Loantaka Brook Reservation

Loantaka Brook Reservation (1/17/2011)

This is the Hike of the Week for 10/9/2008 as described on the NY-NJ Trail Conference site. Laura had the day off for MLK Jr's birthday. I took a vacation day in order to join her. We managed to fit this 6-mile+ hike into our schedule only because the trail head happens to be 5 minutes from our home. Before today I had been hesitant to hike this trail. In the summer this area is crawling with walkers, bicyclists, rollerbladers, joggers, baby strollers, and just about every other thing with wheels or feet (or both). And most of them are on cellphones. But not so today! In fact, I was very surprised to see that the asphalt surface (that makes up about half of this hike) was still completely covered with snow. Clearly the county park commission made no attempt to plow it. But that wasn't a bad thing because among the dozen or so others we saw out here today, four were cross-country skiers ... skiing on the path usually crawling with rollerbladers and baby strollers. But there was no asphalt today. Just packed snow. So we may as well have been in Harriman. It was wonderful.

The hike described in the link above begins at the northern parking area near the Seaton Hackney Stables. But we instead parked on Loantaka Way and first headed north to the recreational area at the northern tip (on the "paved" path) before making a right onto the bridle path and taking that all the way back south to Loantaka Way. Here we crossed the street and continued on the bridle path until it ended at the "paved" path. We made a right on that path and took it back to Loantaka Way and walked the 0.3 miles back to the car in the lot.

Total distance hiked today was 6.3 miles on nicely-packed snow in about 2.5 hours.

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