Lake Wanoksink



Lake Wanoksink, Harriman State Park (12/13/2010)

I've become quite interested in the unblazed trails of Harriman, and over the past couple of months have tried incorporating a good percentage of them in the hikes we've been doing in the park. For today I put together a circuit that traverses unofficial unblazed trails for about 90% of its nearly seven mile length.

We parked at the Lake Sebago boat launch and took the ski trail (which begins in the lot) east, crossing over Seven Lakes Drive before reaching the woods road Pine Meadow Road. Here we turned right and took this road all the way east to where it splits in two: Pine Meadow Road East and Pine Meadow Road West, at the eastern end of the Buck trail. Two weeks ago we reached this intersection from the Buck trail and took the West road. Today we took the East road, and headed south to the tri-road intersection seen on the NYNJTC map for Southern Harriman east of Minsi Swamp. Since we were making good time we decided to continue on the PM Road East (the middle trail) south to the site marked "Ruin" on the map. There we encountered the ruins of a stone shelter built against a rock. We backtracked to the tri-road intersection using the eastern-most woods road. At the tri-road fork we turned left on the western-most road (labeled Conklin Road on the map). The road ends at the southern tip of Lake Wanoksink. Here we crossed over the earthen dam and then continued clockwise around the lake on a very rugged unmaintained trail until we reached Pine Meadow Road West. We continued north, past Monitor Rock, eventually taking an official blazed trail (the Seven Hills trail) north back to the car.

Total distance hiked today was 6.7 miles, in just under 4 hours.

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


At the Sebago boat launch lot

Beginning of ski trail


It just stopped raining


Tennis court of Sebago camp

Cabins at Sebago camp

Creek from Lake Sebago

Gravestone of Abram Waldron

 


Boundary wall


Moss on ski trail
 



Intersection with Pine Meadow Road

Heading west on PM Road

Local resident
 


Rocky surface

Looking east down PM Road


Underground cable warning
 


Lined with Mountain Laurel

[Photo by Laura]

Puddles from earlier rain

Photographing reflections [Photo by Laura]
 


TMI trail crossing on PM East Road


Beautiful swamp on PM East Road

 



Gorgeous tree branches


Heading south on PM East Road
 


Very wet in places


Swamp

Cascades off PM East Road
 




Culvert on PM East Road

 


Swamps abound


The tri-road intersection

View south on PM East Road
 


View north on PM East Road

Ruin

Inside the ruin

Slab at entrance
 


Heading back on eastern-most road

View looking north

Minsi Swamp ...

... with concrete structures
 


View west on Conklin Road

Giant rocks on Conklin Road

Stream from Lake Wanoksink

On SE tip of Lake Wanoksink
 



Lake Wanoksink and concrete structure

At southern tip of Lake Wanoksink

 


Pipe along unmaintained trail


Another abandoned structure

View of lake from southern tip
 


On rocky unmaintained trail

Another view north

On the SW bank of Lake Wanoksink

 


Stone bridge SW of lake

Rocky road west of lake


Cascades of Diamond Brook
 


[Photo by Laura]

Raging after the rains

Tricky crossing

Descent on Seven Hills trail
 

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