Harriman State Park

My friend Hugo Arrué from Princeton sent me this collaboration, i think is perfect to cool down my last post. Thank you Hugo.

Mid January is a great time to explore winter scenes at the second largest national park in New York: Harriman State Park, now a 46,613 acres (186.4 km²) property and located in the Appalachian Mountains region.

The Appalachians’ birth ranges some 300 million years ago, when different plate collisions ended up forming the big Pangea. The Appalachians were part of the center of the big continent. Later on, the whole region were split in several parts and interesting enough because North America and Africa were connected at that time, the Appalachians were part of the same mountain chain as the Anti-Atlas in Morocco. Now, exploring the different scenes you can track a long history of drastic changes including former sea floors and glaciers.

Harrimam State Park was founded in 1910, by the generosity of Edward Harriman and Mary Averell Harriman who owned 30,000 acres (120 km²) in Arden, New York at that time. A year after the death of her husband in 1909, Mary Harriman donated 10,000 acres (40 km²) of land and $1 million for the creation of the park and helping to put away the state’s idea to build a prison in that area. Now the park has a bigger extension.

The winter scenes give a good chance to see the place in a more pristine way, when only few humans have the craziness to hike the place during the coldest time of the year. But this action is paid off by far.