10/20/20 Goose Pond Mountain State Park to Goshen with Serious Sean Dougherty, Justin Gurbisz, Jennifer Bee, Galya, Michael Krejsa, Professor John DiFiore, Diane Reider, Robin Deitz, Jennifer Tull, Kirk Rohn, and Brittany Audrey
Old Lazy Hill Road
This next hike would be a point to point between Goose Pond Mountain State Park on the Highlands Trail to Goshen NY. The majority of the route would be the old Erie Railroad.
Old Lazy Hill Road
I planned for this one to cover the next piece of the Orange Heritage Trail, which is the old Erie Railroad main line that dates back to 1841. At that time, the towns such as Chester and Goshen were just rural areas and barely even a settlement. The establishment of the railroad brought commerce to these areas.
The Long Path also follows most of the section we would be following, and so it would also count toward more of my series on that trail, which we hadn’t gotten around to in a while.
The bridge a couple of years back
The Highlands Trail had been rerouted I had heard in Goose Pond Mountain State Park, and my friend Edward DiSalvo had been working on a bridge on old Lazy Hill Road.
The bridge now
He’d been on a crew there quite a lot before moving down south, and I’d been meaning to have a hike that would go across the old bridge since then, even though it was a section of the Highlands Trail I had already done before.
Lazy Hill Road bridge before
So, I met the group in Goshen, near a Burger King at a commuter lot parking across the street from the CVS. This was under construction and caused some confusion.
Lazy Hill Road bridge after
We ended up using the commuter lot across the street, and so we were alright to get to the start. We shuttled in three cars to get there, and barely had enough room.
The Seely Brook bridge
The starting point was on Laroe Road, where now abandoned Lazy Hill Road continued north through what is now Goose Pond Mountain State Park. The road is still paved, but has been abandoned many years, and was part of the Highlands Trail.
I didn’t realize it, but the Highlands Trail had been rerouted in a way that I was not expecting.
I was thinking it would go over the ridge of Goose Pond Mountain itself, but it does not. The reroute comes in from the south, but I wasn’t prepared to park there to head in.
Seely Brook Bridge before
The trail was blazed with the teal diamonds and black dots in the middle, which meant that it was now a side trail. It was kind of disappointing to see that we would have to come back.
The bridge
On the other hand, I would want to do this anyway because I wanted to see the work done on the Lazy Hill Road bridge. Already, I’m planning out another route that will involve Goose Pond Mountain as well.
We started walking on the road, downhill gradually, and across the first little deteriorating stone arch bridge.
The road leveled out, and Davis Hill Road and its connection apparently comes in from the left, but I honestly didn’t notice it at all. Maybe it’s not clear.
The bridge before
Pretty soon, we came upon the old Lazy Hill Road bridge over the Seely Brook. It was originally a stone arch bridge of two spans
The bridge after
They had gone out with a framework and completely covered over the old facade with a new concrete bit. It also looked like they had repaired some of the old masonry work.
On old Lazy Hill Road
I was thoroughly impressed by the job I was seeing.
I got down in the stream and took as many photos as I could from all of the angles I’d gotten them a few years back when I was there. I think I only screwed up one of them, so I’ll get that next time.
We continued on the road from there pleasantly through some beautiful woods. The lane was lined with lots of Sugar Maples, some of them of considerable size along the way, and we eventually came to where the new Highlands Trail route joins on the right. It goes over some undulating terrain, from a point on Bull Hill Road.
Old Lazy Hill Road
We continued along the trail to a side trail with a sign that reads it goes to an old family cemetery. I had gone looking for it with the group last time I was there to no avail.
Goose Pond Mountain view
Regardless, the trail to it actually reaches a fantastic view of Goose Pond Mountain, so I figured we would at least go out to that point.
Once we sat at the overlook for a bit (and scared off a cyclist who was peacefully enjoying the spot. No not really, he talked to us and said he never found the cemetery either), we continued on the path with hopes of maybe finally finding the cemetery. Dr. Mike had it in his phone on another map, where we might zero in on the location better than when I was there the last time.
Goose Pond Mountain view
The trail went into a meadow area with Eastern Red Cedars and other successional plants. Dr. Mike and I especially were scanning the woods looking for potential grave stones.
Halleluja
Kirk was goofing on us gritting his teeth and in a somewhat Muppet-like voice, saying “Graaaveesss”, as if we were salivating over the idea of finding them.
