A 30th Birthday Celebration for the Books: Hiking in Breakneck Ridge

Breakneck Ridge, Cold Spring — Oh hey, Hudson River on a gorgeous, sunny day!

Hey friends!

So someone (ahem, me) just had a birthday, and it was a big one. That’s right, the big 3-0! So in honor of getting older, I decided to do something to make me feel younger–go on a 3-mile long, rock-climbing hike.

The place we picked was Breakneck Ridge in the Cold Spring area. It’s about 2.8 miles in total, and let me tell you — it is strenuous!

I have some amazing friends who agreed to go on this hike with me!

Thanks for going along with my crazy idea, gang!

We all packed some food (and my husband packed a 3 liter bag of boxed wine to carry the entire way … what a husband!) and drinks and sunscreen and took off for the day. I would say it took us about 4 1/2 hours to hike it, but that included about an hour stop for a picnic at the top.

A tasty assortment of goodies, including homemade baked cookies by a good friend from college and Trader Joe's brownies with a birthday candle from a former co-worker. — A tasty assortment of goodies, including homemade baked cookies by a good friend from college and Trader Joe’s brownies with a birthday candle from a former co-worker.

The 3-liter bag of wine that Chris took out of the box of wine he purchased, which he carried the entire duration of the hike. That's my man. — The 3-liter bag of wine that Chris took out of the box of wine he purchased, which he carried the entire duration of the hike. That’s my man.

There were many points of the hike that provided awesome and amazing overlooks of the Hudson, and it was the perfect day to hike—sunny and in the low 50s. Here’s a little bit of what we saw:

_DSC0211 — We envisioned this point being somewhere near the end. It was not.

And so, we all made it through, all the way to the end, and I was so proud of everyone…

After the hike, before catching the train back to the city, we stopped at the Cold Spring Depot (which is walking distance to the train stop) for beers:

And so that’s about it, my friends. I had such an amazing time. It felt nice to be outside, we had an amazing group with us and I’d recommend this hike for anyone who’s game for some awesome, strenuous rock climbing.

One other word of note: If you’re planning on catching the train from New York City to Breakneck Ridge, I’m told you can alert the conductor to the fact that you want to get off at Breakneck, and that sometimes they’ll stop there for you (otherwise there are only two stops directly at Breakneck a day). We thought we’d get off at Cold Spring and walk to the trail, but it turns out that’s about a 4+ mile walk. We were not game to do that before even starting the hike, so we had parts of our gang who were driving pick us up. Just something to think about.

Bis bald, friends! Off to London week after next! My lovely in-laws have purchased Les Miserables tickets for us for Friday night when we get there. I love London theater, and I’ve never seen Les Mis, so I’m really looking forward to this!