ABOUT THE PARK:
Harriman State Park - New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation
Long Path Section Description - NY/NJ Trail Conference
DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 41.316503, -74.050736
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| Plenty of parking in an arc off of Route 6. |
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TRAIL MAP:
Northern Harriman Bear Mountain Trails Map #119 - NY/NJ Trail Conference
HIKE DISTANCE:
Out and back Long Path only - 6.6 miles (3.3 miles each way)
With Turkey Hill Lake - 8.4 miles
THE HIKE:
Harriman State Park is a busy, popular place but this is one beautiful, remote trail in the park you can have all to yourself. I only ran into one other hiker who was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. Although not heavily used, the trail appears to be freshly blazed and is easy to follow. Even though there are steep ups and downs there are no scrambles. I removed a ton of downed branches and picked up some litter as did the other hiker I ran into so we left this section in great shape!
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| The Long Path comes in from the left and goes into the woods at the kiosk. Yes, that is a bag of trash off to the left and the trail to and around Turkey Hill Lake is very trashy. That is where everyone goes to party and they obviously don't have a clue (or care) about packing their garbage out. |
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| The red square on white Popolopen Gorge Trail starts here and it's the way to Turkey Hill Lake. We'd be going that way later but first continuing on the aqua-blazed Long Path. |
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| Coming up on views. |
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| Turkey Hill Lake down below. |
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| Popolopen Torne and Bear Mountain. |
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| Popolopen Torne |
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| Bear Mountain |
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| Descending on the Long Path. |
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| At the bottom just before the creek, an unmarked woods road goes left. We'd be taking that on the return route. For now ... |
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| ... a rock hop Brodie is most grateful for across the water. |
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| West Point property off to the right. |
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| A couple more easy water crossings ... |
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| ... then steeply uphill on Howell Mountain. |
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| Almost at the top of Howell Mountain, a short bushwhack to the left, balloon #46 of the year. |
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| Descending Howell Mountain. |
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| At the bottom, come creek crossing. |
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| The outlet of Lake Massawippa... |
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| ... with some pretty cascades along the way. |
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| Ascending Brooks Mountain. |
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| Coming up on the overlook. |
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| A nice spot for a break. |
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| But what does Brodie see down there? |
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| Balloon #47 of the year. |
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| Heading back. |
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| Ascending Howell Mountain. |
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| Blueberry bushes starting to change into fall colors. |
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| I believe this is an olive-sided flycatcher. |
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| There were two of the flying around, playing and apparently having a great time. |
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| He was watching. |
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| A few steps farther along, a female downy woodpecker. |
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| Brodie hopped on a rock to let me put another piece of litter in his pack when he got the "someone is coming" look and that is when we ran into the other hiker. |
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| After this long rock hop ... |
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| ... where the Long Path starts uphill to the Torrey Memorial ... |
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| ... we turned right on the unmarked woods road. |
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| Looks like this was the Long Path at some point. |
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| Meeting back up with the Long Path where it goes left up to the Torrey Memorial, we kept straight on the Poplopen Gorge Trail. |
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| Coming up on Turkey Hill Lake visible through the trees straight ahead. |
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| And more litter. It's everywhere. I did not even bother to pick any up, it would not have made a difference. This cleanup requires a scout troop or an organized effort. So sad that people are such slobs. |
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| But overlooking that where possible and trying to ignore the music blasting, people talking loudly and the smell of something burning, nice views across Turkey Hill Lake to Bear Mountain in the distance. |
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| We continued on the Poplopen Gorge Trail along the lake finally getting away from the chaos. |
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| Overlook at the lake where we took a break. |
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| Zoom in to Perkins Tower atop Bear Mountain with people inside. |
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| Early fall colors. |
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| Heading back and coming back up on the party spots. Seriously, do they think the trash fairy is going to come along and whisk their garbage away? |
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| It's everywhere. |
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| Where the Popolopen Gorge Trail turns right (we had just come up from the left), we turned left on an unmarked woods road in an attempt to get back to the parking lot using woods roads. |
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| This one was actually line with small boulders and appeared to be maintained. |
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| At this huge rock pile is where we would have turned right to head towards the parking area but that woods road was overgrown and littered with downed trees. I decided to head back the way we came. |
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| I had noticed a footpath closer to where we first turned on to the woods road so we took that. |
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| That path leads all the way around to the woods road I did not take where I could see it was just as bad at this end so good thing we turned back. |
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| Straight ahead on the footpath leads to the parking lot. And more trash. |
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| Those people up ahead at the kiosk, saw them take a bag of trash from their car and add it to that black bag of trash at the kiosk. I just don't get it and I would have said something but I was so angry it would not have come out without attitude so it was better to keep my mouth shut and not start trouble (one of me versus 5 of them). |
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| The litter Brodie packed out only from the remote Long Path section - two plastic bags, two balloons, a water bottle and an empty food pouch. |