In a way I guess we were.
Dr. Mike found a website that showed one cemetery was labeled incorrectly, and that another was somewhere nearby, but that it did not show the route.
In retrospect, I wondered if the cemetery shown in the images might have been one I explored along the Highlands Trail further to the south, not by far, along the road.
Lazy Hill Road section
The route we were following was atop a little bit of a knoll, and it made its way down to a path that went left back out to Lazy Hill Road. We all did this, but kept looking.
Hollow Sugar Maple
The others waited alongside the road and took a break, while Dr. Mike and I continued down what must surely have been a through road from this point, with a stone row bordering it. Maybe the cemetery no longer had any stones standing?
It was really hard to tell. I went a qays down the hill on the old road route and watched both sides, and Dr. Mike bushwhacked around a little further up in elevation. Unfortunately, neither of us found anything of a cemetery. We did go right to where it supposedly was on the map.
We turned right, and continued north on the Highlands Trail on Lazy Hill Road recovering more of the ground we had just walked.
We went beyond the point we had turned off, took in some nice views to the west, and checked out a hollowed out Sugar Maple along the way. There was also an old driveway that probably went to a house to the right.
Old Lazy Hill Road
There were a surprising amount of people walking this section in both directions. There is a larger parking lot on the north side of where we came out than on the south.
Hollow maple
We headed gradually downhill from some meadows, past the parking lot across from the intersection on Rt 17M, and turned left.
The Highlands Trail turns right on Craigville Road and crosses over Rt 6. We would be going that way, but my plan was to first head to the west on 17M a little bit to do a section of trail in Goose Pond Mountain State Park that didn’t connect with anything else.
It was just a loop but I figured it might be something cool.
We walked the highway out past a house used by a DEC ranger, then past another little building, and the parking for this bit was on the left.
We headed into the woods here and the trail had a loop. We turned the right fork, and immediately went out on a beautiful boardwalk. This was supposedly built as a sort of “make up for it” type of deal because of construction on a nearby highway project for Rt 86. Nearby Rt 6 is apparently slated to become an Interstate highway sometime in the near future.
The boardwalk had absolutely fantastic wetland views, as well as over to Goose Pond Mountain. It weaved around in a nice little loop, and connected to land again.
Goose Pond Mountain boardwalk
At that point, instead of going the full loop, I cut off to the right into the woods, because I could see where the road and the abandoned building we passed were.
Big Red Oak
Just as we got into the woods, there was this amazing Northern Red Oak tree one of the biggest of that species I had ever seen.
We took a little break here and several members of the group tried to climb it. There was a smaller tree growing near its base that made it kind of easy to pole our way up holding on to the smaller one. Sean went to go up as did Kirk and I forget who else, and then I went up to where I’d have to flip around, but didn’t want to wreck my suit too bad.
Brittany then climbed up it, and threw herself into the crook of the tree! Serious Sean said he immediately had to do it again, and Brittany told him there was no room for more than one person up there. He still got up to parallel with her, and they both fire poled their way down.
From here, we headed east again on Rt 17M. I noticed another giant White Oak on the road in this stretch. We turned left on Craigville Road, and some of us walked on top of the guide rail over top of Rt 6.
It wasn’t too long before we got to the former Erie Railroad overpass. The Highlands Trails goes under it and climbs the embankment to the right.
Oxford Depot Cemetery
At the top of the climb, next to the railroad bed, is the old Oxford Depot Cemetery. I don’t know what it was called back in the day, because it actually predates the railroad, but we headed up into it to check out some of the old grave stones.
The location was the site of the Oxford Depot later, and what is probably the original station at the site still stands just to the west of the Craigville Bridge crossing.
The station is unlike other later ones, with their typical awnings and platforms. This was a homestead type of building, meant probably to house a station agent.
Oxford Depot on the old Erie main
We headed west on the railroad bed, now paved, to reach the station site. The first time I’d ever seen it I wasn’t even sure it was once a station.
Oxford Depot today
I was actually planning on not doing this hike the way we were doing it, instead ending in Middletown to cover just more of the railroad bed, but I saw so much other stuff in the vicinity I wanted to include that I had to shorten it to Goshen and add the other stuff. I had already walked this bit of the Erie, but not all the way to Goshen, and had to overlap it.
