4.2 miles | 295 ft gain | Difficulty: Easy | Rating ★★★
With 1-2 feet of fluffy snow dropped all across the tri-state area, the weather was perfect for snowshoeing. If you owned them, that is. Covid has helped more people than ever discover the great outdoors. During the summer and fall, if we weren’t at trail heads at dawn, parking was often impossible. While the winter has lead to a sleepier start, the cold hasn’t deterred many people for continuing their outdoor adventuring.
Snowshoes have been almost impossible to purchase since November. In fact, there is a national shortage, with demand so high and manufacturers being unable to keep up. That wasn’t a huge concern for us. High-quality mountaineering snow shoes can easily run you $300 a pair, and since we’ve only snowshoed a couple of times, we wanted to get our bearings a bit more before investing.
In a normal season, renting on site, or on your way to a trail wouldn’t be a problem. But this season is anything but typical. Most places are first come, first serve. I learned the place we were eyeing in New Paltz rented our for the the weekend on Thursday. Two weekends ago we attempted going High Point, New Jersey, only to be turned away. We arrived just before 10am, but people had been in line since their 8am opening with equipment gone almost immediately.
I guess we should back up to the “why” of snowshoes. In most areas, snowshoes are recommended (often required) when there’s more than 8 inches of snow. Snowshoes help distribute your weight so you sort of float on top of the snow, rather than sink, creating “post holes.” Eventually, if enough snowshoers journey a trail, they will evenly distribute and pack down the snow, creating a sort of walking path or trench in the snow to safely climb and adventure. However, without snow shoes, you’re left with individual boot holes, that eventually ice over or harden, making the trail extra rocky, and more so, extra dangerous for hikers. I hiker might not realize how deep a particular post hole is, and stepping into it puts strain on knees and ankles, and in worst case scenarios can cause serious damage like sprains or other injuries.
At this point in the year, snowshoes in the Catskills and Adirondacks, are a necessity, where 4+ feet of packed snow is common. but the weather varies a bit more as you move south to the Hudson Valley and tristate area. As I write today, we just experienced a few warmer days and rain, so snow has melted in most areas and snowshoes aren’t a need. But even just last week – absolutely. Fearful that we’d again drive 90+ minutes only to get turned away again, we stayed local in Staten Island, where we knew trails would be groomed and snowshoes not required.
Six years ago, when we last wandered the trails of the Staten Island Greenbelt, I had my first (and only) tick experience. And it wasn’t a solo visitor. Walking through a patch of high grass, I found my legs to be COVERED. Needless to say, I wasn’t ecstatic to revisit, but I hoped the winter would be safer.
When we arrived at the Nature Center Parking Lot around noon, it was just us at first, but somehow we brought about half a dozen other cars right behind us. The two rangers directed us to the start of the Nature trail and White trail, a bit challenging to find in the snow, and we were off. For the most part, all of the trails were groomed. When we turned onto the white trail, plunging into about a foot of snow, we realized after 150m or so, it was probably the wrong direction. It was also REALLY HARD to hike without snowshoes in that depth. Besides the etiquette…why would you put yourself through such a thing?!
After our wrong turn, we decided to stick to groomed trails, weaving our way through Bucks Hollow to Moses Mountain, a 260 foot-high rubble mound originally cleared for Robert Moses’s Richmond Parkway that never happened. While considered a great view with clear skies, our grey day left much to be desired. Our reward for summiting the “peak” was a short burst of freezing rain.
We considered continuing to Todt Hill, which at 401 feet is the highest point in the five boroughs, as well as the highest point on the Atlantic coastal plain, from Florida to Cape Cod. However the further we traveled on the yellow trail, the less groomed it was. When we reached the point that clearly many others had given up at, we too turned back.
Certainly not our most exciting hike, but it was nice to find a way to still get into the woods with our lack of snowshoes. The Greenbelt, like areas of Prospect Park and the New York Botanical Garden can be eerily quiet and isolated, despite the city that looms only a short distance away.
Fifty-Two Hikes 