Saturday, December 15, 2018

Harriman State Park, NY - Irish Potato and Hansenclever Winter Loop


ABOUT THE PARK:
Harriman State Park -  New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation

DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 41.229817, -74.060450
Parking on Gate Hill Road.

TRAIL MAP:
Northern Harriman Bear Mountain Trails Map #119 - NY/NJ Trail Conference
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HIKE DISTANCE:  9.6 miles

THE HIKE:
Because of winter road closures, otherwise heavily trafficked roads can be used to link trails with no traffic!
From the parking lot, turn left on Gate Hill Road then right at the opening in the guardrail before the bridge.
Yellow goes up, more steeply towards the top ...
... to Irish Potato.  An unmarked trail to the left comes up from the Lake Welch camping area - that would be our return route.  But now, right on yellow.
The Hudson is somewhere in the distance in all that fog.
Upper Pound Swamp down below.
Taking an unmarked trail to the right a short distance ...
... for a better view of Upper Pound Swamp.
Continuing on yellow.
Yellow turns right on Lake Welch Drive ...
... but because the exit off of the Palisades Interstate Parkway is closed for the winter ...
... we turned left and road walked.  It's not every day a dog can safely walk up the middle of a road.
Keeping right to Tiorati Brook Road which is also closed.
In case that first barrier did not stop anyone, this one would.
This road walk was very pleasant and scenic with no traffic.
We should have turned before this bridge but did not see the trail.
Instead we turned after the bridge along this very scenic stretch of the blue trail.
We weren't too far in before I realized this was the wrong way.
Heading back and crossing the bridge to the other side ...
... where the trail markers are not as obvious but they are there.
At the end of blue ...
... left on red cross.
For tired hikers?
Crossing a meadow to ...
... Tiorati Brook Road ...
... where red cross continues on the other side.
Balloon #55 of the year.
Coming up on piles of mine tailings then ...
... Hansenclever Mine.
Just after the mine, red cross veers right, we stayed to the left on unmarked Hansenclever Road.
Keeping straight on Hansenclever Road when blue crosses over.
Hansenclever Road leads all the way to ...
... a left on Lake Welch Road.
We turned right into Lake Welch ...
... then kept to the left around the lake.
Lake Welch
We worked our way left through the campground ...
... to the unmarked trail straight ahead.
A right on to another unmarked trail, then a left at a fork ...
... and we were coming up on Irish Potato.
From Irish Potato, right on yellow to retrace from the beginning of the hike.
Way up ahead, the only other hiker we encountered.
A left on Gate Hill Road ...
... back to where we parked. Everyone else parked there most likely went to Jackie Jones Mountain, which is more popular.