Overmountain Conservation Area, NY

ABOUT THE PARK: 

Overmountain Conservation Area - Columbia Land Conservancy

DIRECTIONS: 

GPS Coordinates 42.00677, -73.53570

The parking lot is to the right off of the entrance drive.  Straight ahead through the gate is a residence.

TRAIL MAPS: 

Overmountain Conservation Area Trail Map (black and white) - Columbia Land Conservancy

Overmountain Conservation Area Brochure (older colored map) - Columbia Land Conservancy

HIKE DISTANCE: 9.9 miles

Hiked together with:

Drowned Lands Swamp Conservation Area (5 minutes away) - 1.8 miles

Buttercup Farm Audubon Sanctuary (25 minutes away) - 3.7 miles

THE HIKE:

There is a kiosk at the parking lot but we would be returning from behind that kiosk.

To start we walked out of the parking lot, turned right ...

... and continued on the entrance road.

This is marked as the green trail ...

... and it goes right through a residence which seemed awkward, especially since there were no trail markers for a while.  But it is the trail.

The markers start up again a little past the residence.

A right on the purple trail up Round Ball Mountain.

There is a loop at the top ...

... to views of the Taconic range with low morning clouds obscuring the valley below. 

Back down to continue right on green.

Left on blue down to the bridge.

Staying on blue for a while.

The trail becomes a mowed path through meadows.

Left on yellow but the posts don't have markers.

A little way along, confirmation that it's the yellow trail.

A bench at the top ...

... with views of the Taconics.

Across the way, the gazebo where we would be heading next.

Continuing on yellow.

Passing through the Kite Hill trailhead.

American Kestrel

The gazebo with Catskill views.

Continuing on yellow.

The double blue markers indicate the double blue line on the map.

This leads back to blue where we turned left.  To the right would be the return route.

Just beyond this stone wall red goes left but there aren't many markers and there are several grassy woods roads.  Apparently I managed to stay with red since I did start seeing markers again.

It's all woods road that loops back around as blue on the map but it actually stays red until...

... green goes left to the Fox Hill trailhead parking lot and blue goes right; we stayed right on blue.

Now it's blue all the way back to the creek crossing at Round Ball Mountain.

We packed out balloon #23 of the year.

Back through the break in that stone wall where we had taken red to the right earlier.

Along the entrance road to the Kite Hill trailhead, blue will go straight but watch for a left turn ...

... across the road and up the steps to the meadows.

Left at the mowed grass path.  This is where we had to stand for a good 5 minutes while a woman tried to leash her three out of control dogs that she had running amok and had zero control over.  I was not amused.  This is why these places start banning dogs.

After crossing the bridge over the creek ...

... up the hill to the end of blue and left on green where we had come in from the right previously.

Other than that balloon, the only other piece of litter we found the entire hike.

Green will go straight and loop around to the kiosk of the parking lot but we turned right on yellow.

There was a car with music blasting and this route got us farther away from the road.

Back at the  kiosk ...

... and the parking lot.

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