Washburn Trail — Attraction in Town of Philipstown

By far my least pleasant hiking experience (white-yellow-blue route).

I’m not an avid hiker yet not a novice. I hiked a few state parks here in NY and Acadia (including the famous beehive trail). Here are some negative highlights of the trail I took:

Extremely buggy. As soon as I got into the park, I was surrounded by tens of fly-ish bugs. Imagine the voice of a mosquito around you when you sleep. The sound lasted for the entire trail, no matter how hard I waved my arms.

Some trail roads are extremely rocky. By rocky, I don’t mean the big rocks cuz they are easy to hold and climb. The rocks here are about palm-sized and not carved into the trails. Therefore, they are unstable and then slippery if you stand on them. There is a large chance that you will hurt your ankles if your ankle strength isn’t strong enough. You have to pay much attention to the trail roads.

Some routes are counterintuitive. Even though there are marks, you can’t always raise your head to check the marks when you have to pay attention to the roads under your feet. So, when you follow your “intuition”, you can miss the marks.

Some roads are not well maintained. In short, those roads are like pouring some trash from building a house into the trails, and “voila, roads!”.

In conclusion, although the views on the summit are wonderful (hence my 3 stars), the entire experience was terrible, compared to other state parks I’ve been to. Also, I hiked alone, and nearly no one was in the same...

Along the Bear Mountain-Beacon Highway lies several state parks and mountains, one of which is Bull Hill. The difficulty of this hiking trail is moderate to difficult, depending on which path you take: Short Loop or Full Loop. Regardless of whichever path you choose, you will be starting at the Washburn Trail.

The Washburn Trail begins quite sharply, making hikers climb 1000+ feet in elevation within the first 2 miles! I highly advise you to take many breaks, wear shorts, and bring an extra shirt! The first portion is a winding, uphill climb. Afterwards, you will begin climbing up stairs of rock. Eventually, you will reach the crossroad where you can choose between the Short Loop or Full Loop. If you choose the Full Loop, you will keep going straight, hiking the remaining 1.8 miles of Washburn Trail. This will lead you to the peak of Bull Hill, where you can see the NYC skyline in the distance!

While this path does go 300 feet, it is also said to be easier than the Short Loop. I only did the Short Loop, not the Full Loop, so I cannot say which is easier. I can only state what others have mentioned. Nonetheless, stay hydrated and...

A perfect hiking trail if you're looking to escape the hustle and hustle of NYC. I have not done anything in the first half of August besides work extremely late hours and stress out most of the time. So, I jumped at the opportunity to finally go hiking upstate. It's a quick hour and a half ride along the Metro North, and only a 10-15 minute walk to the trails themselves. There's an information center with maps, cold drinks ($2 ice cold Gatorade!), and snacks. We took the short loop as some members in our party couldn't handle the full loop, but it still took us a little over two hours to complete and was very, very fun. The trail itself was mostly uphill but honestly not that difficult and had some great areas to really test that lower body strength. Even the walk to the trail itself is very picturesque and on the way back to the train station - absolutely stunning. Overall, would highly recommend and it's a fantastic mental reset from the...