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I highly recommend you purchase the New York - New Jersey Trail Conference map here. There are a lot of trails in Harriman/Bear Mountain State Parks and not only will this map not get you lost, you can also change my route and add/remove trails.
Jun 04, 2019 — I was really looking forward to a big loop in the Bear Mountain State Park area of upstate NY. I love this area, and despite the relative flatness compared to the stuff I've been doing out west all year, the hills around here will always hold a special place in my heart. I've done and redone so many of the trails near here years ago before I was tracking hikes/routes on my site, but I can never get sick of hiking in the Hudson Highlands area and was hpapy to return.
Starting from the major parking lot within Bear Mountain State Park, I followed the Appalachian Trail (white blaze) west up to Bear Mountain's summit. This section has a ton of stairs, apparently meant for preventing erosion, but really felt a bit extravagant. At the summit of Bear Mountain, I took in the views for only a minute, leaving to avoid the crowds who took the road and drove to the top. I continued west on the Appalachian Trail shortcut before linking back up with the A.T. The trail wandered south for a while as it descended Bear Mountain before crossing Seven Lakes Drive. About a hald mile after the road crossing, the A.T. continues south, but I wanted to hit a cluster of little stars representing viewpoints that appeared along the Timp-Torne Trail (blue blaze) and didn't show on the A.T. (seen on the New York - New Jersey Trail Conference map). So, I took a slight detour to the northeast and met up with the Timp-Torne Trail. I'm happy I did, because this trail had some boulders that made the ascent a bit more interesting, and also it was nice to follow the full northern ridge of West Mountain, facilitated by this trail. Eventually, I met back up with the A.T. and continued to the West Mountain summit. An A.T. shelter had some nice views and I could see my next objective to the southeast: The Timp. Continuing along the Timp-Torne Trail, I passed over to The Timp, which had some nice views, and then left the Timp-Torne Trail to follow the Ramapo-Dunderberg Trail (red blaze) north. This led to Bald Mountain, which also had a nice view. Just north of Bald Mountain, I left the Ramapo-Dunderberg Trail and continued north along the Cornell Mine Trail (blue blaze), which led down to a parking lot.
Before reaching the parking lot, I took a detour to check out Doodletown, a historic area within the park. I took a social trail leading west off the Cornell Mine Trail which passed a small waterfall and headed past the Doodletown Reservoir. Doodletown was uneventful, unfortunately. All the buildings were no longer standing, but there were a few foundations. I didn't explore it much, but did check out the Second June Cemetary.
Anyway, I made it to the a parking lot along the Cornell Mine Trail (blue blaze), and continued following it until it met with Ski 1777 E (red blaze), which took my back to the trailhead.
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Hire/refer me as a web developer or send me a few bucks if you find my site useful. I'm not sponsored, so all fees are out-of-pocket and my time preparing trip reports is unpaid. I really appreciate it!
