Harrison & Horse Pond Mts.

Harrison & Horse Pond Mountains, Long Pond Ironworks State Park (8/19/2012)

We have hiked along the ridge of Harrison and Horse Pond Mountains at least once in the past but always along blazed trails. Today with the PDF version of NYNJTC Map #115 loaded in my iPhone we decided to explore this area on woods roads and unmaintained trails, using blazed trails only when there was no other alternative.

We parked on Burnt Meadow Road where the yellow blazed Burnt Meadow trail crosses. We took this blazed trail just a bit east but then headed along a woods road south passing an unnamed pond which was unique in that it contained an abandoned motorboat smack in its center! Skirting the pond on its eastern bank we continued south and then headed east on another woods road which eventually comingled with a powerline cut heading east and then north. We took a small spur on the white-blazed Horse Pond Mountain trail to take in the views in nearly every direction before heading north to the Monksville Reservoir. We intended on following the cut all the way to the reservoir bank but overgrown vegetation necessitated taking the red-blazed Stonetown Circular a bit NE. We soon reached a woods road which allowed us to head west, eventually taking two spurs to the bank of the reservoir. We continued west until the woods road comingled with white, which we took north to a viewpoint over the reservoir on Horse Pond Mountain before heading back to the car via yellow. The last half hour was marred a bit by the loud sounds of planes overhead. Apparently there was an air show taking place, most likely from the Greenwood Lake Airport just west.

Total distance today was 5 miles in just over 3.5 hours.

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