Hawk Cliff & The Egg

Hawk Cliff & The Egg, Harriman State Park (11/25/2011)

It was Black Friday today ... so off to the mountains we headed, as far away from shopping centers as we could get! Parking at the Ramapo Equestrian Center on Route 202 in Suffern, we did a circuit hike of my own invention, comprised of about 50% unblazed and unmaintained woods road, and about 50% blazed trails. The only part we previously hiked was the section of the Pine Meadow trail between the equestrian center and its intersection with the Suffern-Bear Mountain trail. Everything else was completely new for us.

We took the Pine Meadown trail, which begins behind the horse corral, west to the gas line cut. Instead of turning right to continue on the PM trail we made a left and headed south in the cut. Eventually we veered right up Sherwood Path, a rugged, unblazed woods trail which has several other woods roads criss-cross along the way, many of which are not on the NYNJTC Harriman trail map #118 (2010 edition). My iPhone with its GPS came in very handy here. At one point, after already passing under the powerline cut, we turned left (thinking we were continuing on Sherwood) only to end up back at the power-line cut! The road we took is not on the map. No matter, since the cut was very high up at that point and I got some nice photos. We continued along Sherwood (which was just a trace in places) until we got to the Suffern-Bear Mountain trail. The Stone Memorial shelter was just west of the intersection. We headed west all the way to the Egg, which afforded some nice views from the top. Then we turned and headed east (once again passing the shelter), having lunch at Hawk Cliff (which should be renamed Vulture Cliff) enjoying its magnificent views. After lunch we continued east on the SBM all the way to where the PM joins. When the PM broke off, we took it all the way back to the equestrian center.

Total distance hiked today was 5 rugged miles in 4 hours.

(Click on the thumbnail to bring up a bigger image in a pop-up window)