Day tripping: up a mountain and stepping back in time to New Paltz ...
Ah, it’s great to explore the great outdoors, to get into the sunshine and away from the shadows of Manhattan skyscrapers, the smog, stress and exhausting grime of city life. To embrace the crisp, lung-freshening air of the higher altitudes, witness the gorgeous views from the precipitous summit and complete the heart-stopping, calf-tightening power walk it took to get there. Best of all, nothing can match the smug satisfaction that comes with the casually thrown away sentence at brunch the next day, to a tableful of incredulous faces: “Yeah, whatever, so I hiked seven miles yesterday…” before sipping delicately on a zesty, chilled Mimosa and demolishing a fist-sized burger and plateful of French fries.
A friend had been plaguing me for years to put the remote down, get off the couch and back to nature. Up until now I’ve been able to cry off with an outstandingly creative range of excuses, most of which involved a raging hangover, the need to lie down in a darkened room with a damp towel on my forehead, coupled with the polite but emphatic words “no fxxking chance.”
Nevertheless, at a weak moment I recently agreed to head upstate and to
explore a small corner of 14,500 acre Minnewaska State Park Preserve in
the Shawangunk Mountains, located only some 70 miles from midtown
Manhattan. To say bribery was involved would be unfair, however I did
receive a promise that afterwards, we could go for a tasty brunch in
New Paltz, a quirky college town in upstate New York that, I was assured, would
charm my hippie soul.
Diesel jeans, flip-flops, collection of bracelets, iPod,
sunglasses, handbag, fluffy green scarf to keep the chills at bay and I
was ready. As we started up the mountain my friend warned that we
should be on guard for timber rattlesnakes and copperheads, two members
of the reptile family that apparently reside, quite prolifically, in
the near vicinity.
Two very exposed feet came to a very abrupt halt. “Snakes?
No-one mentioned anything about snakes…” I stared down at ten suddenly
rather vulnerable looking polished toes, then over to my friend’s
tightly laced boots, then back to the safety of the parking lot. “Don’t
worry, they are more scared of you, it’ll be fine. It’s the bears we
should be more worried about.” “BEARS?” “Yes, just black bears though,
and they’re not as aggressive as the grizzlies, so long as you don't
catch them off guard.”
At this point, I was on the verge of throwing a tantrum and descending
into the deepest of bad moods but my survival instincts told me better
to grit teeth and smile grimly, as I did not want to be left on my own
up there. And so we marched on, or more accurately, I ventured forth
with eyes darting nervously towards the woods where the bears lived, or
else fixed on the stony path ahead, tentatively tip-toeing my way past
seemingly benevolent twigs lest they unexpectedly twist upwards with angry
fangs headed straight towards a succulent and regrettably naked pinkie.
Of course, it wasn’t as if we had to hack through treacherous grassy forest floors hiding deadly creatures beneath innocent looking leaves in manner of the survivors of Lost – the three and a half mile walk up to our destination at Castle Point was, thankfully, along a clearly defined trail. More life-threatening, it turned out, were the free-wheeling cyclists careening around mountain corners yelling “Move to the right! For god’s sake! Move!!! Where are you going????!!! What the hell is she doing????! Can’t she hear me? Get out of the w-a-a-a-a-y” before disappearing again into silence, having sent at least one novice hiker spinning towards the side of the road, her earphones and handbag flying. Then there are the pesky little midges that make a beeline for Irish skin, resulting in an enflamed assortment of next-day hives in the strangest places. They must be attracted to the unusually high red-wine percentage in the bloodstream because no-one else I know ever gets attacked with such relentless enthusiasm.
Several hours and a few near collisions later, we made it safely back to the car park, rosy cheeked and exhilarated from an afternoon spent at one with the natural world. And having walked seven brisk miles, it was now time for a well-deserved late lunch and glass or two of apple cider.
Next stop, New Paltz and a sudden, delightful glimpse back in time to the flowers-in-the-hair, heady world of Haight Ashbury in 1963. The sun was laying low in the sky and casting its rosy light over the main street which was brimming with an eclectic mixture of color, music, bearded characters who looked like disciples strumming guitars and playing bongo drums on steps, peace signs in windows and the beguilingly casual, laid back attitude of college life where people happily sit about, chatting, singing, and making a lot of something out of doing a lot of nothing. I loved it. Organic coffee houses, bohemian clothes and jewelry stores, vegetarian restaurants, galleries, hand painted signs and, of course, a quaint Dickensian bookshop – the kind that feels like an artsy professor’s library, complete with a tattered but divinely comfortable sofa, plants, activist posters peeling off the walls and the evocative scent of burning patchouli.
Eventually, I'll get that elusive book deal and move here, find a cottage within walking distance of the organic health food store, grow my own vegetables, wander around in billowing, jewel colored Indian skirts and write existential, meandering prose all day. Take a lover with gray hair in a ponytail, no determinable source of income, a bright but threadbare collection of vintage Grateful Dead t-shirts and an endearing tendency to forget what he is talking about mid-sentence, possibly due to the after effects of one two many road trips taken in Ken Kesey's bus. I indulged this little fantasy, as we sat drinking after-dinner coffee by the side of the road, enjoying a few minutes of life without anxiety, without pressure, without responsibility. Then, day trip over, we headed back to the car, back to the tightly stacked concrete and mayhem of the city and New Paltz became nothing more than a pleasant memory, a haven of nostalgia, and a place that is very sweet to visit, once in a while.
