Breakneck Ridge
special to The ARS Sojourner
For a less than $20 round trip train ticket, you get access to the ridge, it's network of trains and one of the most scenic rail rides in the country bar none. On the down side, they only let you off at Breakneck, to get home, you'll have to hike down Rt. 9D about a mile and hop the train back at the Cold Spring station.
Since I live only 7 miles away, Breakneck Ridge is an every Saturday ritual for me. Mother natures stairmaster I call it. The trail starts at sea level (the Hudson is tidal here) and shoots up about 1000 feet at a 45 degree angle or 100% grade. After that it eases up as it follows the top of the ridge and continues on for 4 or 5 miles into Beacon, NY. I always bail out early and take the red trail to the Wilkinson trail making for a quick 4 mile loop (the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference publishes great maps for the area, see http://www.nynjtc.org/ ). Even though the hike is only 4 miles, the elevation profile is such that you get to burn out your quadriceps on the way up then tenderize them on the way down. But it's also short enough to give you ample opportunity to dawdle if you want or hang out at an overlook for an hour or two playing radio.
The hike starts with the worst part first. There are a few really fun rock scrambles and a stretch or two bonafide rock climbs if you're up for it and want to part from the trail a bit. There are seven distinct "bumps" or overlooks on the route, my buddies and I refer to the hike as "the Seven Sisters". Going up, sister #1 is at 500 ft, #2 at 800 ft and #3 at elevation 1000 ft. This is my favorite radio spot. It takes about 30 minutes to get to #3 if you keep moving, 45 minutes if you like to stop and gawk.
Sister #3 also serves to remind me of the limitations of dipoles. I'm partial to dipoles. They're easy, light, relatively compact but a real pain to string up if you don't have a tall tree handy. Up here, there are no tall trees handy. I usually make do with some sort of sloper rigged up but I'm starting to really seriously consider vertical antennas for this kind of terrain. Here is my operating position and gear on sister #3, SST(20M), Whiterook keyer and if you look closely you can sorta see the dipole and feedline back there.
Sister #3 is a very agreeable place to hang out. You get a birdseye view of West Point and Cold Spring to the south. You can see why this was a good spot for George Washington to chain the Hudson in an attempt to keep the British out of the Hudson Valley. It didn't work all that well and provoked the Brithish to place two curses on us Americans. The first was to allow our language to decay so that no matter how smart we may be, we'll always sound stupid when compared to any Brit. The second was to cause us to drive on the wrong side of the road. At first that might seem harmless but American tourists have been sytematically picked off by London motorists since we're always looking in the wrong direction when crossing their streets.
Stormking Mountain to the west and the Catskills to the north. Trains wisp up and down the valley on both sides of the river frequently. In the warmer months, there's a pretty good volume of barge traffic up and down the Hudson. Stewart International Airport is to the northwest so you get a good representation of all modes of transportation.
Here and there you'll spot these mausoleum like structures which are access buildings for the Catskill Aqueduct that supplies NYC with most of its water. The aqueduct siphons under the Hudson, crossing just a gnat's whisker north of Stormking and Breakneck. On a little island in the river, just to the north are ruins called Bannerman's Castle. It's really not that old but it's fascinating to look at. The island is reported to be haunted. Even the native Americans stayed away from the place. I've been by it at night on my friend's (KC4YJU) sailboat and it definitely gave me the heebie geebies. Apparently it was built by this Bannerman guy as an arsenal around 1900. A few years after that there was an explosion (go figure) and I guess it's been decaying ever since. The State of New York owns it now so the whole place will be dirt in a hundred years or so. (
Last time I was up there was on a Friday which is not the best hamming day of the week particularly in the morning on 20 meters. My SST with internal batteries is a 20 meter version so that's almost always what I work outdoors. It was a good opportunity to see how good or bad a sub-optimal dipole configured as a sloper would work when the band was pretty quiet. Actually it worked fairly well. I was able to score three QSOs in about 30 minutes of op time getting 559 reports. The last QSO was a fun one. W9FHA (John) was out camping with his buddies at Harmonie State Park in Indiana. Conditions weren't that great and my dipole wasn't helping but as soon as John figured out that I was on an outside adventure, his hearing improved. It's a strange thing about adventure radio. The QSO is always better, always sweeter if both are outdoor QRP! We had a fine chat, I packed up and finished the hike.
Breakneck Ridge is proof that Adventure Radio is easily accessible even to residents of the Big Apple. If you happen to be spending any time in or around New York City, bring the rig and hop the train to Breakneck Ridge. It's a day you won't soon forget.
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John C. Ceccherelli, N2XE, is an avid QRPer and outdoorsman living in Wappingers Falls, NY.