Laurel Ledges Natural Area, NY - Turtle Pond, Tom's Path and Sterling Farm

ABOUT THE PARK: 

Laurel Ledges Natural Area - Putnam County Land Trust

Note that at the present time these trails are not in very good shape and in mid-May some are already very overgrown.  There is also flooding and bridge construction in progress near Turtle Pond making the trails inaccessible.

DIRECTIONS: 

GPS Coordinates 41.484748, -73.602557

For Turtle Pond:  Pullout parking along Cornwall Hill Road across from Devon Road.  I had intended to park here and hike all of the trails from one parcel to the next and back but when that as not possible I moved on to...

GPS Coordinates 41.488357, -73.601543

Literally around the corner from Turtle Pond is a small parking lot with room for 4 cars at Tom's Path.

TRAIL MAP:

There is no trail map.  The trails on the Gaia app are noted as "guess".  This is what I came up with from what I was able to hike, color coded to the actual trail marker colors:

HIKE DISTANCE:  2 miles

Hiked together with Michael Ciaiola Conservation Area, NY and Great Hollow Nature Preserve, CT - 9.8 miles

THE HIKE: 

TURTLE POND:

Right off the bat I noticed wood for constructing something on the trail.

Turning right at the kiosk, heading towards Turtle Pond on white.  There were yellow markers going straight from the kiosk; we would be returning that way.

There are dramatic cliffs and rock ledges up ahead but I could not get close enough to see them well.

At some point the yellow trail comes in from the left and the trail is now yellow.

And this is as far as we could go.

Looks like everything is flooded out and a new bridge was up ahead with more materials around for more bridges.

Heading back.

Where the trail becomes white, veered right on yellow thinking that might offer a connection to the upper trails but I did not see that.  Just ended up looping back to the kiosk.

TOM'S PATH AND STERLING FARM:

From the Tom's Path parking lot, taking the yellow trail around a loop.

The trail starts out clear and well-defined.

At the far end it starts to become overgrown.

Ending back at the parking lot in only .2 miles.

Since I knew the Sterling Farm parcel would just be a short road walk away, we headed there, just before the bend up ahead on the right.

That started out very muddy and swampy.

This trail was also very overgrown.  I would imagine it would be impassible come summer.

The overgrowth of mountain laurel was the most difficult part to get through.

At the top of a very steep climb, the yellow trail connecting over to Turtle Pond.

This trail was much clearer.

I followed it until it started to descend steeply.  Having already climbed up very steeply three times that day, I decided I did not have another one in me and if I went down I would have to come back up.  So I retraced back to red.

I then saw the start of a blue trail and followed that for a bit.  But when it headed in a direction opposite of where I wanted to go, I retraced to red.

Red descends very steeply and is not nearly as overgrown on this side.

Coming back out on the road with a random blue marker.  No other blue markers in sight so I don't think the blue trail I was on loops back here.

Turning left on the road for a short road walk back.

I was surprised to see the small parking lot full of cars when I returned.  A man approached me and asked where I had been hiking because they were disappointed to find Tom's Path to be so short.  When I explained to him where I had been, he said they had done the exact same things - got nowhere at Turtle Pond because of the flooding, and bailed on the Sterling Farm trails because they were afraid of ticks with the overgrowth.