So after being in a few Midatlantic parks and wandering adjacent to mountains in Colorado, naturally I thought “I am one with the hills. My vacations shall be built around the purple mountains’ majesties.”

Thus a trip was planned to the Hudson River Valley, a place renowned for its fall foliage with some historical sites I could visit on the way back. I selected Bear Mountain, as the reviews promised a moderate hike, which I thought would be a challenge full of sights but doable because moderate means medium and I am a fully medium person and I would ignore hiking terms like rock scrambles because how bad could they be.

So I drove right to Bear Mountain’s Major Welch trailhead and was on my way in my adorable hiking outfit of a questionably practical fuzzy Patagonia vest with running capris, no map, and 20 oz of water for a few hours’ walk in the woods.

About 30 minutes in I come to the first of the scrambles. Turns out scrambles means walking straight up slippery rock.

Photo Via Things You Must Know, a blog that did not exist when I researched this hike.

And up some more…

via tripadvisor.com

And…

Tripadvisor

You get the idea.

This was hard and scary. But what are you going to do but keep going? And thank goodness I did because 1100 feet later:

Panorama of the Hudson River and the trees of the valley. Of course turns out it was a particularly poor year for foliage, which I had not checked out before I left either, but it was worth it. My ignorance about hiking meant I took on this totally scary thing that I had to finish and would have never done otherwise.

Of course this euphoria was before I made a wrong turn on the way down and had to climb those 1100 feet a SECOND time…

And before I came the right way down and realized I could’ve gone up a side with stairs.

Via outdoorfest

But hindsight is 20/20 and my calves forgave me after a few weeks.

Moral of the story is to probably pay a little more attention when researching things but also maybe not because how else will you find adventure!? And also I definitely recommend this area for its beauty and also its challenges. Scary does not always equal bad!