Breakneck Ridge tried to warn you

I like hiking, but I’ve never been rock climbing. I’d estimate that Breakneck Ridge, a trail within Hudson Highlands State Park at the border of Putnam and Dutchess counties, occupies a rough halfway spot between the two activities.

A weekends-only stop on the Hudson line of the Metro-North Commuter Railroad, with a pair of small yellow platforms on either side of otherwise bare tracks, serves the trailhead between the stations at Cold Spring and Beacon. This makes the hike (a classic in the New York metropolitan area) attractive to carless urbanites. The MTA drops you off right next to the mountain; with water on the other side of you, there’s nothing else in sight.

Not every train to Poughkeepsie makes the stop, and the special northbound service ends in the early afternoon. On Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays in July, the first train for Breakneck Ridge leaves Grand Central at 6:45 am; subsequent trains depart at 7:45, 8:45, 9:45, 10:45, and 12:45. The first train back to the city picks up hikers at 1:09 pm, with later trains at 3:09, 4:09, 5:11, 6:13, and 7:13. The scenic riverside journey past the Palisades takes an hour and half in each direction.

From the train station, one can choose from several routes of varying length for one’s hike, but nearly all of them include the famous scramble up the exposed west face on the mountain, an elevator shaft of scalable stone rubble with several false summits along the way. Any able-bodied amateur can do it with some gumption.

My girlfriend and I selected the 3.2-mile Breakneck Bypass Loop (probably the most popular choice), which turns left after the tricky white-blazed ascent toward the peaceful, woodsy Wilkinson Memorial Trail. Because we’re lazy, we arrived on the afternoon train, and it was hot when we got there, so it seemed like a good idea to do the hike backward, starting out in the shade on a gradual incline and avoiding the rest of the crowd disgorged by the train as it marched single-file for the Breakneck Ridge Trail, to which we would connect via Wilkinson on the way back.

This may have been a mistake; I’m still not sure. Near the top, we met a hiker coming from the opposite direction, who assured us that, owing to the steepness, it would be impossible to descend the Breakneck Ridge Trail; one could pull oneself up, but one surely couldn’t walk down.

At this point it occurred to me that performing the climb as part of a pack of cooperative strangers in a bumper-to-bumper traffic of bodies — which I’d imagined as a stressful Disney World queue, sure to negate the serenity of the great outdoors — might instead have supplied a memorable social experience of bonding through adversity, with new friends on the other side. Instead, we were on our own, acting against instructions.

As it turns out, by choosing one’s course carefully and occasionally sliding on one’s butt, it is possible to plummet safely down Breakneck Ridge, but wear good hiking boots for traction if you try it. Try to make sure your partner will catch you if you slip.

In either direction, Breakneck Ridge is an impressive hike and somehow more challenging than most of the treks I did in the bigger mountains of California back when I was a San Francisco resident. With a summit at 1,260 feet, it has several major vantage points that offer views of the Hudson River, Storm King Mountain, Pollepel Island with the abandoned ruins of Bannerman’s Castle, and the granite edifices of West Point standing imperiously on a peninsula to the south.

Simultaneously Breakneck Ridge puts forth the pleasures both of nature and of a working, orderly civilization. In a fully functioning modern society, fast public transit would link every city directly to a multitude of recreation spots in the country: cars shouldn’t own exclusive access to the natural world even as they destroy it.

In the meantime, we have Metro-North, and because of it, the array of hikers on Breakneck Ridge nearly approaches the diversity of the New York City subway ridership. Because the MTA stop has in a sense ratified the trail as a normal weekend activity for New Yorkers, removing it from the realm of niche pursuits for serious outdoorsmen, some of its visitors may approach it a bit casually, despite its fearsome name; I caught some goggle-eyed looks on the scary parts. But even inexperienced hikers find their courage and a way to prevail.

My girlfriend and I bought roundtrip tickets to Breakneck Ridge ($30 each), but we broke the rules and got off at Cold Spring for dinner before boarding again with the same tickets. Cold Spring is a quaint village, well-known for having the kind of attractive main street that every American town probably had 70 years ago, and back in 1985 it converted its old train depot into a restaurant for tourists with pleasant outdoor seating. The new train station is just down the road.