Letchworth State Park

The Empire Pass is a great product for New Yorkers who want to get outside. This summer Farah and I used our passes at a bunch of beaches. Now that swimming season is over we’ve been looking for places to hike and continue to explore. Recently we visited my parents in the Finger Lakes and from there, we checked out the Grand Canyon of the East, Letchworth State Park.

descending the stairs

I visited Letchwork and had my first white water rafting experience as a young kid. It was Farah’s first time; she’d wanted to go all summer. With unseasonably warm weather and leaves turning, it looked prime for a visit. We left early in the morning making stopping once, in Dansville for coffee.

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Hook Mountain and the Long Path

Hook Mountain State Park, together with the adjacent Nyack Beach, Rockland Lake and Haverstraw Beach State Parks, is one of my go-to local recreation spots. The Mountain itself is about 700 feet tall and part of the Palisades, a string of cliffs along the western shore of the Hudson River that begin further south in New Jersey.

The Hudson River from Nyack Beach State Park

In the past I have used it more as a spot to launch my kayak into the Hudson or to ride my bike but this year I decided to spend more time hiking there instead, as a way to improve my endurance and overall fitness — sort of a challenge to step it up a bit.

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Colden: New Slides, New Adventure

The Adirondacks are unique in many ways. They’re rugged, dismal, rocky, muddy, densely populated with spruce trees, and most are miles away from any trailhead. One thing that I think truly sets them apart from other mountain ranges in the East, or the country at that, would be their magnificent landslides.

Mt Colden aerial photo 2025
Aerial photos by Jonathan Zaharek

While almost completely lacking in Vermont and Maine, New Hampshire has a fair share of slides that are frequently climbed. However, most are very different from the slides we have in New York. They’re usually small, full of rubble and dirt with minimal slab, while the slides of the Adirondacks are beautiful streaks of smooth anorthosite that can rise hundreds of feet wide and long up a mountainside.

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