes me along a gas pipeline right-of-way. It parallels the boundary between the lowlands of the Newark Sedimentary Basin to the southeast and the granitic Hudson Highlands to my northwest. This boundary is in fact a geologic fault – the Ramapo Fault – and little earthquake occasionally occur along it. In this area, this southern edge of the Hudson Highlands is called the Ramapo Mountains. On the broad scale, it is a northeast-southwest trending ridge. The Suffern -Bear Mountain (SBM) Trail runs along the crest of the ridge. The ridge is fairly heavily dissected, so that it is broken up into individual hills, each of which has a name. I plan to hike along three of these “mountains” today, from northeast to southwest, Panther, Catamount and Horse Stable.

I take a little detour to examine the ruins of an old building. The stone foundation and some rusty corrugated steel sheets are about all that remains. I then rejoin TMI, which heads straight uphill via an old woods road. Harriman State Park has many of these woods roads, in varying condition. This one is in pretty good shape. It looks like it was dug by hand through a boulder field, for its sides are built up with tall piles of heaped up stones.

With all the snow melting, all the little creeks and rivulets are running. I pass some nice cascades as I ascend upward. I also pass many rock outcrops, including some substantial south-facing cliffs. Such cliffs are ubiquitous in the Park. I believe them to have formed during the Ice Age by the glaciers plucking or tearing out large blocks of stone. I notice that the trail, especially at low spots formed by old footprints, is swarming with snow fleas. These tiny insects, less than a sixteenth of an inch long, are a type of springtail. They give the snow the appearance of having been dusted with pepper. I am sorry to have to step on them, but they are everywhere!

I put on my snowshoes when I reach the SBM junction, for there has been no foot traffic on that trail since last week’s snowstorm. I cross a ravine and then, after another upgrade, reach the Panther Mountain overlook. I rest a while here, admiring the view out into the Newark Basin to my southeast. I can see the edge of the Ramapo Mountains and in the lowlands beyond, the Hudson River, the part of the Hudson Palisades called Hook Mountain, its high point, called High Tor, and on the horizon the New York City skyline.

The SBM follows the ridge crest over to Catamount Mountain, which also several nice overlooks. I pass several precariously perched glacial boulders. These boulders must place some limit on the size of the earthquakes since the end of the Ice Age. A really big tremor would have knocked them over. I then descend into the substantial ravine that separates Catamount and Horse Stable mountains. I detour off the SBM, for it descends rapidly down a rock face that would be problematical with snowshoes. I rejoin the SBM where it crosses the stream at the bottom of the ravine. A lot of deer have been through this area. Their tracks are everywhere. I pass tracks of several largish waddling animals, but the tracks are too melted for easy identification.

After a few-minute’s walk along the ridge line of Horse Stable Mountain, I reach the Edgar Stone Memorial Shelter. Surprisingly, I appear to be the first person who has visited it since last week’s snow. I stop for a few minutes to rest and drink water.

I then head down the Sherwood Path, another old woods road. It is very steep in places, so much so that I think that even a four-wheel drive vehicle would have trouble with it. I pass a derelict car, now upside-down. About three-quarters of the way down, I reach a three-way fork in the road. I’ve had trouble here before (but going uphill). Today I take the center road, which seems to go most-steeply downhill, and this proves to be correct choice, for I reach the gas pipeline right-of-way in a few minutes. I then walk northeastward along it, heading back to my car.

Just before the end, I take a little detour down to a swamp that along the Mahwah River, which flows southwestward parallel to the edge of the Ramapo Mountains. Many Canada geese, and a few ducks, fly away when they see me. The swamp is beautifully lit up by the late afternoon sun. I spend a few minutes examining bushes, grass hummocks and rotting tree stumps. I then hike back to the gas pipeline right-of-way and follow it back to the TMI trailhead and my car.

About five hours, overall.