- Joined
- Mar 17, 2010
- Messages
- 4,256
went for a quick hike in "jungle habitat" to see if it's ridable by mountain bike this sunday...no dice 
quick overview - it used to be a drive-through, 800 acre safari/zoo owned by warner bros. in the '70s and when the nearby town didn't approve of building a highway through it to ease the traffic as it got popular, it went bankrupt and ended up being sold to the state as another park. now it's one of nicest hiking trails, and has probably the hardest & most technical mountain biking trails in the state...anyway, pics:
i think i'd rather crash and slam on the rocks rather than on the bush on my left there. it's covered with these nasty hook-shaped thorns, the more you struggle the more they dig deeper. behind me you can see one of many chain-link fences all over the park that used to contain animals.
heating up some water for my lunch.
i'm starting to really warm up to a machete, even up here in the frozen north. i've been using mine since last summer and for all out chopping performance, i hands down prefer it over my bk-9 & junglas. if i knew i would never have the need to split wood i'd sell my choppers (i'm not an axe guy). i think this is the first time that i brought my machete and not have the choppers along actually. i did bring my bhk bushcrafter for finer tasks.
i bet this machete is wondering why it's not in the '80s and 70% humidity...sorry, buddy. you've been shipped to the u.s.
i love winter...it's so damn quiet and not a single sheeple around to worry about seeing my knives and dialing 911.
an almost ready-made shelter...just throw over a tarp and secure it in-between the branches.
one of the two big parking lots now un-used except for events such as a mountain bike race where they open the main gate...somewhere over those mountains is bear mountain and also west point military academy.
it's almost sunset...i have yet to get to the more interesting parts of the park but only had about an hour of light left so i turned around. the whole park was covered in 8"+ of snow and on top about 1/2" glazing of ice so it was slow going. i broke down and finally ordered snow shoes after this (3rd) hike where snow was more of a factor in cutting my hike short than anything else.
on the way back, here's more chain-link fence. kinda eerie really, the whole park hasn't been used (aside from hikers, hunters & mountain bikers) since the '70s but it has all these man-made structures spread out all over the place that's over-grown with trees and vines...it gives it that chernobyl or post nuclear disaster feel to it...everywhere i look i can see mother nature slowly reclaiming everything.
one of many mini-roads that dissect this park for drive-through safari viewers.
deer tracks are all over here but surprisingly it's only the park i've been on where i have yet to spot actual deer. i've been on many trails where there's very little tracks i've seen but i've spotted deer many times...really weird.
one of many birds' nests.
more sign of man-made stuff. amazing how many of these fences survive all these years.
aside from color-coded trail markers, this particular trail is named "animal chute". other trails are named "otter slide", "warthog", "goat", "big cats", etc. depending on what animal/s the area contained back then.
back to the parking lot...those two cars nearest the gate weren't there when i started my hike about 3 hrs earlier. based on the fresh tracks on the snow i could tell mine were the only ones that were fresh. the other tracks were probably from a day or two before. i did notice that the windows on one of the trucks were steamed (cue the bam chicha wow wow music
), being the nice guy that i am i decided to take the wide and longer route back to my truck not to disturb the couple 
quick overview - it used to be a drive-through, 800 acre safari/zoo owned by warner bros. in the '70s and when the nearby town didn't approve of building a highway through it to ease the traffic as it got popular, it went bankrupt and ended up being sold to the state as another park. now it's one of nicest hiking trails, and has probably the hardest & most technical mountain biking trails in the state...anyway, pics:
i think i'd rather crash and slam on the rocks rather than on the bush on my left there. it's covered with these nasty hook-shaped thorns, the more you struggle the more they dig deeper. behind me you can see one of many chain-link fences all over the park that used to contain animals.
heating up some water for my lunch.
i'm starting to really warm up to a machete, even up here in the frozen north. i've been using mine since last summer and for all out chopping performance, i hands down prefer it over my bk-9 & junglas. if i knew i would never have the need to split wood i'd sell my choppers (i'm not an axe guy). i think this is the first time that i brought my machete and not have the choppers along actually. i did bring my bhk bushcrafter for finer tasks.
i bet this machete is wondering why it's not in the '80s and 70% humidity...sorry, buddy. you've been shipped to the u.s.
i love winter...it's so damn quiet and not a single sheeple around to worry about seeing my knives and dialing 911.
an almost ready-made shelter...just throw over a tarp and secure it in-between the branches.
one of the two big parking lots now un-used except for events such as a mountain bike race where they open the main gate...somewhere over those mountains is bear mountain and also west point military academy.
it's almost sunset...i have yet to get to the more interesting parts of the park but only had about an hour of light left so i turned around. the whole park was covered in 8"+ of snow and on top about 1/2" glazing of ice so it was slow going. i broke down and finally ordered snow shoes after this (3rd) hike where snow was more of a factor in cutting my hike short than anything else.
on the way back, here's more chain-link fence. kinda eerie really, the whole park hasn't been used (aside from hikers, hunters & mountain bikers) since the '70s but it has all these man-made structures spread out all over the place that's over-grown with trees and vines...it gives it that chernobyl or post nuclear disaster feel to it...everywhere i look i can see mother nature slowly reclaiming everything.
one of many mini-roads that dissect this park for drive-through safari viewers.
deer tracks are all over here but surprisingly it's only the park i've been on where i have yet to spot actual deer. i've been on many trails where there's very little tracks i've seen but i've spotted deer many times...really weird.
one of many birds' nests.
more sign of man-made stuff. amazing how many of these fences survive all these years.
aside from color-coded trail markers, this particular trail is named "animal chute". other trails are named "otter slide", "warthog", "goat", "big cats", etc. depending on what animal/s the area contained back then.
back to the parking lot...those two cars nearest the gate weren't there when i started my hike about 3 hrs earlier. based on the fresh tracks on the snow i could tell mine were the only ones that were fresh. the other tracks were probably from a day or two before. i did notice that the windows on one of the trucks were steamed (cue the bam chicha wow wow music
), being the nice guy that i am i decided to take the wide and longer route back to my truck not to disturb the couple
but i was at a self checkout lane with other items already scanned and there were plenty of people waiting so i sucked it up and bought it 