A trip to Harriman State Park

12 October, 2016, 2 min, 397 words

Recently, getting restless thanks to the gorgeous weather and the constant hustle and bustle of living in New York City, I decided it was time to head into the woods for a night. After a bit of research, I settled on Harriman State Park as a destination: it’s relatively accessible via public transit but far enough from the city to feel like a different world.

I executed this in the middle of the week, which I maintain was an excellent choice. Pros: fewer people, a bit more peaceful. Cons: paying peak prices on the Metro North, having relatively little time on either end of sleeping out in the woods. All this is dwarfed, though, by the biggest pro of all: a peaceful night of sleep out in the open, away from the sound of sirens and car horns.

I took the Metro North to Harriman, then hopped in a taxi to get to the Island Pond entrance. From there, it’s a short hop to the Appalachian Trail, so I hiked a ways down that way before setting up camp. Yes, I hammock camp. Yes, it’s wonderful. There’s not too much more to say, other than that I spent several delightfully relaxing hours reading by lantern light in the wonderful warm of my hammock plus underquilt. It dropped to right around 50 F overnight, and I was warm all night long. The next morning, I slept in until around 7:30 (funny how my standards for “sleeping in” change between the city and the forest), explored a tad, packed up, and headed back to Harriman to get back into the city for work. It was a fabulous trip, and I will certainly be doing something like it again in the future.

Next time I head out there, I’ll do a couple things differently:

Take my bike on the train with me, to avoid taxi expenses, which more than doubled the cost of the trip. ($31 gets me round-trip fare from Penn Station to Harriman, and I paid a total of $35-40 for the very short taxi rides.)
Head out around a full moon, to provide a little plausible deniability for the amount of light pollution.
Get to sleep a little earlier so that I have more time to enjoy the daylight in the morning.