Hiking Black Mountain, NY

The wildlife was out on Sunday, oh yes it was.

Marissa and I had ourselves a little adventure hiking Black Mountain in Harriman State Park. On the way to the trail (in the car) we saw a huge snake cross the road and than got lost for an hour. Well, not exactly lost, but definitely off track with no where to make a safe or legal U-turn. On the trail I twisted my ankle, fell and scrapped up my knee and then we almost walked right into a deer who did not feel the need to get out of our way. We had to stand around and wait for her to get off the trail. During lunch a giant hawk flew right over our heads.. Marissa was scared of him. I loved him. Finally, at the end of our hike we got in the car and saw a big black bear lumber across the road in front of us.

Thankfully, the snake and bear sighting were from the car because both of those animals make me quite nervous.

I love getting to the summit and breaking out the food. For some reason we decided we didn't need a big lunch and just brought some granola bars, apples and pretzels. Luckily that was enough, but I could have eaten a delicious turkey sandwich. Darn it.

I can just imagine my friend Alexi reading that and thinking "WHAT no delicious lunch?!" One time Alexi and I went on a 7 mile hike with NO FOOD. We forgot food! Who does that? Certainly not us, but we messed up. I found an old squished granola bar in my pack that was probably there for a year. I was so hungry and had a fleeting thought about not sharing my treasure. I shared. We each had about 50 calories and that was enough to fuel the rest of the hike. Goodness. It's so weird how you can really feel the benefit of eating when you're exerting that much energy.

At least Marissa and I had more than 50 calories each at the summit.

Ah. So, the Manhattan skyline is supposed to be visible from this hike on a clear day.. just like the hike I did with Matt last week, but again it was too cloudy! Maybe next time the clouds will stay home so I can see Manhattan from a mountain. Way more awesome than seeing it from the GW bridge.

Oh, one more thing. Yaga, a really sweet blogger from "The Shiny Bubble," asked me to be part of her new feature called "Monday Friend." She's planning to share the blogs she loves through these guest type posts. She asked me to list 5 things that are really important to me to accompany the post she wrote. If you'd like to check it out, you can find it here!