Easy Two-Day Hike In New York

This blog post will give you detailed instructions on how to recreate my easy two-day hiking trip.

I will include: directions, the hiking routes + alternatives, hotel and transportation,

and the price breakdown. (No car required)

Day One

1. Getting to Blue Mountain.

Get up early, and take the train to Grand Central. While you're there, buy a ticket to Peekskill. When you arrive at Peekskill, start walking towards Hudson Ave. Then walk along Hudson Ave then turn right when you reach Union Ave. Walk straight along Union Ave, the trail starts on the left side right where the road ends. (You will see a school and a playground on the right.)

2. Blue Mountain Park

I attached the route that I took during my hike, but Blue Mtn. Park is a kind of choose-your-own-adventure trail. There's not much elevation gain here so you can spend more time adventuring and exploring and most importantly preparing for a real trail.

a. Peekskill Train Station

b. Trail Starts Here

c. Blue Mountain (the highest elevation in the park)

d. Alternate and much longer walk around the mountain

e. Another Alternate extension

f. The hike could be made shorter by taking any of the interior trails

g. We took the wrong turn and went this way

3. Dinner and Hotel

My favorite place to eat after a good day of hiking in Peekskill has to be the Taco Dive Bar. It's not too expensive, and their Angus Brisket Tacos, Bowls, and Burritos are incredible! Pair it up with Juice Bomb IPA!

One of the cheapest places to sleep overnight that's walking distance away from the station is Holiday Inn Express. It's around $100 for a night, the rooms get the job done, plus there's breakfast and quite a lot of amenities (which were unfortunately unavailable for me due to COVID).

Day Two

Now that you had a warm-up day hiking, it's time to step it up with something more difficult.

We chose Anthony's Nose Trail, which I would also consider being quite an easy trail, but with some quite difficult parts as you can see in the video.

1. We took a warm-up walk from the Holiday Inn to the Peekskill Train Station, from where an Uber ride to the Start of the Trail is about $10.

2. The trail is quite dangerous at times, so be very careful and vigilant. If it's too tough, there is a bail point about halfway through the trail, which could also be used as an alternative starting point if you wish to make the trail easier. (If you came by car and left it at the start of the trail then you will have no choice.)

3. Once at the top of Anthony's Nose Trail you can turn back and do the trail backwards, or you can take the Appalachian Trail to the Bear Mountain Inn like we did. It's hard to get an Uber from here, but there are plenty of taxis. You can use the following number 914.384.7061 which will cost you about $27 to take you back to the Peekskill Train Station.

This is just one way to do this kind of little getaway, but of course, there are hundreds of variants that you can do to make this trip more suited to your liking. Let me know what changes you would make?