usa: gertrudes nostril
our first little trip in the new york area was to gertrude's nose. no, not literally! its a cliff face close to walkill with a beautiful hike up the hill and then the most amazing, awesome....but i am running ahead of myself. we shall come back to that later.
we started out on a beautiful fall day. the autumn colors are absolutely stunning and especially this year, we had almost a month of beautiful weather and colors. not that i am around during other years, but thats what the residents told us.
a bunch of young bethelites invited us and our classmates, tomas and jana (from czech republic) for this hike. it was about 1 hour drive away, they told us (in the usa, this is like walking 15 min down the road to the shops - its just round the corner). so we set off after a morning of ministry and a quick lunch. minutes later we hit a huge traffic jam and it took us several hours. this turned out to be a good thing...
we started off the hike next to a forbidding looking road that said, 'NO TRESPASSING' but that was just the neighbours house. round his compound and we are soon on the trail up into the minnewaska state park. above you see tomas and jana: they were amazing in pretty much every sport that we did together including hiking, to say nothing of being wonderful personal friends to us. hopefully one day czech republic will make an appearance on this blog...
so after an uphill hike of maybe an hour, just when we started to wonder if it would ever end we came to a huge heap of rocks. this is the shawangunk ridge - a ridge that extends from virginia, through pennsylvania, new jersey and on into new york state (just in case your checking up on me, its name changes through all these spots...)
so we start to climb up the rocks and gradually get deeper and deeper into the ridge. and eventually INTO the ridge. right into the depths of ..... gertrude's NOSTRIL!!!! ok, so technically its actually called gertrude's nose. but i think nostril sounds way better and i figure if we use it enough we can get the map guys to change it.
we picked our way, so to speak, up gertrude's nose and had a great deal of fun hauling ourselves up through the cracks. incidentally, gertrude was an actualy landowner around here...back in 1682. who knows what she looked like in real life but the name of the cliff face brings lots of ideas to mind.
when we popped out at the top of the cliff-face we were surrounded by an awe-inspiring panorama. a clear view across the wallkill valley on a beautiful fall afternoon. joshua, a patterson bethelite from hawaii, always looked like he was meditating on creation like in the society videos:
tomas and jana, prepared as ever, produced out of nowhere coffee and cake! so with the gorgeous view spread out below us we enjoyed what was possibly one of the greatest cups of coffee ever.
and because the traffic jam delayed us, we got to the top just as the sun was dipping below the horizon. the timing could not have been more perfect. the sunset was absolutely perfect.
we finished our hike in the dark, but absolutely happy. what a beautiful day.
we started out on a beautiful fall day. the autumn colors are absolutely stunning and especially this year, we had almost a month of beautiful weather and colors. not that i am around during other years, but thats what the residents told us.
a bunch of young bethelites invited us and our classmates, tomas and jana (from czech republic) for this hike. it was about 1 hour drive away, they told us (in the usa, this is like walking 15 min down the road to the shops - its just round the corner). so we set off after a morning of ministry and a quick lunch. minutes later we hit a huge traffic jam and it took us several hours. this turned out to be a good thing...
we started off the hike next to a forbidding looking road that said, 'NO TRESPASSING' but that was just the neighbours house. round his compound and we are soon on the trail up into the minnewaska state park. above you see tomas and jana: they were amazing in pretty much every sport that we did together including hiking, to say nothing of being wonderful personal friends to us. hopefully one day czech republic will make an appearance on this blog...
so after an uphill hike of maybe an hour, just when we started to wonder if it would ever end we came to a huge heap of rocks. this is the shawangunk ridge - a ridge that extends from virginia, through pennsylvania, new jersey and on into new york state (just in case your checking up on me, its name changes through all these spots...)
so we start to climb up the rocks and gradually get deeper and deeper into the ridge. and eventually INTO the ridge. right into the depths of ..... gertrude's NOSTRIL!!!! ok, so technically its actually called gertrude's nose. but i think nostril sounds way better and i figure if we use it enough we can get the map guys to change it.
we picked our way, so to speak, up gertrude's nose and had a great deal of fun hauling ourselves up through the cracks. incidentally, gertrude was an actualy landowner around here...back in 1682. who knows what she looked like in real life but the name of the cliff face brings lots of ideas to mind.
when we popped out at the top of the cliff-face we were surrounded by an awe-inspiring panorama. a clear view across the wallkill valley on a beautiful fall afternoon. joshua, a patterson bethelite from hawaii, always looked like he was meditating on creation like in the society videos:
tomas and jana, prepared as ever, produced out of nowhere coffee and cake! so with the gorgeous view spread out below us we enjoyed what was possibly one of the greatest cups of coffee ever.
and because the traffic jam delayed us, we got to the top just as the sun was dipping below the horizon. the timing could not have been more perfect. the sunset was absolutely perfect.
we finished our hike in the dark, but absolutely happy. what a beautiful day.
