I’m afraid of going on solo hikes. Since I was young, every time I explored the woods above my house, I was with my brother, friends, or dad. Rarely would I go up there on my own. I’d heard stories of mountain lions, snakes, and bears (oh my!). And BOY have I seen plenty of snakes and bears. Mountain Lions? Not yet thank God. The only thing scarier to me than the wildlife are people, due to the occasional kidnapping in the woods stories you hear on the news. Especially for females. Mad props to everyone who solo thru-hikes anything. I could never.
That being said, I don’t want to have to wait on people to go on hikes and adventures and explore. Slowly but surely I’m working on getting out of my comfort zone, and learning to embrace a little risk (A little risk analysis never hurt anyone). Mount Tammany was the first proper solo hike I’ve been on (!!!) and I’m quite proud of myself for doing it.
The Red Dot
Mount Tammany is a beautiful mountain, reaching high above the Delaware Water Gap, right off Route 80 on the border of NJ and PA. The typical route is the red dot/blue dot loop, which is where you hike up the mountain on the red dot trail, come down on the blue dot, and finish off from the Appalachian trail for a short spell. It’s a little over 3.5 miles in total. I found this hike initially through a friend and then got a little more info from AllTrails (no, not sponsored by them…. yet…).
If/when you decide to hike up Mount Tammany, keep a few things in mind. First, the parking lot is confusing. There are a few of them. My GPS directed me to one further down that ended up being closed off so I missed the better parking lot. I then had to K-turn and go under the underpass to park on the other side of the highway because it was a one-way to get to the good parking lot. I then had to WALK back under the underpass with no sidewalk while hearing the roar of 18-wheelers above me and hope that some ding-dong wouldn’t come flying through the underpass and hit me. It was a terrifying 30 seconds. 0/10. Ok it wasn’t actually that bad, but you get the point.
Second, prepare for a lot of rock scrambling. Once you’ve made it to the correct parking lot (the Not-Appalachian-Trail Parking Lot), you start the Red Dot trail. You can go the other way up/around the mountain if you’d prefer, starting on the Appalachian Trail. Who am I to tell you what to do? It’s a loop either way. Anyway. Assuming you follow the way I did-starting on the red dot first- the rock scrambling starts pretty quickly. It is a mountain, so I feel like it’s to be expected, but I do want to give everyone the heads up anyway.
The views just keep getting better and better as you climb higher. There were 2 times when I questioned, “is this the summit??” and the answer was no. Keep climbing. The summit was windy. Super windy. I went from sweating because of all the rock scrambling to freezing cold in a matter of minutes. While I had initially planned on eating my lunch there, I changed my mind REAL FAST after experiencing the wind. I took a minute to capture a couple of pictures and then continued on the trail, which turns into the blue dot trail at the summit.
The Blue Dot
The blue dot trail is much more chill than the red dot. No rock scrambling, no jaw-dropping views of the valley (sigh), just a lot of flat land for a bit. It follows the ridge line; so you’re still high up, and you see ~some~ cool views, but they’re not nearly as exciting as the red dot. I still had yet to eat my lunch, so finding a good spot for my hammock was my highest priority. Within about 15 minutes, I found a spot right off the trail that dipped down and out of view of other hikers. Propped up my hammock, brought out my PB&J, and started munching. I was writing a bit in my travel journal when all of a sudden, I hear a woodpecker.
A Brief Interlude to Discuss Woodpeckers
I LOVE woodpeckers. I love all birds, period, but woodpeckers are definitely higher on my list than most. They’re such funny lil things- just like pecking trees to get some lunch. Iconic. I had my camera on me, so it was time to try to get a video. I slunk around, trying to get a good view of the woodpecker and film it. It was such a beautiful woodpecker! A red-bellied woodpecker, to be precise. The lil man was just doing his thing and doing such a marvelous job at it. Seeing that lil guy was by far the highlight of the whole hike. Views? Fantastic. WOODPECKER? Even better. I just wish I’d brought my binoculars smh. After bird-watching for a good minute, my bird friend flew off, presumably to another insect-infested tree for dessert.
Unfortunately, the video footage I have didn’t come out very well— all the more reason to buy another camera that’s not as old as me.
And… back to the solo hike
At that point, I decided it was probably best to continue my hike, so I packed up my hammock and continued on the blue dot trail. The blue dot will gradually start going downhill, and while it isn’t rock scrambling, it can still be a tad tricky to get down, so be careful. It merges with the Green trail, briefly, and you get to follow a pretty creek.
It then connects to the Appalachian Trail (white), which I honestly was not anticipating so I did get a little confused and had to ask another hiker if I was going in the right direction. Spoiler alert: I was. Thank you, fellow hiker, you saved the day. This is why it’s always good to have a trail map/picture on you.
That brought me back to the Appalachian Trail parking lot, which was only a few minutes walk away from the dreaded underpass.
I slept really well that night let me tell ya.
Mount Tammany is beautiful, tiring, and overall, a good time. It was a perfect intro solo hike for me since it wasn’t a long hike and there were plenty of other hikers on the trail. I will still continue to be scared while going on a solo hike/doing anything, but I definitely feel a bit braver now. And very happy I got a video of the woodpecker, even though it came out blurry 🙂
Thanks for reading! Drop a comment if you’ve been to Mount Tammany/what you thought of it!
Is there a solo hike you recommend?
Until next time,
-Mac
