Breakneck Ridge — Local services in Town of Philipstown

If you're into a hiking challenge with tons of optics, this delivers. The views at the top are right up there with any of the nearby mountain peaks, and this is an area with some strong competition - Bear Mountain is probably 20 minutes south. I've been up here numerous times ranging from the early spring to the late fall, and even when the foliage at the various viewpoints is not great, there's so much else to make up for it.

I came here yesterday with one of my hiking chums. We opted for the 3.7-mile medium-length option (I've done the 7-miler one before that goes further back in the Hudson Highlands, and it's pretty meh - if you're in it for the mileage, by all means, but it's super anticlimactic after Breakneck and I recall Sugarloaf being one of the poochier summits). Our hike took us up (and I do mean UP) the white trail to the top of Breakneck Ridge, and then a bit further inland (with some additional up and down along the ridge) to the red trail on the left. After about 45 minutes, we hit the terminus of the red trail and took the yellow on the left, which brought us back to 9D about 10 minutes later.

My favorite part is the initial mile up Breakneck. It took us about 45 minutes to an hour, and it's not for the faint of heart. If you slip....well, I don't know that that's CERTAIN death, but it's most likely an unpleasant injury, and there were a handful of times where we had to stop to figure out how we were going to get over a particularly difficult stretch of rocks. My chum was making her debut and wearing regular running shoes. I wouldn't do that - she had some trouble in the nastier sections with tread/grip, while I looked like a mountain goat by comparison with my North Face hiking sneakers. They were $40 at a nearby NF outlet. Worth it. Trust me. Some of my North Face purchases are pure label-whoreness, but the footwear is not.

The views are fantastic on Breakneck - you can see miles up and down the Hudson, as well as the sprawling landscape on the western side of the river (highlighted by Storm King right across the way). I can't emphasize how much this is a hiker's hike - we didn't see any kids or families out for a stroll, just young and middle-aged people who looked like they were spry and in good physical shape.

In many respects, the descent down on the red is my least favorite part. By then your hindpaws are likely tuckered out, and I always find the downhill more challenging as a result (especially if you're in decent shape and have hiker wind, which for whatever reason I do when it comes to rock scrambles - running outside like a normal person? Nope. Can't explain it.) It's also not a particularly scenic trail, but after what you just went through, I don't think your expectations should be insanely high.

This was easily the least crowded I've ever seen Breakneck, likely because of some severe thunderstorm watches that we ignored. As a result, this was the only time I didn't encounter young pup/ignorant hikers asking for assistance in the form of navigation, mild rescue or water. If you can't immediately provide an informed response to what you should have in a hiking backpack, then I would not come here for your debut without at least one other more experienced individual. This is not the hike for a lot of trial and error. Huge recommend though if you're...

Last fall, during our hike on Breakneck Ridge, we saw a vast number of yellow leaves that had fallen from the trees covering the humid soil, rocks cloaked with resilient moss that appeared cyan, and the stream flowing from the mountain peak to its destination that we neither knew nor tried to discover.

However, people always prefer sightseeing the red leaves over yellow ones.

One friend said, “Those leaves dropped long before they turned red.” I pondered his words, feeling it was beautiful yet such a heart-wrenching metaphor: Something that might have been exceptionally beautiful in the future always vanished before it could reveal its most magnificent aspect, like some relationships we ended too early, like the dream that we gave up pursuing so it would never come true.

After going back home, I mentioned this sentence to a good friend who is a nature enthusiast. “Some never turn red,” she replied. “Yellow indicates a loss of chlorophyll that makes leaves green. Red is the result of the production of another chemical, but not all leaves produce that chemical.”

Which made me less sad and more serene. Some things were destined never to attain beauty. Perhaps most leaves were meant to be mediocre, devoid of uniqueness, and were meant to fall from somewhere without ever getting attention in the end.

It was the power of fatalism that made me feel serene. “Fatalists are...

It’s ok.. I’d appreciate if the hype of this being a challenging trail wasn’t out there because to be truthfull this is just a notch over a walk on the park.

I am by no means someone experienced in tough trails or anything, but here you can choose to do pretty much anything and it’s ok: walk on the easy marked trail, choose to go on the difficult marked trail, or even just choose to do whatever trail you see even if it isn’t marked. I did a bit of these three things and it was all pretty much a breeze, with exception of one or two specific points on the difficult marked trail through the rocks while on the climb to the top.

Once you reach the top there is a wide open clearing where everyone new to this will probably wander off any marked trail and be lost for a few minutes if not longer. So be carefull (look for round signs on trees). And after reaching the top, to do the full loop I don’t think it’s fun because it’s not that beautiful and the descent is a pain in the a.. (and I am not stating this as challenging, it’s just a never ending down hill on uneven soil with lots of leaves, tree roots, rocks, and gravel). If I had to do it all over again I would just restrain myself on the rocky part of the trail, heading back from where I came once reaching...