The Hike August 1, 2005 – Posted in: Aberrant Normalcy

Yesterday, six of us went hiking in Breakneck Ridge, NY. My sister and her friend Betsy led the charge because they’re both veteran hikers and immediately upon reaching the mountain we scaled 1000 feet in 0.4 miles. It was quite treacherous, as the rock face slid almost vertically down in places. David scuffed his knees at one point, but thankfully, no one broke their neck. The rest of the day was quite beautiful as we scaled several “knobs” (relative mountain peaks) and made our way in a five point something mile loop around the area. The woods are just a few miles northeast from West Point Academy and from the mountain you can just make out the grounds. It’s also right near Surprise Lake.

There were hundreds of grasshoppers, plenty of bees to scare off Betsy (we even saw a huge bees’ nest), and plenty of cliff faces for Amanda to hang precariously from (according to her she has no fear of heights). There were dozens of unnamable bugs too, including one button-like green one which my sister called “freaky” and I called “cool.” The blueberries were ripe for the pickin’ as were some raspberries too. They kept us alive as our toes and knees fell prey to the loose rubble. Paul spotted a lizard (skete?) on a tree and Amanda and Betsy screamed at some jumping pond frogs. The hawks and crows cawed at us, “Stupid humans!”

Five miles going up and down rock faces can be quite tiring, so we took many breaks. In this picture, Paul and Betsy stretch out their feet to the Hudson River. We were pretty exhausted at this point, but not enough to stop up from hopping the train one stop to Coldspring (and being charged $2.25 for the trip) to enjoy their undercooked fish, angus beefburgers, and their very tasty beer. Beer tastes much better and deserved after hiking five miles.

Me being an idiot practicing my Tai Chi.

I read an article in Science News this weekend that said the electricity needs of the US can be met entirely with wind power. The study, coming out soon in the Journal of Geophysical Research, says that all we need are 750,000 1.5 megawatt turbines. We would not need coal, natural gas, or nuclear power to generate our electricity — only the wind. But of course, wind is free, and there’s no profit to be made from buying and selling the wind (not yet, anyway). Yet, I find it nice to imagine a world without pollution, and that such a world is possible today. Here’s something you can do to help keep auto fuel efficiency as high as possible.