Winter Scenery

 

Because of a string of snow storms and cold weather I haven't been able to get out on the bike either on the road or the trail. There is just too much snow on the ground after an 8 inch storm followed about a week later with a 10 inch storm with a few inches in between. There has been some melting but not enough to clear the trails or the roads so that they are safe.  

Last weekend I went with Jack and Mike on a 6 mile hike on the high cliff trail in the Tohickon valley. 

Although there was still a lot of snow on the ground the trails were packed down so it wasn't too bad making our way thought the snow and we got some good views.

This Saturday some lingering mist from a storm  covered the tops of the trees with ice. At sunrise and the early morning it lite up the tops of the trees as shown in the photo at the top of the post and these two below.

This week we decided to walk around Tyler State park. We had gone there in December to ride mountain bikes around but a lot of the paths had not been cleared. This time more of the normal paths were cleared. 

We walked the normal route we usually ride and ended up down by the covered bridge which is probably the most scenic spot in the park. 

 

This original bridge burnt down in 1991 but was rebuilt using the original techniques as you can see when you walk through it. 

There is also a couple of diamond windows in the bridge to make it easier to see out over the river. 

We ended up hiking a little over 7 miles through some fields

and though some woods before making it back to the boat house where we started. 

Its nice to get outside especially when there is some interesting winter scenery to see but I do hope it gets warmer soon so I can get back on the bike. 

Snowy Hook

 

When there is more than a couple of inches of snow on the ground it is hard to find a place to ride. Once the roads are plowed you can try to ride on them but between the reduction of the width of the road and possibility of hitting patches of ice its not very safe. Riding on the trails around us is not an option either because anything over an inch or two is usually two slushy or icy to be ridable. At times like these I use to go to Tyler State park or Pennypack Park because they plow their paved paths so it use to be possible to ride there after a snow storm. This winter, as we found out in December, they don't seem to be plowing the paths. When we went to Tyler State park in December only about half the paths were plowed. 

It was going to be 40 degrees on Saturday so I wanted to find some where to ride. I decided to head towards the shore as it hadn't snowed as much there so my thought was that some of the paths and roads might be ridable. I headed for Sandy Hook and got Jack, Laura, Pete and Ricky to join me. I was going to try and ride part of the Henry Hudson trail and if that was too snow covered to ride then I was just going to ride around the roads of Sandy Hook.

As I was driving up to Sandy Hook there was less snow but more than I thought there would be. Laura showed up with her new gravel bike which she miraculously found after only a couple of weeks of starting to look for the bike.

 

Its a Cannodale Topstone and this was its first ride.  

We headed over the bridge to the other side of the bay to get on the Henry Hudson trail. It's a nice trail that goes along the coast line for a few miles before heading inland. When we got to the trail it was a little more snow covered than expected.

It had been packed down by people walking on it. I rode in a half a mile for a picture hoping it would get better but it didn't so I turned around. I'm sure it would have got better by the Marina but it would have been hard to get there. 

We headed back to Sandy Hook stopping at a few places to get a view of the bay. Once back on the Hook we meandered around the roads stopping for pictures at some of the beaches. There was a observation deck at the north beach where we got some good pictures of New York. It was one of the clearest days I have seen at Sandy Hook. (Click on the picture below to zoom in)

It was in the mid 40s and sunny so we were relatively warm and didn't mind random exploring the different places in Sandy Hook. It has been a few years since we went this far in to Sandy Hook. We even went to a few places I don't normally go but it was fun just looking around. There was a stiff west wind that was mostly a cross wind so it didn't really slow us down but did occasionally pelt us with sand in a couple of spots. 

We ended up spending about two hours riding around and ended up with a little over 20 miles. It was fun winter outing and a good way to get a ride in.