Fourteen of us gathered at Croton Point Park in Westchester late on the afternoon of June 17, the last day of the Clearwater Folk Festival. We took three of the gigs from Mother’s Beach, on the north side of the peninsula, and rowed them around the corner to the water access campsite, which is on the west side near the south tip. Since there are only a couple of small tent sites on the hill right above the beach, we climbed up to the regular campsites and set up outside a cabin under some trees.
The wakeup call was at 4:45 AM to catch the tide, which we did even though we didn’t shove till 6:30. We touched briefly on the west side at the foot of Hook Mountain, then proceeded south to the Nyack town dock and provisioned for the day and night at a Korean grocery just off Main Street (corn, eggplant, peppers, sausage). By 10:30 we were around the tip of the Piermont pier, and half an hour later we pulled up at Italian Gardens to wait out the tide. Some of the group hiked up to the Earth Observatory and reloaded the water bottles there. Others swam or headed south along the Palisades trail or just slept.
At four we shoved with a cargo of four lost hikers who weren’t sure how to get back to Alpine. It was probably a bit too early for the ebb but on the other hand it seemed like the wind was coming up. A hard 40 minutes brought us to the little beach at the north end of the Alpine Boat Basin. There are some picnic tables there under the cliffs there with massive stone slabs for tops, and enough grassy verges for a half-dozen tents. It’s not normally a campsite, but since it’s exactly halfway between Croton and Pier 40--about 18 miles from each--we’d asked the Palisades Park for permission to camp there and they had very kindly obliged.
Another 4:45 wakeup and this time we got off by 6:10. It was a fast one hour ride on the tide to the George Washington Bridge, which we hit at the peak of the ebb. There’s a new Whole Foods in Edgewater with a little mud cove just to the south; two of us waded in through the muck to get coffee and croissants, while Roger dove into the dumpsters and emerged with some perfectly good day old sushi. By then the wind was up and we had a good long pull to Hoboken, racing the barges and dodging the ferries. The whole way we marveled at the degree to which the New Jersey coast has been and is being sacrificed to rip-rap and the condo. Is there no governmental agency that looks after the waterfront there?
After a brief sojourn at the new, denuded Maxwell House Beach, we reboated and made a fast crossing to Pier 40, where we arrived at 11:05, an acceptable five minutes behind schedule.
croton to nyc
shoving from mother’s beach at 7:45
down the west side of the peninsula
the grillmeisters
day 2, leaving croton point astern
under hook mountain
landing at hook mountain trailhead
nyack town dock
under the tappan zee
rafted up at italian gardens
in the deep shade
palisades trail
rockhopper’s delight
josh and nadia
the ny-nj border
frank and suresh at peanut leap falls
suresh with dead deer
goodbye to all that
down the palisades
abid: guest rower
roger at the helm
beach at alpine boat basin
picnic ground at north end of basin
around the fire
the troubador...
...sang on
5:45 am, preparing to boat up
just like i always pictured it
yeah, i know, photoshopped
midgetville, nj
amrita, our new jersey expert
‘coastal zone management’, nj style
like gods in the early morning of time
playa del hoboken, aka maxwell house beach
mandatory group shot
sprinting to the finish
