INTRO

Normally it wouldn’t have taken us that many hours to hike the 5.8 miles. However, we went to the park the day before Memorial Day. Big mistake!

The parking lot was at maximum capacity and that was before 9am. The road after the parking lot had at least another 30 cars parked on the shoulder. Needless to say it was CROWDED. Social distancing was going to be tricky on this trail.

If I ever go again it’ll be in the colder months or on a weekday. Here’s your unwanted PSA: Be courteous and follow social distancing!!! If someone is making their way across the overgrown creek, wait until they’re done crossing before trying to rush past them. The views aren’t going anywhere!

-_-

Anyways… I packed lots of water because the humidity was high that day. And if you don’t have trekking poles, don’t worry. My friend found some decent sized tree branch “poles” to help her get across.

Also, if you’re interested in seeing the YouTube version of this post, click HERE.

HIKE INFO

GPS: 41.045625, -74.350383

TIME: 5H

LENGTH: 5.8 MILES RT

ELEVATION CHANGE:  1192 ft

This is the sign located at the trailhead of the blue trail. We followed the blue trail markers into the park.

We quickly arrived at Posts Creek. I saw a child slip and get their entire boot filled with water. I had luckily remembered to bring trekking poles with me and that made for a dryer crossing. Below is a picture I took after I crossed the creek. You can tell that some people don’t know if they can even make it across. I’m sure people also turned around at this point.

After making it across safely we kept following the blue/teal trail for about 30 minutes.

After those thirty minutes we crossed the creek over these two logs.

On this tree we found the white trailhead. We followed the white trail all the way to the falls.

It took us about an hour trying to figure out how to cross without getting our boots and socks wet. Eventually we found a way across further down the trail. We saw a few people who were so eager to cross they ended up with their sneakers submerged in water. If that’s your cup of tea then it’ll take you less time to cross, but blisters and squishy feet are not my style.

What the trail maps don’t show is that if I would have stayed on the white trail and not ventured off, this is the view of the falls. That being said, I think it’s important to remind everyone to practice leave no trace.

After the waterfall we continued following the white trail all the way to the yellow trail. It was a little confusing so here’s what we did:

At this sign we made a left to stay on the white trail a little further.

We did not go past those trees. But while facing them we realized the yellow trail we wanted to follow was directly behind us.

I’ll leave the picture below to show what direction we went on the yellow trail when we figured it all out.

OK! So now that we were on the right path heading in the right direction, there was some climbing to be done! This incline really took it out of me.

But it was totally worth it for these views at the top. Disclaimer: I didn’t know it at the time, but this is not Carris Hill. We were sitting at a false summit. And this may be an unpopular opinion, but I preferred this view over the actual summit. So we sat and we snacked and took all the pictures. On clear days you can see Manhattan from up there.

We kept climbing on the yellow trail to find the actual summit of Carris Hill. It was crowded up there so we didn’t make it a stop.

At the end of the yellow trail we followed the blue/teal trail all the way down.

The blue trail will take you under fallen trees, over creeks via logs, and back over Post Creek.

I’m not even surprised that when we got to the car there were twice as many people. I don’t know if it was due to the holiday or the pandemic, but the amount of people outdoors has increased substantially. Honestly, I’m not a fan. Let me say that more clearly- I hate it. I don’t care about the amount of people as much as I care about the increase in garbage. It’s disgusting! If you could carry it in, you could carry it out. He dicho!

Okay, I’m glad I got that off my chest. Thanks for making it to the end of my blog post lol. Be safe out there on the trails!

A walk in nature walks the soul back home

Mary Davis