Schunemunk from Butter Hill: Schunemunk from Butter Hill, near Storm King

Schunemunk summit: The summit ...

Baby Brook falls: The waterfall near the north end of the cleft, a short distance from the trail.  For a larger version click here..

Schunemunk elevation: ... with the elevation chalked into the conglomerate to prove it.

All photos by Daniel Case
 

Finally, I climb the highpoint of the county I live in, and link my suburban glob with my Catskill glob.

And for a mountain this size, this turned out to be an impressive and
challenging hike up what is the highest point in the lower Hudson Valley. This one has major prominence, thus fantastic views of the region (as well, it can be seen from most of the county ... a perfect highpoint in contrast to its tucked-away counterparts in Westchester and Rockland).

I chose to use the popular routes up from the northern side. The yellow-blazed Jessup Trail, the usual entrée, runs about half a mile along the road from the preferred parking area to where it begins its ascent up across a field, then along a gentle woods road along Baby Brook to a nice little waterfall at the railroad tracks (which are active).

Past there it got steeper, and the laurel began to reappear in the woods in great numbers. Eventually I reached an area where the brook returned amidst a beautiful hemlock grove with an even better waterfall I just had to photograph. It almost looked like a bit of the Catskills shifted south. (Unfortunately, the hemlocks showed signs of woolly adelgid infestation, and some dead and dying trees could be seen as well).

Past that the trail levels out into a junction. Staying on the Jessup Trail will bring you to the summit most quickly, but I changed to the red-dot-on-white Barton Swamp Trail, a tricky scramble up to the aqua-blazed Long Path (again) on the western ridge, a route recommended by many guidebooks.

Once there, you can see why. The dwarf pitch pine that predominates in the forest has no equal in Orange County, and the many open rock areas afford spectacular views back to Newburgh, the Hudson River and the surrounding mountains (including Scofield Ridge, the Putnam County highpoint), and then west over all of the county and the Shawangunks. I'm sure on a clear enough day you could see three other county highpoints from the western ridge: High Point (NJ Sussex), Slide (NY Ulster) and Hunter (NY Greene).

Two miles of the LP sidling back and forth led to some large bare rock areas where the blue-dot Western Ridge Trail came up from the swamp. I went down that way and then up the other side, again noticing the prevalence of more northern tree species like beech white birch in the forest, species not usually observed much in the lowlands of the county (such as where I live, a mere 330 feet above sea level).

The latter part of this trip was a tricker scramble across many open
rock areas (in fact, I'd like to see how this scores on Ron's scale ... I swear it's actually tougher than Slide), finally ending at the Jessup Trail, again, a virtual road of eroded rock amid laurel, dwarf oak and maple and other species that flourish on summits around here.

It took a couple of bare upthrusts of rock, but even before reaching the
top of the summit you know it's the one. Nothing appears higher (although I didn't hit the other two 1,660'+ points to the south ... that'll be another trip). A sign chalked into the rock says "1,664'" and right at the top there's another one indicating "site of firetower" although there are no signs that there was one.

You can see all around, in every direction, over the treetops. Just like
a county highpoint should be. The whole of the county was at my feet, yet I felt I was in a different world up here, as I had suspected but never actually experienced. Driving past it on the Thruway will never be the same.