Signage

It was a spectacular day - mostly sunny, and even quite warm at times.  So I trekked on up to Cold Spring for a jaunt around the Mt. Taurus area.  This time, it was Undercliff (part 1) (yellow)  to Nelsonville (green) to Notch (blue) to Breakneck (white) to Undercliff (part 2) (yellow) to Brook (red) to Cornish (blue).  It was more difficult in this direction!!!  Sadly, the gorgeous icicle display was nowhere to be seen.  And I got a bit of a late start, so had to cut things a bit shorter than I'd hoped.  But the day certainly had its compensations.

The first sign of the day - an advertisement with commentary (below the "ST" in "TRUST").

LOVE this for the grad student type comment: "Citation Needed"

View from the train 

Sorta like "killing with kindness"? (Bless their hearts....) 

Along the Nelsonville trail, things were quiet.  I saw a few folks here and there, but they kept to themselves.

Today there was no ice heave, no icy glaze on the waters, and no icicles... But lots of running water.

This building, though relatively modern, always has a fairy-tale quality for me as it rises incongruously out of the trees.

 By this time, I was on the Notch trail.

I climbed this and took the picture from
mid-trunk (about 3 feet off the ground)

I liked the vertical root structure contrasted with the vertical trunks

A dwarf among elves

I think this has been partially restored - it is in amazingly good shape.

A tangle before the remains of an old farm house

The empty windows remind me of the word cathedral

Seed pods on the bare branches - my lunch spot

moss + lichen

End of the climb

Once I joined the Breakneck trail, I ran into some very upbeat folks who were thrilled to share the joy of a beautiful day.  A guy at one of the scenic overlooks was very curious about where I'd come from (hiking-wise).  It appears he always comes here and hikes the Breakneck trail "there and back again" - so he had no notion of Nelsonville, Undercliff, etc. - he did not even realize there was a train station at Cold Spring.  Hmmm.  Or maybe he was just trying to make conversation.  :)

Blue skies = happiness

View down to Storm King (across the water) and its smaller echo (this side)

Back on Undercliff, I ran into some guys going the other way ... they were getting knackered with the ascent to Breakneck.  Me, I ran into some trouble on the descent - I realized I was getting a bit tired, as I nearly fell a few times.  So I stopped and laced up my shoes a bit.  That helped - they were actually a bit too loose before.

You can actually reach through this tree's trunk in places.

I was struck by how well-marked Undercliff is at the moment - a lot of fresh paint.  It looks a little like they were trying to re-route the path or something. But there was a really wonderful point where the path was flat and straight in the woods, with rectangular stones lining one side of it, and four out of five adjacent stones had yellow arrows on them marking the trail direction.

A ridiculously well-marked path - someone went a little crazy with the yellow spray-paint 

The officially sanctioned route for clambering up these particular rocks

Back on the Brook and Cornish trails, there were (as usual) muddy stretches and small pools in the path.

Reflections for a layering effect 

Ye olde greenhouse - but without glass, it cannot provide a "greenhouse effect"

A "southern gothic" feel of vines dripping down from trees

The boat passing by on the water was apparently named "CLIPPER" -
 but it was not a clipper ship.  I'm pretty sure of that.

Space Invaders.

"DO NOT BLOCK" :)

I noticed again today how spectacularly well-signed - or amply signed - the Village of Cold Spring really is.  They leave nothing to chance, with warnings about littering and use of the ball fields, and who can park where and when, and walking one's pets, you name it!

There seems to be an arithmetic relationship between the speed limit and the age of the town as posted here:

I hear they raise the speed limit by 1 mph for every 10 years.

Back in the heart of downtown, I stopped at the Foundry Cafe and had some delicious vegetarian chili.  Nice chunks of vegetables in it, just the right tenderness.  I read a bit more of my book for class, and - noticing how exhausted I was - congratulated myself on not having undertaken the additional 2.5 miles today even though I'd been tempted.  (I was also very glad I'd turned down an invitation to go to the movies tonight.  It would have been quite the nap.)

A neighborly dispute?

A historic preservation site right across from the train station, which I'd never noticed before.

Oh, sure, NOW they tell me!!!!!!

View from the train station

Chugging along the Hudson back to the city