View Full Version : river road / alpine rock slide


toast
01-08-2006, 06:10 PM
Some pix of the rock slide on river road, just below the police station up from the George Washington bridge. For those who haven't gotten up there yet.

wolfereeno
01-09-2006, 05:58 AM
Some pix of the rock slide on river road, just below the police station up from the George Washington bridge. For those who haven't gotten up there yet.

Thanks. What a shame. Although from the pictures it doesn't look like I couldn't carry my bike over it. Is it really that bad?

team_sheepshead
01-09-2006, 07:49 AM
i checked out the slide a couple of weeks ago. so there is good news, bad news and worse news. the good news is that the slide is not as high/tall as it might look in these photos. the slide is maybe 3-4 feet high at its tallest. so you could probably carry your bike over it. BUT i don't know why you would. the rocks are sharp and it would only take only misstep in cleats to send you and your bike down hard onto a rock.

the bad news is that these photos look exactly like the slide looked when i saw it a couple of weeks ago. so the road crews must be waiting for spring until they get working on it (although it has been dry and in the 40s here). the worse news is what the photos can't really show: the slide is not just covering the road, it has actually destroyed the outside portion of the road and sent it tumbling down the hillside. so even if/when they clear the slide, they will have to rebuild the road.

it looks like there mightbe room for a bikepath if they just cleared the slide and permanently closed the river road hill to cars, but what are the chances of that?

toast
01-09-2006, 10:25 AM
Thanks. What a shame. Although from the pictures it doesn't look like I couldn't carry my bike over it. Is it really that bad?

The double negative has me confused what you think.

But I think the answer is "Yes", you can carry your bike across it. The lady in the first picture has just done that with a pair of what looked like Time cleats.
Is it a good idea? That is up to you to decide.
Standing there, my concern was more that another couple of tons of rocks could come crashing down, than actually slipping and falling. But watching 3 people cross it while taking photos, they were all looking down, not up. They all crossed right up against the wall, where you can see some dirt.
Myself, I turned around and enjoyed a couple extra car free miles of cycling heading back to the city. (The gates are closed to autos at "forbidded hill".)

If you look closely at the first picture, you can see the lip of what is left of the road right at the bottom. If you draw an mental line across to where the cyclist is, you can see there isn't any road there. As the second photo shows, it will be a major project to fix. The slide goes down a long way.

Old_school_nik
01-11-2006, 06:14 AM
This is a bummer. One of my season goals was to do a good time up this hill.

I say a couple of us go up there with a giant lever and roll some of those boulders down the hill and out of the way.

Nik

Old_school_nik
01-13-2006, 07:00 PM
No kidding apparently the boat basin with all the rich folks and their boats was being affected by the lack of access from River Road and a crew was out there moving the rubble away and repairing the road surface. The poster predicted it would be done shortly!

See NYCC.org for more info..

Nik

wolfereeno
01-16-2006, 06:01 PM
The double negative has me confused what you think.

LOL Sorry I didn't not mean to be un-misconfusing!

I use speedplay frogs on all my bikes so I have mountain bike shoes. I guess I'll just scramble over it!

Thanks

t1m4d
01-17-2006, 09:51 AM
Last week there was a small article in the Bergen Record that the Palisades Interstate Park commision is accepting bids on the repair of the rock slide on the Alpine Approach Road. I have since spoken with a PIP employee who told me that they have received several estimates. The problem is that all the estimates were over $1,000,000.00. The problem is that they can not just push the rock down with the parking lot below. I think I might be in the wrong line of work.

t1m4d
02-06-2006, 06:08 AM
I was up there over the weekend and the road is fixed.
It still is not paved with asphalt but you can ride it.
Hopefully they're blacktopping it as I write this. [/FONT]