Oct 24, 2026
A Halloween hike closes QARAVAN’s 2026 hiking season
On October 24, 2026, 19 people hiked in costume to Feltville, a deserted 19th-century village in New Jersey’s Watchung Reservation. It was the last of QARAVAN’s five hikes this year.
From June to October, 43 people hiked with us. Two made it to all five hikes, and more than a third came back for more than one.
Harriman State Park, June 6
16 km from Sloatsburg to Suffern, upstream along Stony Brook and its small waterfalls, with a long lunch at Pine Meadow Lake.
Greenwood Lake, July 25
13 km along the New York and New Jersey line: up Bearfort Ridge, a picnic at Surprise Lake, then the Appalachian Trail to Prospect Rock and ice cream at Bellvale Farms.
Bear Mountain, August 15
10 km and 400 m of climbing from Hessian Lake to Perkins Memorial Tower, with lunch at the top.
Bull Hill, September 19
An 8.5 km loop above the Hudson from Cold Spring, with the hardest climb first and ice cream at Moo Moo’s Creamery at the end.
The Deserted Village, October 24
9 km in costume through the Watchung Reservation, past streams and Lake Surprise, to the old houses of Feltville, then a picnic together.
“…the organizers kept everyone going the whole way, even though we are all very different and at different fitness levels. I think we had a great time!”
About QARAVAN
QARAVAN is a New York nonprofit community of LGBTQ+ immigrants, asylum seekers and allies, founded in 2008. It brings people together, publishes free resource guides in Russian and English, and organizes Brighton Beach Pride.
