Monroe to Sugarloaf Circular Hike

Sugarloaf Mountain

After Hoyt Farm hike my enthusiasm in hiking has gone high. Sometimes I have thought, how often I get chance to meet and interact with new people. In my current nature of work, I regularly interact and spend time with same small group of people. All our discussions will always be about the same limited topics. This hike broke this small group life style and provided me chance to meet new people and discuss about new stuffs. This made me feel fresh and energetic. I decided to do at least one hike every month. Before I move away from this momentum went through the hike schedule and decided to participate in Monroe to Sugarloaf circular hike lead by Chris Zeller on 21st April 2013.

On 21st morning I reached New York Port Authority bus terminal at 8:10 AM. I met today's hike team and introduced myself. We boarded the hiker's special short line bus to Monroe Park and Ride place. It was 1 hour and 15 minutes bus ride to the starting place (Monroe Park and Ride) of our hike.

We reached Monroe Park and Ride at 9:45 AM. After signing the attendance sheet, Chris briefed about the hike route.

Heritage Trail

We started our hike at 9:50 AM on heritage trail. These heritage trails were busy rail roads before few years. These rail roads were latter converted to walking, running or biking trails. During middle of the 20th century many railroads ceased operations in New York State. On these unused rail beds people started walking, running and biking. Since these unused rail lines offered new recreational facility, they were converted to trails.

By walking through the heritage trail for 45 minutes we reached Goose Pond Mountain state park. We walked up in the state park following the bike trail. We reached 1053 feet high and had beautiful nature view. Chris also spotted us the Sugarloaf Mountain from this view point. After enjoying the nature view we walked on the Goose Pond Mountain ridge and crossed the bushes to reach Restdale road. While walking across the bush we came across little snake. We made sure of walking without any disturbance to our wild little friend.

We reached Restdale road and walked on King's highway in Sugarloaf. While walking to Sugarloaf Mountain we came across pet cemetery. Virginia and Chris tried guessing the pet animals by their names and life span.

Lunch and rest on Sugarloaf top

We walked up the Sugarloaf Mountain to reach 1154 ft. We did a steep climb and reached the Sugarloaf Mountain top at 1:30 PM. We are now surrounded by Lazy Mountain, Snake Mountain and Goose Pond Mountain with wonderful view. We also spotted the New Jersey high point monument from here. After lunch and 15 minutes of rest we started walking at 2:00 PM.

We started walking down the Sugarloaf and passed through the Goose Mountain State park trail to reach back the heritage trail. We reached Monroe Park and Ride at 4:30 PM. We missed our return bus by 5 minutes. Since our next bus is at 5:56 PM we decided to walk another mile to reach Monroe which made our hike distance as 16.7 miles.

We boarded our return bus at 6:05 PM and reached PABT at 7:15 PM. Today's hike was very interesting and innovative mix of climbing, crossing bushes, view point and mud trails. Thanks Chris for the wonderful hike.

Jim's GPS logged 16.7 miles and we have moved on a brisk 2.8 mph and overall average 2.3 mph.



Sugarloaf Mountain Climb