Sterling Mountain State Park, NY - Wildcat Mountain

ABOUT THE PARK:
Sterling Forest State Park, NY - New York State Parks

 

DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 41.22972, -74.18443

Tuxedo Park and Ride Lot

TRAIL MAP:

Sterling Forest Trails Map 100 - NY/NJ Trail Conference

HIKE DISTANCE: 8.2 miles

THE HIKE: 

The white-blazed Wildcat Mountain Trail starts at the far end of the park and ride lot as a woods road.

After a short distance the trail leaves the woods road to the left as a footpath.

After a stretch of level trail, the trail ascends.

Views of Harriman State Park and the New York State Thruway below.

After descending with a pond straight ahead, I wanted to turn left on orange but the blazes were confusing.

I headed straight to the pond then when I turned around ...

... I saw the orange blazes now on my right that would take me around clockwise.

Balloon #5 of the year.

The trail comes out on a gravel road that it will follow downhill all the way to it's end.

At the end of orange, a few steps ahead ...

... right on green.

This is a more pleasant grassy woods road.

Coming out at Orange Turnpike ...

... the green trail ends and keeping right after the gate ...

... to a short walk down a residential street to the bend ...

... leads to a small gravel parking lot and the orange/white trail.

Arriving at the pond with the confusing blazes from earlier, the blazes make more sense coming from this direction.  We turned left to retrace on white.

We only encountered two men heading up a mile from the parking lot but saw nobody else the entire hike.