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Today we returned to the most spectacular viewpoint in Sterling Forest and one of the most amazing in the entire metro area. And imagine our surprise when we found the
forest sprinkled with a light layer of snow, like powdered sugar! And here we are in the second week of May! The snow didn't last long though. While it was there at 9 AM,
it was gone a few hours later.
Today we parked at P9 (the West Valley trailhead) on CR 17A and headed south on the green-blazed West Valley trail. After about 1.4 miles, instead of continuing on green through the gate, we headed west and then south on a woods road (you can see it on the NYNJTC map for Sterling Forest). It's a beautiful road, but we lost it before the end, forcing us to climb, descend, climb again, descend again, all the time bushwhacking. We finally found the orange-blazed Bare Rock trail, which we took to the gorgeous vista. The entire Greenwood Lake can be seen from Bare Rock, from the southern New Jersey tip to the northern New York tip. It's an amazing view. After taking it in, we headed back to the car, but not along the aforementioned woods road. Instead we took orange and then green all the way back to the car. This is the easiest, flattest way, to get to Bare Rock. Total distance hiked today was 5.4 miles in 3 hours and 15 minutes.
(Click on the thumbnail to bring up a bigger image in a pop-up window)
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Photographs and content copyright © Dan Balogh Web design by Dan Balogh |