What better way to celebrate the end of the Brain and Mind unit than to exercise our bodies by returning to the wilderness? Well, that’s what a group of second years thought (I didn’t finish BAM, just tagged along), and so out we headed to Breakneck Ridge in the Hudson Highlands State Park for a midnight hike culminating in watching sunrise at the summit.

This was November 14th, and the six of us were climbing on a frosty night with a slim crescent moon hiding behind thin clouds. We were at the tail end of autumn, and the trees had just shed their last trees during the little snowstorm a few days earlier. Freshly fallen leaves and snow blanketed the ground as we made our way through the forest.

We had our flashlights off and trudged our way through the snow by moonlight alone. The trail markers on the trees were tough to see, and many times we had to stop and find our bearings. The stillness was palpable; no other hikers were there, and the only creatures we heard were coyotes and mysterious birds in the distance. We got to connect with our own inner animals too.

The scramble at the end was a difficult one. Breakneck Ridge is the notable steep rock face at the bottom, which we scaled with relative ease. Near the top though, we found ourselves about 500 feet short of the summit with a steep climb that felt like basically a second Breakneck Ridge. It was a race against the sun, which we knew was going to rise relentlessly at 6:43, with our without us.

We made it minutes before the sun peeked over the ridges in the distance. We found a clearing, pulled out our space blankets and snacks and sat down to enjoy the show.

It was magical.

It was also really freaking cold. We couldn’t feel the temperature as our hearts were fueling our lower extremities and pumping blood to everywhere else too, but as soon as we tried to sit down we froze over pretty quickly. Without much delay, we packed up and started down, shivering. Daylight made the trail markers ridiculously obvious (puts our night-time pace to shame) and we slid down the mountain in time to have lunch in the city and take a nap. Yay.