Doodletown Hike

DOODLETOWN HIKE Sept, 2007 Gina at the trailhead on Route 9W just south of Bear Mountain Bridge, marked by the blue blaze on the post to the right of the sign. Our mini-hike was basically to satisfy my desire to take photographs of the Hudson River from the site of the old Cornell Mine, which is at least two miles from the nearest road and just over 1,000 ft altitude. Doodletown had been a mining (nickel and iron) hamlet settled about 1760 and finally abandoned in 1965. The entire hamlet is rapidly being reclaimed by nature, and what's left of some of the old roads are now hiking trails.
A few ruins can be discovered hidden in the undergrowth; you can find these steps just after a short uphill climb off the main road.
The hope was to start from the Bear Mountain Lodge parking lot (Near the traffic circle at the top center of the photo), past the Doodletown Reservor (Center) and finish at the Cornell Mine at the top of Bald Mountain (at the bottom center), a distance of just over two miles. After taking some photos, we intended to return by the same route. This isn't very far for serious hikers, but we aren't serious hikers and we thought a short distance like this, about five miles, would be a good test of our capabilities. Although we don't consider ourselves particularly fit, Gina and I can both keep a pace well in excess of three miles an hour on a paved road, but without a load. This would be our first attempt at something a bit more strenuous. Along the trail, I couldn't help thinking about how our little afternoon jaunt compared with the efforts of others I'd heard or read about. Thru-hikers on the Appalachian Trail cover an average of 12 to 15 miles per day, usually carrying 25-35lbs, the 'Long Walk' of the S.A.S. stretches about 30 miles in 24 hours with a 40lb backpack, and some troopers covered 85 miles in 48 hours on foot during Desert Storm carrying explosives, arms, ammunition and enough food and water for 8-10 days.
Trying to be sensible, and paying heed to all the advice in the guide books, we took snacks, water, flashlights, map, compass, light jackets and a minimum of photography gear - one camera, one lightweight tripod and two lenses. Total carried weight was only 12lbs. We had chosen a beautiful early autumn afternoon, with no cloud and temperature of 76 Deg F.
At first we followed the 1777E trail which is well known in American history as the trail followed by Sir Henry Clinton and his British troops during the Revolutionary War. On 6th October, 1777, they had landed at Stony Point and marched along this trail until noon, when they successfully attacked Fort Clinton at what is now Bear Mtn Bridge. Part of this trail was later paved and became Doodletown Road. When we reached the Doodletown Reservoir on our left we realised we had followed the 1777E trail about a quarter of a mile too far and had missed the old road which is now a ski trail. My backup plan had been to take a compass bearing from the Perkins Tower, but it couldn't be seen through the trees so we retraced our footsteps until we found the old road half hidden by undergrowth, indicated by a sign to a small waterfall. After a few hundred yards we crossed the 4-ft waterfall and found the old Jones Point Road going east, which peters out a few hundred yards later in somewhat rugged terrain. We hunted around among the trees until we found the blue blazes of the Cornell Mine Trail again, indicating we were back on track. We saw quite a few deer, including one very large buck, and dozens of squirrels and chipmunks.
Once you get off the valley floor the undergrowth thins out rapidly and by the time we got to the switchbacks on the side of Dunderberg Mountain the ground got dusty and rocky. Maintaining a foothold between rocks and tree roots without twisting an ankle became the main focus of attention. The grade becomes quite steep, climbing to over 900 ft in about half a mile. With less than 100 ft to go to the top, Gina decided enough was enough and despite a short rest didn't want to go on. The problem was that we had started too late in the day, and hadn't given ourselves sufficient time to achieve everything we wanted to. It had taken us an hour to cover the first mile and a half and forty minutes to cover the last half-mile. The sun was sinking behind West Mountain to our right and if we hadn't turned back when we did we ran the risk of trying to find blue blazes along the trail in fading light. The blue blazes are actually hard to follow in the tree shade even in broad daylight, and I didn't want to try it with flashlights. One hiking guide shows the path we took as taking a lot less than three hours for the entire round trip, which I think is more than a little ambitious.
Yes, we did carry our wrappers out! There wasn't much garbage along our trail, nevertheless there was more than I expected, including the odd beer and soda cans and cigarette butts. The NYNJ Conference guides are now asking people to carry out more than they carry in, because the weekenders are actually leaving more garbage behind than the park rangers can cope with. I hope to try this trip again in a few weeks, allowing a whole day for hiking and photography, and I'll try to take more photos of the Doodletown ruins et cetera which are rapidly being reclaimed by Nature. We found our way back to the car and decided to treat ourselves to a roadside scenic view on the way home, to compensate for the view we had missed. You can see it here.

There's nothing down here!