Thursday, I stumbled upon an interesting fact: 80% of people who maintain weight loss use walking as their main exercise. I also happened upon a writing tips book where the author said he takes long daily walks or hikes; the one-step-at-a-time approach is a metaphor for novel writing, which is done word-by-word.

Last year, I joined the Appalachian Mountain Club and rediscovered this primitive form of exercise. Older than man’s first fire-cooked meal, walking provides excellent cardio exercise, a chance to socialize, and opportunities to connect to neighborhoods, nature, and new ideas in old places.

As an example, I mention an AMC city hike that followed the Old Croton Aquaduct from Lehman College through the front yards of Edgar Allen Poe, Aaron Burr, and Alexander Hamilton!

According to the hike write-up, the Old Croton Aqueduct was New York City’s main source of clean drinking water from 1839 and 1842 until 1959, a major engineering and public health achievement.

We walked over this trail, which sometimes resembled a half-submerged pipe, all the way through Manhattan along Amsterdam Avenue. We saw a hawk fly over the abandoned High Bridge and admired the above-ground gate houses near Columbia University.

Here is an abandoned gate house on 119th and Amsterdam.

We started the hike close to this location in the Bronx.