Fort Lee



Fort Lee, Palisades Interstate Park (2/13/2010)
This wonderful hike, mixing industry and nature, is the Hike of the Week from 10/8/2009 as described on the NY-NJ Trail Conference website. The dominant feature of this hike is the gigantic George Washington Bridge, one of the main arteries between New Jersey and Manhattan. You can see it during most of the hike, where it dominates the landscape. Love it or hate it, it's quite awe-inspiring, especially when you walk directly under it along the shore path.

This area had nearly a foot of snow dumped on it three days ago and most of it is still on the ground. It helped that some folks had walked along the path over the past few days, leaving a bit of a trail, though in some parts the deep snow was quite enervating to trek through. Add the many steep stairs that must be ascended during the second half, and you get a great work-out. The trail head, incidentally, is the southern end of the famous Long Path. It begins in the small lot in which we parked and traverses north into New York state for nearly 350 miles!

Laura and I are film buffs, so we also appreciated that fact that we were surely hiking close to where the movie cliff-hanger was born. Fort Lee was Hollywood before there was a Hollywood, and lots of the earliest movies and serials like Perils of Pauline were filmed on these cliffs where the GWB now stands. The famous still on the cover of Fort Lee: The Film Town by Richard Koszarski attests to that.

Total distance hiked today was 2.6 miles in approximately 2 hours.

(Click on the thumbnail to bring up a bigger image in a pop-up window)


In the parking lot

Heading down the Long Path

Walking south on Hudson Terrace

Old houses on Hudson Terrace


The old and the new

Beginning of Shore Path

Heading down

Very snowy path

 

Switchbacks of steps

Lots of snowy steps

Hudson looking SE

[Photo by Laura]
 


Laura and the GWB

Empire State Building

Quotes from Walt Whitman

Shore Path looking south
 


Heading north


Helicopter over the GWB

 


Approaching the GWB

The snowy Shore Path

Sleeping mallards

Cautious mallards
 



Something abandonded

Nature and industry

 


Shore Path white blaze

Dan taking ... [Photo by Laura]

... this tunnel photo

Good advice!
 



Laura is dwarfed

Canadian geese and the Palisades cliffs

Looking to Manhattan
 


Can you see Laura?


Heading to the cliffs

[Photo by Laura]
 


Laura and the cliffs



Barge on the Hudson
 




Climbing Carpenter's Trail

Very snowy steps
 


And climbing

Taking a breather


More snowy steps
 


Tunnel under an approach road


GWB from the tunnel

Laura photographing icicles
 


Tunnel icicles

More steps


Tunnel under Henry Hudson Drive
 


View of Ross Dock in rear

Buildings in Manhattan

Still climbing

Great view of entire GWB
 


And more snowy steps

Laura and the GWB

State Police boat

Ross Dock
 


Buildings on Ross Dock


Verrazano Narrows Bridge in rear

A snowy Long Path
 


Cliff warning sign

Approaching the bridge on the LP

Laura's new friend

What a view!
 


The Little Red Lighthouse



Footbridge on LP
 


Winds around

Rail for bike walking

Under the bridge approach

Fort Lee Historic Park Visitor's Center
 

Photographs and content copyright © Dan Balogh
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