Northern Schunemunk Mountain

Northern Schunemunk Mountain (3/29/2008)

The last time we hiked this spectacular mountain was on April 15, 2006 when we covered a good part of the southern section. This time we started at the northern tip, at the famous Moodna Viaduct and covered a good part of the northern section.

After parking in the small lot on the northern side of Otterkill Road, we followed the white blazes of the Trestle trail up to the awesome trestle. At the fork with the red-blazed Otterkill trail we veered left on the Otterkill, taking that south all the way to its intersection with the white-blazed Sweet Clover trail. We turned right (west) on the Sweet Clover trail and began the major climb of the hike. At the intersection with the yellow-blazed Jessup trail, we turned right (north) on that trail and headed along the ridge. It was incredibly windy (the wind chill must have been below 20 degrees), but we managed to have lunch on the ridge, with a view of the Hudson River, Mount Beacon, Storm King and the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge. We next continued on the Jessup to the red-blazed Swamp trail, going straight on that trail, crossing a small stream and once again climbing, very steeply in places. At the intersection with the white-blazed Trestle trail we turned right (north) and took that back to the car, descending and descending almost the entire time.

Almost the entire hike had views in one direction or another. In several place there were spectacular views in nearly all directions. The 6.5-mile hike took us about 4 hours, since I stopped for photos nearly every minute!

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