North Hill

North Hill, Harriman State Park (6/3/2011)

I took the day off from work to go hiking with my friend Andy. Examining the latest Southern Harriman map from the NYNJTC, he came up with a hike that visited five "starred" vistas on and around North Hill: Torne View, the Russian Bear, the Pulpit, and two other unnamed vistas. As it turned out, the hike contains many more than just five since a good portion of ridge walking here affords nearly constant views. But there is a lot of climbing, some very steep ups and downs, so the going is slow and somewhat strenuous. But the weather was perfect with nearly no humidity ... and nearly no mosquitos.

We parked at the Reeves visitor Center, headed east on the Pine Meadow, then the Stony Brook, then the Kakiat trail before crossing south over Pine Meadow Brook just north of the impressive Cascade of Slid. Here we took the Hillburn-Torne-Sebago trail south to the Seven Hills trail. We headed SW on the Seven Hills (which is aptly named) enjoying almost continuous views. We had lunch just north of Torne view, then proceeded south where we made a left on the Hillburn-Torne-Sebago taking that to Russian Bear. Next we made a left on the Raccoon Brook Hills trail, visiting the Pulpit, then walked the Reeves Brook trail its entire length back to near the visitors center.

Total distance hiked today was nearly 7 miles in just over 5 hours.

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