Issue #12 — Wednesday, July 29, 2026
One family-friendly hike within a 2-hour drive of Hoboken — plus where to take the kids to eat in the city and NJ. Hike it or skip it; either way your weekend's sorted.
You climb open granite ledges to a summit where the Hudson River bends around Storm King Mountain and the far-off gap called World's End opens up below you — one of the widest, least-crowded river views in the Highlands. Then the loop drops you through the woods past the crumbling stone shell of the Cornish Estate, a Gilded Age mansion that burned in 1956 and was swallowed by the forest, ivy and all, right where the trail runs.
A real summit view plus a real ruin, on trails that stay open even while the trails next door are torn up for construction. That's the bar for this newsletter.Park at the Washburn Trailhead on Route 9D (the Little Stony Point lot nearby is a backup, and both fill early on weekends). The Washburn Trail (blue blazes) climbs steadily through hardwoods, opening up onto rock outcrops with river views well before the summit — a good preview for tired legs. Around the two-mile mark the trail turns rockier and more exposed as it works up to the open ledges near the top of Bull Hill (Mount Taurus), where the Hudson spreads out below toward Storm King and World's End. This is the hard part: some hand-and-foot scrambling over bare rock, so sturdy shoes matter more than trail-runner speed.
From the summit, the loop continues onto the Notch Trail, dropping through the col between Bull Hill and Beacon-side ridgeline, then picks up the Brook Trail as it descends past the Cornish Estate ruins — stone walls, an old pool, and the shell of what was once a grand riverside mansion before a 1956 fire. Families with younger kids can shortcut this: park at Little Stony Point and walk straight in to the Cornish ruins on the Brook/Cornish Trail (about 0.8 miles each way) for the ruins payoff without the summit climb.
From the ruins it's an easy, mostly flat walk back out to the trailhead on Route 9D. Note that the separate Brook Trail segment further north, down near the Breakneck Ridge tunnel, is closed for road construction — it doesn't affect this loop, but don't be tempted to wander that direction looking for a shortcut back to the car.
Ten minutes down Route 9D, Main Street Cold Spring is lined with antique shops and river-view restaurants — an easy, walkable reward after a dusty trail. Some easy hits:
Water (1.5L per person given the heat), sturdy sneakers or hiking shoes, sun hats and sunscreen, snacks, a light rain layer for Sunday's storm chance, and a phone with the trail map downloaded offline (cell service is spotty on the ridge).
Not feeling the drive this week? Here's where to take the kids instead — in the city and across the river. (No connection to this week's hike.)