Jack and Louise Birnberg Preserve orange trail
Among the things I decided to add to this was the Jack and Louise Birnberg Preserve, which is a 187 acre preserve of the Orange County Land Trust accessible from the rail bed.
There was more to this preserve than I had initially seen. Also, I had not realized we could cut over into it earlier than we did or it would have played out differently.
We turned left at the entrance, but not everyone really wanted to go in. I had planned this hike to have a sort of extra three loops within the hike that would make up the distance.
Big tree on Yrizarry Trail
There were mowed trails I knew of, but an orange one went left parallel with the rail bed and former a three quarter mile loop. We went out there parallel with the rail bed, and Serious Sean went ahead and made a wrong turn. The orange blazed Yrizarry Trail, which I have no clue what that means, cut to the right into the woods and looped through some lovely forested land back to the same spot we had come to. I was originally thinking we would be doing the Marsh Trail and that this tied in to that, but it did not.
Birnberg Preserve
I was able to text Sean and let him know where we were ending up, and we all got back to the trail head for the Birnberg Preserve.
From there, we turned down the trail a short bit more, and came to the former entrance from the tracks to Camp LaGuardia.
The history begins with the New York Women's Farm Colony, a sort of prison for women when such things were uncommon. Work started in 1918 and by the early twenties, women were being brought in from New York City. Crimes among women were high at the time, blamed by some on absense of men during World War I, and they would be shoplifting and engaging in prostitution.
Abandoned
By the end of the twenties, crimes among women had gone down, and in 1934 it became Camp Greycourt, a welfare camp during the Great Depression, a need that eclipsed the need for a women's jail. It was a project of then NYC Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, and so in 1935 it was re-Christened Camp LaGuardia. The camp proved to be a good thing for the homeless until the 1980s when crack cocaine became substance of choice among homeless rather than alcohol or weed.
Abandoned
At that time, there were attacks of people on the railroad tracks, there were muggings and lewdness. NY City was pressured to close the place, and under Mayor Bloomberg, they did. The property was sold to Orange County, and the history from there becomes boring with mundane government lingo.
Basically, there are various plans for the property that include a new Town Center for Orange, an industrial complex, a religious center, farm use, limited recreation, and more.
Abandoned
Interviews with government officials regarding the property and it's past uses border on sounding pompous and stuck up, and the county's purchase of the property is something that would be seen as extremely foolish where I live in Warren County. With all of the buildings, it's a White Elephant no government can afford or would want. They're better off working on a creative re-use that would satisfy all of the aforementioned plans.
My original plan was to check out the building right on the rail bed first.
Abandoned
I would then bring everyone up the east end of the wye where the former Newburg Branch of the Erie broke off. We had only just recently explored that. There are some abandoned buildings we accessed from that way on the last hike, and no signs or anything saying to stay out.
We went into the first building, which I’d been in before. This time we checked out the basement, which I had never done before. After coming out, we were going to head out to the junction site but then the regular paved road was accessible.
That's a big pee pee
We just walked that on up through the woods along a slope, and then came to an intersection. There were lots of abandoned buildings.
We wandered to the right and uphill to the bigger buildings and had a look around there. Some waited outside, and the rest of us went all the way up to the roof. There were some amazing views as far as the Catskills, and Serious Sean had his phone app that told us what peaks were were seeing. We could even see to Slide Mountain up there, as well as Peekamoose and others.
Abandoned
This was a surprise to see at all because there was media put out there that the place was entirely being demolished, and we’d thought there was nothing left of it at all. That was certainly not the case. Everything was there. Maybe they want people to think it’s gone to keep people from going in and exploring it. Then again, the lack of any signage saying to stay out was quite strange as well. Anyway, we had a look around for a while, and then had to be on our way. We made our way down to the buildings we’d checked out the last time out.
Abandoned
From there, a side road leads out past the cemetery and to the former Newburgh Branch. We headed that way, then turned left on the railroad bed to the south.
After crossing Seely Brook (much further upstream from where we had first crossed it) on a tie bridge, we turned right on the Orange Heritage Trail route going west.
This took us soon to the former site of Greycourt Station, where there was a junction with the Lehigh and Hudson River Railway. This is another one I never got to finishing walking.
Abandoned
I figure the next time we come up to explore the buildings, maybe I’ll make that line a part of my plan. There are definitely a few hikes left to finish that line, two or three I suppose.
