Cruising the Hudson: A Spectacular Day Trip to Bear Mountain and Beyond

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I am finally back in New York City from a 20-days, 11-countries Round The World Trip (talk about the perfect use of the Jump Traveling Method!), and now it is Fall, and it is the perfect time to go for a hike. The weather is perfect, temperatures dropped, and if I have lucky and it is also sunny, the experience becomes just perfect. Now, it is only the third week of October and I need to pick a destination. Like I explained in my last post, I was between Mohonk Mountain House or somewhere on the Hudson River. I had explored in the past little towns like Beacon and Peekskill, and had been to Bear Mountain in the summer before, which is in the west side of the river, compare to those others. But I needed to see the Fall in its peak, nothing better like orange and red and yellow foliage.

I used a Foliage Tracker to see when it was the best, and guess what, I literally had one week to go see it! I decided to apply the Jump Traveling method, even if it is only a Day Trip:

First, I had to decide where to go. I knew Mohonk Mountain House required a little more of planning, so I sadly postponed that one for later. Now, I needed to pick a town on the Hudson River. I could use Metro North to go to towns like Beacon where a mountain hike is available, or go back to Bear Mountain. Somehow that day, a friend of mine mentioned Bear Mountain, and now I knew I had to go there, but how?

Second, I had to decide how to get to Bear Mountain. I don’t have a car and renting one was out of the plan. I googled ways to go to Bear Mountain. In the past I went by bus using Coach USA. They would drop you right on the spot, ready for the hike. But just below my search on Google I saw a Hudson River cruise. The service was provided by Circle Line, lasted 8 hours, departed from Pier 83 in Midtown (I used to work by it), and promised an Oktoberfest experience German-themed food, beer and live music. There were just 3 weekends left for the event, so I went on October 29, 2022, just during the Halloween weekend.

I booked the cruise which was $99 per person. I thought the price was a little bit inflated, but was really hoping from a great cruise, or at least ferry experience, like others in the New York area. Oh boy I was wrong, but first let me just tell the story in order.

We arrived at 8:00 AM to Midtown and got some snacks for the day and coffee from Dunkin. There is a saying back in Colombia: “Diego, llévate un bollo”, which barely means just bring food to any event, even a wedding, just in case the food is served too late, or it is bad. To out surprise, when we tried to check in, no outside food OR DRINKS were allowed. We had to chug an entire large cold brew before going in. Literally half of the people were turned back because of this, and there was a bit of chaos in the entrance of the pier. When we finally got in and saw the interior of the ferry “cruise” I was in shock. The entire thing was FULL OF PEOPLE, there were dozens and dozens of highschool event chairs on a space on the back of deck 2, and on deck 3 (the roof). The ferry was CROWDED and looked a lot outdated. For being charged that amount of money, I would expect at least a nice ferry. Then we found out that none of the food or drinks were free or at least complimentary. With only one place to get food and one place to get drinks, there were long lines. The roof area was too cold and loud to even be there, the live music had not started, but the host was giving a lot of info for the day. I had been to multiple cruises/ferries in differente countries and continents, and I am just talking from experience, I was really dissapointed of this one. I was hoping that at least the views from the ferry were going to be worth… AND THEY WERE.

We finally departed and boom! Manhattan had to show their best side. The skyline and the Hudson river were majestic. The Hudson Yards complex was giving us a show. I love New York City.

After a few minutes we arrived to more towards the north of the Manhattan island and the fall colors, the whole point of ths day trip, were showing.

Did you all know that Manhattan means “island of many hills”, and now I see the point. Although some say it also means “a thicket where wood can be found to make bows”.

We really were at the peak of Fall and I was excited to see the views from Bear Mountain. And after passing the George Washington Bridge, the Palisades were giving a lot of color too.

Back to the ferry situation: the host was giving a tour, with historical info about the city and even though he tried his best, a lot of the data he was giving was not 100% accurate, and I think that some of it is very debatable, but at the end of the day there were mostly tourist on that cruise, and they probably would not care about it. There were bathrooms in the lower level.

I think one of my future trips would be to explore the Palisades a little bit more, because I am sure that the view of the city from it is great.

The beverage spot on the Roof Deck was not something fast for a beer cruise, and did not serve any hot drinks or food, but I feel was it was doing its job. We decided to eat the geran special which included some schnitzels with plenty of sides and variety of flavors. The food itself was good for $14 the plate.

After 2 and a half hours we made it to the Bear Mountain State Park, or at least to the river level of it. We were given 3 hours to visit the state park and come back, otherwise we would be left behind and would have had to Uber back to NYC. After climbing a lot of stairs and starting our hike, and passing by the zoo, we made it to the Bear Mountain Inn.

Oh boy, we spent so much time on this place, that we forgot we had to do a 2 hour round trip hike to the top of the mountain. The lines in here to get food or coffee were so long and we also got to buy some souvenirs at the gif shop.

We finally started to climb the hill, and all those memories from the last time I was here before the pandemic started to flow in. After 15 min in, I decided to check Google Maps to see how long it would take to get to the top, and to my surprise we needed 40 more minutes to get up there. That would mean almost an hour and 40 min roundtrip with basically no time up there. I started to get nervous and we did something we don’t recommend to anyone: WE RAN UP THAT HILL. The hike was very rocky but there are steps more of the time.

The forced cardio made me warm and my jacket was needed no more. I was in sports mode full of adrenaline, only stop to take pictures of the amazing views.

We spent barely 10 min up there, we did not even get a chance to go up the tower, which we had visited in the past. But it was worth. We were finally seeing the beautiful foliage in its peak. All the colors melted to give us a Fall Spectacle.

We ran and ran back down, we saw some people from the cruise on the way down when we were still going up, so we were scared that the cruise would leave us. I kept checking Google Maps to see how much walk (or run) we had left to get to the cruise deck and we were barely making it on time.

After running 55 min straight we made it down and we were shocked that we were not the last ones to board. We had at least 10 min to spare (the boat also did not leave on time). One thing to have in mind is that the tide went up during the hours in the park, so the cruise deck was a bit flooded.

The cruise finally departed and we were on the way back to NYC. 2.5 hours later we got to Midtown and were quickly dismissed. I always called this area the West Coast because it is literally on the west and it is so far from any Subway station. We had to take a citibike (which I own a membership) to the closest subway station.

Finally, some remarks:

• The price was $99 basically for a ferry experience to go to the Bear Mountain State Park in 2.5 hours, barely see the park, and then come back into the city in the same time. I would just recommend to do the bus, which is $29 for adults and it is way faster and drop you on the hotel level of the park.

• No food or drinks from outside are allowed, so you are stuck with their options and their long lines.

• There are no comfortable seats and there is so many people that I wish you luck to get a window or a good seat on the top deck.
• Even if it is a cute experience for the views and the music, if you are not going with a lot of friends, and with the chance of drink beers, then I would not recommend this. If your goal is to do the hike, like I said, it is better to just take the bus. Or the Metro North to Peekskill and then take an Uber.

Please let me know your questions down below.