Saturday, February 3, 2018

South Beacon Mountain and Scofield Ridge

Beacon, Newburgh, and the bridge from the fire tower.
(All pictures mine)

South Beacon Mountain may be one of the most underrated hikes in New York. The trailhead is within the city limits of Beacon, but there are tons of ruins (including an abandoned incline railway), a fire tower, and the high point of Putnam County. If you look carefully, you can see the fire tower and ruins from the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge and the route of the incline railway is impossible to miss. Really easy to get all of these in a hike of around 6 miles (with most of the ascent being in the first mile out of the trailhead). That being said, it's a climb. From the trailhead to the summit of South Beacon Mountain and the fire tower is a vertical ascent of over 1,400 feet. Need to lose and regain a little bit to get over to the summit of Putnam County on Scofield Ridge. But definitely a climb I'd recommend making, as the views are stunning and there's quite a bit of history on this mountain.


The parking area at the corner of Wolcott Avenue (NY Route 9D) and Howland Avenue can hold a few dozen cars and contains portable toilets and a kiosk with trail maps. If the lot is full (likely on weekends when the weather is nice), ample parking is available on the side streets. But parking wasn't an issue when I showed up around 10:00 on a Thursday morning (yes, I did plan my class schedule so I'd have a day open to hike every week). The first 0.2 miles or so is a wide gravel path with a slight upgrade. Trail markers are RED. Soon, the ruins of the old Mount Beacon Incline Railway come into view.

Former incline railway station




Looking up the incline railway




When constructed, the Mount Beacon Incline Railway was the steepest incline railway in the world. It was abandoned in 1978 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Groups are fundraising to rebuild the railway.

Oh, right, the trail

The trail begins to parallel what was the world's steepest incline railway with a long metal staircase. 100+ feet further above the Hudson River Estuary, the staircase ends and there's a sharp left turn away from the railway around an elevation of 400 feet.



The views start near the top of the stairs


A short distance and 100 vertical feet later, you're faced with a decision. Continue straight onto the yellow trail, or take a hairpin turn to the right and continue climbing on the red trail. You want the red trail, as yellow takes you around the mountain.


Yeah, it's steep. Keep climbing. It's worth it.



Getting closer...

If you keep climbing along the red trail, you'll reach the ruins of the Mount Beacon Casino and Incline Railway at around 1,200 feet, approximately 1 mile from the parking lot. There's roughly 1000 feet of vertical ascent from the parking lot to this point.

First, we reach the former powerhouse for the incline railway.



The powerhouse


Hoist mechanism 
Looking down at where people boarded/alighted


Continue a short distance further to reach the ruins of the Mount Beacon Casino.The Casino was once a major tourist attraction, with panoramic views of the Hudson Valley and Hudson Highlands. While the building is gone save its foundation, the view remains.


View of Beacon, Newburgh, and the bridge connecting them.
The Shawangunk Ridge is in the background.


Looking southwest






Looking south toward Storm King Mountain


Old steps


The casino once stood here


South corner of the foundation. Fire tower is at the top left.




View south toward the Hudson Highlands
If you want, you could turn back here, which is what most people do. I'm going to tell you to continue along the red trail, as the hardest part of the hike is over and the rest is a cakewalk. The first part of this trail is along an old road, but the trail diverges as the road heads north to the Beacon Reservoir. There's a slight descent into the col between North and South Beacon Mountains, but the climb soon resumes. Just under 2 miles from the parking lot is the junction with the white trail. You want to turn onto the white trail to get to the fire tower. It's really hard to miss the junction.


That's the junction, white trail diverges to the right.
I counted no fewer than 7 white trail markers here.

The white trail climbs moderately, but it's a short climb.


Compass painted near the summit


The fire tower
Soon you're standing on the summit of South Beacon Mountain, not even 1/4 mile from the red trail. The summit and fire tower are a short distance off of the main trail, but very east to find. South Beacon (elevation 1,610 feet) is the highest peak in the Hudson Highlands and far above the Hudson River less than 2 miles to your west. 


Looking toward Beacon


Looking toward Storm King


As if the view from the ground isn't good enough, the fire tower gets you higher.


Beacon, Newburgh, and the bridge from the fire tower

Looking south


Looking east


Looking north at the Beacon Reservoir

I would not be surprised if you could see the Manhattan skyline from up here on a clear day. Sadly, the day of my hike was not clear.

Once I was done bracing myself against the day's high winds, I made my way down the tower and retraced my steps to the red trail. Unless you want to do a long loop or are a county highpointer, you'll probably turn left to return to the trailhead. Not much interesting stuff beyond this other than the high point of Putnam County. turning right at the junction to continue on. The red trail ends shortly later, and I turned right on the yellow trail to continue to the Putnam high point. Some minor scrambling awaited me on the yellow trail as I neared my destination about half a mile from the end of the red trail. The high point of Scofield Ridge (elevation 1,540 feet) is pretty darn easy to find because there's a giant yellow X on the exposed rock.


X marks the spot

To make your life easier if you're a highpointer, it is where the trail has a 90 degree turn, the trail going NE and SE from the point, approximately 1,500 feet due east of the South Beacon fire tower. 



Looking west toward the fire tower


View east from Scofield Ridge

Scofield Ridge isn't a "liner" (high point on a county line", but it's darn close, being less than 200 feet inside Putnam County.

From here, I could have continued around to make a loop, but I had other plans for the day, so I retraced my steps back to the red trail and down to my car. Aren't a ton of amazing hikes within the limits of a city in New York, but trust me, this one is worth it, even if there are crowds.


Getting Here


This is one of the easier trails in the region to get to. NY Route 9D is a relatively major road and it's not too far from Interstate 84 and the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge. Plenty of services nearby if you need a last-minute snack or the like. The popular Breakneck Ridge trailhead is a few miles south along 9D, but that trailhead will be closed until mid-2019 for improvements.




Resources


  • Hudson Highlands State Park. The majority of the trail lies within this park.
  • Avenza Maps Navigation App. The NY Department of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation makes all of their maps available for free using this app. The maps have GPS tracking and I make use of them when hiking in a state park.
  • Hike the Hudson Valley's Mount Beacon Page. This is the main hiking resource I used to find out what I was getting into.

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