[Journal entry for March 4, 2017; Blauvelt Mountain, Harriman State Park NY] The morning is very cold for March, about twenty degrees Fahrenheit. I’m wearing thermal underwear and a couple of heavy shirts. The dawn sky was clear, but clouds are starting to fill up the sky. A gusty wind blows. I park at the end of Johnsontown Road in Sloatsburg NY and take the White Bar Trail (blazed in white) northward. I make a little detour to visit what appears to be a terrace that once hosted a house (though no part of any building remains). The rivulet besides the terrace has been spanned by a small stone bridge and its banks have been reinforced with stones. The area must once have been a pretty place to live, especially since enormous and picturesque boulders decorate the adjacent woods.

I connect with an old woods road that heads west. I cross Spring Brook at the ford, stepping from stone to stone. It is running strongly. A little ice rings boulders mid-stream. A take the left hand turn at a fork and the road rise steadily uphill. The ridge is called Dater Mountain in the south, Pound Mountain in the middle and Blauvelt Mountain in the north. I leave the road near when it approaches a prominent cliff, one of the many south-facing scarps in the Hudson Highlands that were formed by glacial plucking during the Ice Age. I hike over to the cliff; it’s made of gneiss with a sub-horizontal foliation and has a layered appearance. One end of the cliff has a small, boxy tower (or tor, as they are called in the Highlands). A weak layer near its base of the cliff has eroded back, making a shallow cave. I peer in, thinking that it might be large enough to shelter a person. I continue uphill, passing a small wetland with swamp vegetation. I’m always amazed that the water does not leak out of these mountain top pools, for the rock on the cliffs is fractured, yet I know of many in the park. Further uphill, I poke around a second, larger cliff. This one had icicles clinging to its face.

The land above the cliff is fairly open, especially along the western edge of the hilltop, where wide rock ledges command pretty views to the west. I cross the Tuxedo-Mount Ivy Trail (blazed in white with a red bar) and continued my northward bushwhack, climbing up to the summit of Blauvelt Mountain. The land here is also open, with good views in most directions. I will need to come back when the vegetation is green and when the sun is lighting up the views, for the summit then will be a delightful place. Today, the wind, the grey sky and the leafless brown bushes make it bleak. The view to the east is the most interesting, for in the distance I can see a blue sliver of Lake Sebago, and Conklin Mountain, beyond it. I prowled around the summit area, coming across a 1964 United States Geodetic Survey benchmark affixed to a rock ledge.

I hike down the steep northern flank of Blauvelt Mountain, following a gulley with a prominent rocky cliff on its western side. The lower part of the cliff has been torn apart (by now-defunct glaciers, I guess), making a small lemon squeezer. I have fun scrambling through it. The downhill face of the cliff is a flat overhanging wall that is rather striking in its appearance, especially since it had icicles hanging off of it. Eventually, I cross Spring Brook and rejoined the White Bar Trail near Dutch Doctor Shelter. I had stayed in the shelter on my overnight trip a couple of weeks ago, and so do not visit it today. Instead, I head back south on the White Bar Trail.

I decide I have time for a detour, for noon is still a half hour away, so I once again take the woods road, but this time follow it until it intersects with the Blue Disk Trail (blazed in blue). I take this trail southward toward Pound Mountain. It passes through a very interesting bowl that is walled on three sides by high cliffs. Shortly thereafter, I reach the overlook by the cliff on Pond Mountain that is called Almost Perpendicular. The trail descends this cliff through a gulley. At the bottom, I connect with the Kakiat Trail (blazed in white) and head back east, crossing Spring Brook one last time. I follow the brook downstream for a few hundred yards, admiring the ice formations on rocks and branches. I have to work to get back to the White Bar Trail, even though it is just a few tens of yards east of the brook, for the way is mostly blocked by barberry and other thorn bushes. A few minutes later, I was back at my car.

I say almost no wild life on my hike – just a few Turkey Vultures and a Downy Woodpecker.

About 3:30.