I started trying to get some then and now shots at the former site of the Greycourt Station just ahead but I couldn’t quite tell exactly where the station used to stand. I had several historic photos with different angles, but it was kind of hard to tell.
I fell behind the rest of the group, who all continued to walk ahead from here while I tried to set up more photos. I got a few good ones at least.
Yes
It wasn’t that far a distance from this location to Chester NY, which was my planned lunch stop, although we were arriving there a bit late. We had such a good time exploring other places and goofing off that ended up there later. I don’t think many really minded that much.
I got there behind everyone else. Our stop was to be the Rushing Duck Brewery, which we had stopped at the second to last time we hiked through Chester.
I figured they would have some sort of food truck or something, and the did!
abandoned
Some of the group was on line for the brewery, and some were on line at the food truck. I got on line at the food truck while the others were trying to secure us an outdoor table behind the place.
I ordered something called “Messy Quasadillas”, which was basically was a quasadilla but loaded up with tons of crap on top of it.
After ordering that, we were able to go and sit as soon as we had a table. I went to the bar first to see what kind of drinks they might have that I’d be interested in. Serious Sean got a flight of them.
Greycourt Station site
I forget what the one of them I got was, but it was something to do with a duck, and it was a pretty good IPA. I also got a Ten Days Till Dark Imperial Milk Stout for when we left.
The food was great, and we were able to get everyone out there in only two tables. It ended up being a really nice stop.
From here, we headed back out and onto the trail adjacent to the 1915 Erie depot which replaced the original structure.
It’s really a nice station with a long awning, and sort of a community focal point.
An old Jersey City mile marker
We entered a cut beyond here and I set up yet another then and now shot. The right of way went out into the “black dirt” region beyond where all of the sod farms and such are.
We passed a couple whistle markers and an old Jercy City mile marker. The line has only been abandoned since 1983, so there is some stuff still around.
The first time I walked this section we stopped at the old Chester Road crossing at grade and used one of the lots over there. This time, we continued beyond that.
The Ten Days Till Dark brew was absolutely amazing, and one of the best new beers I’ve tried in a long time. It totally exceeded my expectations and I’ll get it again if we go back.
Heading to Goshen
The trail came very close to Routes 17 and 6, but it never seemed like it was as terribly close as the map and aerial images make it look.
Nearing Goshen
The right of way turned to the north a bit, and we eventually crossed South Street. Beyond that Good Time Park was on our left. We cut into it briefly into the grass and Serious Sean climbed up a small tree.
Next, we crossed Green Street followed soon by James Place where the Long Path blazes turned right to leave the railroad bed. We continued across, and the Trailside Treats Creamery was on the right.
We took one final break and went over to get some icre cream, which was a great idea. I remember someone saying that the ladies selling the ice cream seemed just a little too happy, but I don’t remember that being the case.
Goshen Station in the 1970s
From here, the rail trail kind of just stopped, and the rail bed was parking lot through town. It was still an obvious route, and still apparently considered part of the Orange Heritage Trail.
Goshen Station
We followed it across Bruen Place and then across Greenwich Street, and it seemed that part of Grand Ave was built on the right of way between some houses and such.
Goshen Station
We pushed on and soon reached the old railroad station on the right. It is apparently now the police station. It was in a large parking area, and it was getting dark, but I did my best to try to set up a couple of then and now shots of it.
Goshen Station
We pushed on past the station, and the large parking lot became Railroad Ave, but the rail right of way went into an apartment complex. The trails were probably mostly where the building is now, but we went to the left and walked a sidewalk round the south side of the buildings.
Once on the other side, we went through a gate in a chain link fence, then cut across a bit of lawn to pick up what appeared to be the railroad bed again.
Development walking where the railroad used to be
We followed the route down to West Main Street, and obvious trail turned off to the right. We crossed the road and entered St. John’s Cemetery, which was a good route south to the strip mall areas across from where we had parked. We climbed down from the cemetery on a caged rock wall to the back of the Orange County Social Services building, then cut to the left through other lots to come out near the under construction CVS building, across from the Burger King and the commuter lot we were parked.
This was a pretty fantastic hike with a lot of stuff to see. I never got bored with any of it.
We were left with yet another area we’ve not begun to grow tired up, but still so many places yet to see.
We will never get to it all, but I just keep reminding myself that we’ll get to a lot.
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