Staten Island Greenbelt Exploration

The ride down to NY yesterday was much less painful than last year, with less traffic although with perhaps a slightly more impatient Samantha. After a slightly too early wake up by Sam this morning, I finally headed out for a run around 8:00. I had done a bit of research ahead of time and knowing that I had hit the edge of a trail here last year on a run, I decided to figure out how much more trail I could find today. I discovered that there was a large network of trails starting where I had ended last year and set out to explore them. Very cool. 

I had the map pulled up on my phone along with Google maps but was able to follow the route I was hoping for without too much trouble but with quite a few stops to be sure I wasn't headed off into never never land ;)

http://www.sigreenbelt.org/Trails/trailmap.pdf

It was right around 40 degrees and pretty pleasant out on the trails. The trails are definitely suburban in nature, with stretches along the golf course, views of houses in the distance and multiple road crossings. I ran the Red Trail and then up Moses Mountain and along to High Rock and back. Some fun running and great to get in 8 miles almost entirely in trail in the midst of Staten Island! Would love to explore more, and would have, if I'd had some water with me! 

View of the lighthouse through the trees

Red Trail

Golf course vista

Four deer scampering off

Moses Mountain trailhead

After a short steep Scramble, I got to the top of Moses Mountain

Suburban vista

View along the trail

Can you see the deer? I saw seven in all, and they were not scared of me at all!

 Fun on the trails!