Highland Lakes State Park, NY - South

ABOUT THE PARK: 

Highland Lakes State Park - New York State Parks 

Highland Lakes State Park - Palisades Park Conservancy 

This park is a good option for weekend hiking during hunting season as hunting is only allowed on weekdays.

DIRECTIONS: 

GPS Coordinates 41.48749, -74.31465

Although this is not shown as parking on the map (Trailforks does show this as parking), there is parking here for about 5 cars as long as the gate is not blocked.

TRAIL MAP: 

Highland Lakes State Park Map - New York State Parks (does not show all trails) 

Highland Lakes State Park - Trailforks (shows more trails but not all)

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HIKE DISTANCE:  9.5 miles

THE HIKE: 

No map shows all of the trails and some trails shown on the map are not used much and are not as clear as others.  I ran the Gaia and Trailforks apps during this hike and relied on them heavily to navigate around.  Many trails are unmarked and heavy leaf cover with limited usage makes them hard to see.  This is a more remote area of the park and I only encountered two men on horseback and one mountain biker the entire time.  I had hiked the northern side of this park almost a year ago to the day.

Starting at the gate in the parking area on what is a continuation of Camp Orange Road.

Camp Orange Road through the park.

Teal blazes of the Long Path which still exist (rerouted out of this park in 2013) join in briefly from the right ...

... then leave to the left.  We would be returning on this trail from the left.  For now, straight on Camp Orange Road.

It's the weekend.  They don't have to run for their lives :(.

Leaving Camp Orange Road to the left on a trail that appears to be named ...

... "YYZ" but names aren't necessarily on the map or apps.  The apps shows this as a loop that returns to Camp Orange Road.  It is not on the park map.

This trail is blazed in red.

It loops around back to Camp Orange Road where we turned left.

White-breasted Nuthatch

A side trail leads down to creek level then back up to Camp Orange Road.

Passing a small pond on the left just before ...

... a right turn to Highland Lake.

I arrived just in time to see a great blue heron land on the other side.

I had hoped to get to the other side of the outlet but it was not passable so back to Camp Orange Road.

After crossing a small bridge over the outlet, Camp Orange Road becomes more obscure as it seems nobody goes this way.

We doubled back on a trail parallel to Camp Orange Road were we had just come up (the lower trail on the right).

This trail got us over to the other side of Highland Lake.

There was so much bird activity here that I sat to take a break and just started snapping pictures of all of these birds.

American Tree Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow

Dark-eyed Junco

Purple Finches

American Cardinal

We then worked our way along the southern end of the pond on an earthen dam with lots of recent beaver activity.

Looking back at where we had been earlier where we had not been able to cross.

We backtracked across the dam to continue on.

There are trail on the western side of the pond that are not on the map or apps.  We worked our way around to head south continuing our loop.

Sometimes the path becomes narrow and overgrown but there is evidence of horse usage.

Some ruins along the way.

The trail eventually starts to open up again.

Tufted Titmouse

American Cardinal

This section of trail is very clear so must be more heavily used (although we encounteredd nobody on it) and it is blazed red/white/yellow as shown on the park map.

It appears that right exits the park, we stayed on red.

Turning left on a footpath (not shown on the map) as straight would leave the park.

Here is where the trail became particularly difficult to follow with no blazes and heavy leaf drop.  Brodie did a fine job of staying with the trail but when it would start to feel mushy underfoot, a sure sign of being off trail, I'd refer to the app to get us back on track.

The two horses and riders that passed us.

Oops.  A difficult creek crossing I wasn't expecting.

To the left, a bit upstream, there is a rope tied across but I found that to be totally useless.

I hadn't used these in a long time but I did have my plastic boot covers in my backpack and this was an occasion for using them to cross. 

The water was a bit more shallow downstream so we crossed there.

Continuing on the other side.

Here are the old blazes of the former route of the Long Path that join in from the right.  Now there would be teal blazes to follow all the way back to Camp Orange Road.

A right on Camp Orange Road ...

... then continuing straight on Camp Orange Road when teal leaves to the left.

Balloon #64 of the year.

Back at the parking area.