Rockefeller State Park Preserve, NY - Buttermilk Hill Section

ABOUT THE PARK:
Rockefeller State Park Preserve - New York State Parks

DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 41.122894, 73.811642

North County Trail Parking Lot.  No parking fee to enter Rockefeller State Park Preserve from this lot.

TRAIL MAP:
Westchester Trails Map #130 - New York New Jersey Trail Conference

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HIKE DISTANCE:  11.8 miles

THE HIKE:

Starting from the far end of the parking lot on the Nature Trail.

It's the only footpath on this hike.

At the opening in the fence, right on ...

Lucy's Loop

Now it's almost all gravel carriage roads but sometimes grassy woods roads.

Some far away views from Old Orchard Trail.

Coming off of the meadows at a 3-way intersection we turned left in search of a second overlook.

But at the top you have to keep to the right ...

... and can only zoom into the view on the left.

We went out the Ridge Trail until we hit a carriage road then turned back to retrace because it was heading us in the wrong direction.

Back at that 3-way intersection, we kept straight on Ferguson's Loop.

Ferguson's Lake

We turned right after the lake but that was not the right way, should have been left, so we retraced and went the correct way.

Then a right on Flying Squirrel which loops around back to this spot.

Coming off of Flying Squirrel we turned left on Reservoir Loop which took us between two reservoirs.

The reservoir on the right was full.

The reservoir on the left was not.

A little farther along we turned left on Raven's Rock.

This descends way down ...

... to Raven's Rock at the end.  It doesn't look so imposing from a distance...

... but it is.

At least Brodie thinks so.  At the base was a good break spot, Raven's Rock holding back the biting wind gusts.

Heading back uphill.

Back at the intersection we turned left on Perry Road.

We followed this loop around counter clockwise.

On the return side of the loop is where I saw....  do you see it under the white arrow?

Balloon #1 of 2020.

Back where Raven's Rock is to the right, we veered left on Goat Trail.

From the Goat Trail we stayed right on the Buttermilk Hill Trail.

Where we hardly saw any other people the entire hike so far, it got pretty busy in this area because cars can park along Bedford Road, just a short distance away.

But once we turned to head back to Lucy's Loop, we saw no more people.

Where we had come in from the left at the beginning of the hike, we now went right.

Back through the fence opening to the Nature Trail ...

... and back to the parking lot.

For all the cars that were parked along Bedford Road, I could not believe there were only 3 cars including mine in this HUGE parking lot.

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