A Little Pre AT Walk in the Woods on Long Island

I’ve been in New York for almost a week now. Mallory, the kids, and I did a good 5+ mile walk earlier in the week with Grayson riding his bike, Mallory pulling Harper in the wagon (she walked some), and me with my full pack (except my quilt). It was good, but it was all paved. Today I got to take a little hike on an actual trail. 

I had Kyle drop me off at Cathedral Pines Campground. It’s just 1.9 miles from where they live, but it’s not a nice walk. Kyle was taking Diego to the dog wash place anyway. The plan was for him to pick me up on his way back. 

I’ve been on some of the trails before when I was here back in September, but there is a pretty extensive network of trails. While All Trails lists them as good hiking trails, they are probably used more as mountain bike trails. The elevation is nothing much to write home about, but it’s still trail.

As you can see, the sun was shining. However, it was chilly (although, not so much in my book...). 

Puffy jacket on, but could have worn my hoody instead. 

About an hour into the hike, Kyle texted me that he was on his way back. Well, there was no way I would finish the 5.8 mile route in the 30 minutes it would take for Kyle to get back to me. I texted that I would walk back when I was done. 

Now I didn’t have to hurry so much, not that I was hurrying anyway, but now I didn’t worry about taking a moment to check that I was still on the correct route (lots of alternatives). Interesting observation...I was tracking the hike on All Trails (I had downloaded the route). At one point I took the wrong trail. Not long onto it, my phone beeped to let me know I was off route. That turned out to be quite handy, as I missed a turn later on as well. 

I worked my way along the various mountain bike trails. It was quite the loopy route. At one point, I could see the trail I would be on shortly as it looped back. Even though I knew I would have the extra 1.9 miles to walk back, I stuck to the route instead of short-cutting to where I would be in a moment. 

The route went along the boundary of the park for awhile. I came across this (if there was any question about the main users of the trail...).

Well, perhaps not this particular kind of bike (but, one could definitely ride a gravel bike on these trails).

Even though it was a nice sunny Saturday, I only saw one mountain biker. It so happened that he was finishing just as I was. As I walked by, I commented that I was surprised I didn’t see more riders. We chatted about bikey stuff for a couple of minutes. I told him that I now had to walk back. He asked if I wanted a ride. He was going the direction I needed to go, so I said sure! His name was Scott, and he was also a hiker. He dropped me at the 7-11 near where the kids live, and I walked home. 

As I was walking the rest of the way back, I was thinking that at home, if the sun was shining like it was here today, the temperature wouldn’t matter. We’d all be out riding or hiking. Because, you know...there’s never a bad day, only bad clothing!