Hike #454 11/22/9
11/22/9 Sterling Forest Loop with Jillane Becker, Kyle Zalinsky, Shelly Janes, Chris Kroschinski, Amanda Rosenblatt, Jason-Michael "Jamal" Flintosh, Carol Creamer, "DJ Ray" Cordts, Dave "Captain Soup" Campbell, "Major Tom" Conroy, and Vinnie Quinn.
Jillane and I in Sterling Fire Tower
This was a special day, about a year to the week since Jillane and I first formally met. To celebrate this occasion I felt it appropriate to do the next section northbound in Sterling Forest NY. For fun and due to hunters we all dressed in bright orange. It is absolutely amazing how much my life had changed in the year preceding this hike. This was a particularly happy trip with a lot going on.
Along Highlands Trail on Sterling Ridge
On this date I decided to put together a hike utilizing the next section of the Highlands Trail I'd had to do in Sterling FOrest, NY, but it ended up bing so much more. It was also the anniversery of when Jillane and I met. We met at a parking area on Rt 17A just to the east of the town of Greenwood Lake NY at a parking lot in a large gated area. Joining me for this loop were Jillane Becker, Shelly Janes, Kyle Zalinsky, "DJ Ray" Cordts, Chris Kroschinski, Carol Creamer, Amanda Rosenblatt, Jason-Michael "Jamal" Flintosh, Dave "Captain Soup" Campbell, and "Major Tom" Conroy. We all pretty much wore orange because of the issues with hunters, but I did it a funnier way wearing a "Department of Corrections" shirt and pants Jason Itell had given me a while back. There were a few hunters in the parking lot when we arrived (0!-0a). The trail was nice from the beginning heading across rocky outcroppings with some limited views (0a-0cd). Some of the views were saw were of Sterling Forest Lake (1). We continued on to a nice viewpoint where we took our first real break (1aa-9cc). We continued on to where we'd left off a year prior at the Sterling Fire Tower. We of course had to go up the tower and take another good break (10-19e). The trail log we'd signed the year before was missing this year, sadly. After our break, we headed to the east on the Fire Tower Trail, an old woods road (19eaaa-20abac). At the first first fork we turned left and headed to Sterling Lake area. The trail took us out by a weird looking house that appeared to be vacant. Some of the group even went into the basement (20abad-20baad). There were a couple of cages sitting out front, and DJ Ray and Carol got in them (20e-20f). We turned right on Sterling Lake Road and passed a weird building and paralleled the side of the lake (20faa-20ge). Soon, we came across the site of some mines, most noteably the Lakes Mine. Chris, being the mine expert he is, was very interested (20h-24aaa). We continued up the road and came to a lot more old ruins of the mining works. A trail went around the ruins, yellow blazed with pick and hammer on them. While we were talking about it, a guy came walking by. His name was Vinnie (last name I think is Quinn and he asked us if we were looking for mines. When we said "yes", he told us he could tell us about some really cool mines. We talked for a bit, and he finally said "Well actually I can take you there!". So, we first walked around exploring the buildings (25-36da). Chris and I went over to check out the nearby old Sterling Furnace (I later found out there were two, this was only the first one). It had columns put around it, apparently to keep it intact (37-39aaa). We took a break for everyone to regroup (39aab) and Vinnie led us up the hill at first along the trail, then off trail. We saw a mine along the way that had a gate blocking the entrance (39b-40). We continued bushwhacking up hill to another great off trail mine with a rock bridge above it. We went inside and Vinnie led us out another exit (41-46a). We followed vinnie up hill a bit more and over a small knoll to another mine obscured from farther back. The inside had a column holding up part of the ceiling.
In some of the Sterling Mines
Sterling Lake mines
Sterling mines
There was also so old rails inside (46b-56c). We followed Vinnie out of this mine and then up and down back into the previous mine we'd been in (56d-63d) and then we made our way back down hill to the trail (63e-65c). We followed the trail back down hill and to where the Sterling Mountain Railroad used to turn to the south and took a break (65d-66). We headed south sort of paralleling the old railroad bed, passed some ruins (67), and then skirted the edge of a pond to the east (67a-67d).Soon, there was an opening to the left of the road and we were able to get over onto the former rail bed (68). The rail bed skirted a beautiful wetland with a beaver lodge (69-69c) as it took us south. Major Tom thought it would be easier to walk the parallel road. As we walked the rail bed got further from the road and was separated by a tributary so Tom had to cross and then fight his way back down. He was none too happy. The rail bed along the meadow was joined by the McKeages Meadow Trail and so it became wide and maintained (70) Soon, we had to turn right off of the rail bed onto another portion of McKeage's Meadow Trail heading up hill with glacial erratics and such (71-72aac). Somehow, the trail was'nt taking us where we wanted to go. The map seemed to be innacurate and we were just having a hard time, so we opted to go off trail following the google images on my Blackberry. Not far off the trail, we found a woods road and another couple abandoned mines, but ones we could'nt get in because they were filled with water (73-74aae). We bushwhacked down hill from here (74aaf-75aag). We had to skirt the edges of long wetlands through the area. We then went up hill a bit. It was easy to read the map because the section we were in was on the cover of the NYNJTC Sterling Forest map. I held it and referred to my Blackberry and we walked up hill and onto the nearest road which was Long Meadow Road (76-76e). We crossed the road and got on what I guess was the Sterling Lake Trail. It crossed the road near where we came out and we somehow just barely missed it. The trail took us up hill and we went right at a fork. We soon passed by some huge containers that sat below what appeared to be some sort of developement. They opened easily enough so we had a look inside. There was also a manhole Chris and I managed to open and we saw mine crickets inside (77-77aa). We continued along the trail and we soon joined an old mine railway right of way briefly (79). At the next trail junction, we turned right on the Pine Meadow Connector Trail on to the main Pine Meadow Trail (79a-80e). We turned right on Pine Meadow and met an hispanic hunter. In NJ, at least where I was from, this was a rarity. I picked his brain about the hunting up there, and he told us the deer were more skiddish up there and that it was much different hunting there than in NJ. Very nice guy he was, but he said we were too loud! We continued north on Pine Meadow Trail, mostly on an old woods road and soon reached Sterling Valley Trail. We took this straight ahead and soon turned left as it began a gradual ascent toward Sterling Ridge (80eaa-81). The trail took us up hill, and it was getting rather dark, but we made it safely back to the cars (82-82d). We all went out to dinner the place we went the year before for Jillane's first hike, on Greenwood Lake Turnpike (82fa).
No comments:
Post a Comment