Tom McGee's Blog

Sunday we took advantage of the new, improved longer days of Spring, plus temperatures in the 70s, to explore Bergen County’s Campgaw Mountain.

To tell the truth, the hike up the slope wasn’t especially exciting. We tacked up an abandoned bobsled run cut through the trees. The run was faintly visible as a concrete channel filled with dirt and partially overgrown, but the snowmaking equipment was still there.

A. and I circled around for a better look.

It’s not really that old; snow-making technology only goes back to the 1950s, and the dials looked several decades later than that.

Meanwhile, LF stopped to check the trail map.

Down the backslope and continuing upward to the mountain, a network of collapsed stone walls crisscrossed the forest.

Nearing the crest, the late afternoon sun lit up a grove of pine trees.

LF got there first, and we heard her loudly say, “whoa,” or “snow,” or maybe just “lo.”

Turned out to be “snow.”

The lifts were running, and there were a few skiiers and snowboarders were getting in what might have been their last runs of the season. Skiiers in t-shirts weren’t really that much more of a surprise than seeing the snow in the first place on such a warm evening.

It was that time of day when the sunlight made everything more beautiful, even a patch of McMansions down below.

To the left was Harriman Mountian in New York, and far off to the right we could see the towers of the George Washington Bridge.

We were pretty tired after all that up-and-down. On the way back we sort of lost our way and stopped for directions. Strangely, the character manning the kiosk wasn’t as helpful as we had hoped.

But we got home safely anyway.