Burgess Meredith Park - Cheesecoate Mountain Park - Harriman State Park, NY

ABOUT THE PARK:
Burgess Meredith Park - Village of Pomona
The Old Letchworth Village Cemetery - The New York Times
Harriman State Park -  New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation

DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates  41.19466, -74.03934

Parking area off of Brookside Drive cul-de-sac.

TRAIL MAP:
Southern Harriman Bear Mountain Trails Map 118 - New York New Jersey Trail Conference

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HIKE DISTANCE:  10.7 miles

THE HIKE:

From the parking area, the gravel path into Burgess Meredith Park....

... at the South Branch Minisceongo Creek.

Keeping left when the trail splits, the trail continues along the creek.

Aft the end of the gravel path slightly to the right is a service road with neon lime green painted sewer covers leading out of the park.

A short distance ahead, just beyond a blow down, aqua blazes of the Long Path come in from the right.

After following the service road for a bit ...

... the Long Path leaves on a footpath to the left along a scenic section of the creek.

What to do here?  Going left in front of the stone structure means wading across the creek.  Climb up on top?

Yes, that is the way to get over and it's kind of scary high up (for me at least) so deep breaths, no fast moves Brodie, and across we go.

Whew.  Safely on the other side.  It's not really that bad, just my knee-knocking fear of heights issue.

This sheet of ice was elevated a good foot above the water in the creek below.

The Long Path leaves the creek and starts uphill.

Coming up behind some homes ...

... and Cheesecote Mountaim Park with Cheesecote Pond straight ahead.

The Long Path continues left on the paved park road.

Cheesecote Pond

At the other side of the pond the Long Path leaves to the far left.  We stayed on the path straight ahead to the right of the Long Path...

... past some ruins with graffiti ...

... to a fork at the top where you can go either way (it's a loop) to ...

... views of Harriman State Park.

Jackie Jones Mountain fire tower to the left.

Continuing around the loop.

View from the littered party spot at the top.  There is actually litter everywhere up here.

And lots of ATV tracks.

Back on the Long Path after retracing down to the pond.

On this day long stretches of the Long Path were sheets of ice.

Brodie actually likes walking on ice.  As long as his paws don't get wet, he is down for it.

Crossing a power cut.

Shortly after the power cut, coming up on The Old Letchworth Village Cemetery.

Most of the 900 grave markers are numbers.  The article, link above, explains all of that.

And here we have one of those obnoxious ATV's.  No respect at all, not to mention illegal in the park.

Looking back at the cemetery.

Leaving Cheesecote Mountain Park and turning left on Call Hollow Road.

The cemetery sign is on Call Hollow Road.

It's just a short road walk to the hiker parking up ahead.  There is more parking all along this side.

Continuing on the Long Path into Harriman State Park.

Chock Brook

It's all uphill on the Long Path.

Breaking up the uphill slog with a break.

Brodie will eat anything for break unlike Shawnee who would only eat chicken jerky.  Biscuits are definitely more cost-effective so that at least helps to offset the cost of Brodie's many meds for his separation anxiety (which is totally not an issue on hikes.)

An American Goldfinch in winter attire.

The Long Path turns left on to Old Turnpike briefly ...

... before leaving to the right but we stayed on Old Turnpike.

Heading down to First Reservoir.

But wait, what is that over there?

I let Brodie think he found it.  This is balloon #6 of the year.

That grove of pine trees beckoned so that is where we headed.

This calls for another break.

Heading across the dam.

Left at the far side of the dam on the gravel road ...

... which becomes paved and leads to ...

... the hiker parking on Call Hollow Road.

Heading back to Cheesecote Park.

Back at Cheesecote Pond we were at about 6 miles and had 2 miles back to the car but it was so nice out, we decided to go left on the paved road to see if maybe that would meet up with one of the many woods roads we had passed between Burgess Meredith Park and Cheesecote Mountain Park.

Evidently this is considered a park path.  We never saw any traffic.  Nor did I see any woods roads intersections.

The end of the park road.

This would explain why there was no traffic.

Except, on the way back up, traffic that is not supposed to be here.  Ugh.

Back at the pond we circled around to the left...

... then left back on to the Long Path just before the homes.

Heading back it is pretty much all downhill.

Where the Long Path leaves to the left before the blow down, we continued straight. 

Back into Burgess Meredith Park.

Back at the car.

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