Hike #1064; Harriman State Park/Lake Skannatati South Loop

 Hike #1064; Harriman State Park/Lake Skannatati South Loop

8/10/17 Harriman State Park/Lake Skannatati South Loop with Rob Gearhardt, Amy Davis, Edward DiSalvo, Brad Anesi, Julia Vogelsang, James Quinn, Marcus ?, and Annika Krystyna.

Our next hike would be another big loop in Harriman State Park, primarily planned because I wanted to finish the only missing section of the Long Path I had not done there.
Of course, all of the hikes are connected one way or another, but I had skipped sections of the Long Path and connected in different ways. Filling in this gap would mean I’d done all of it from the southern terminus to the top of Schunemunk Mountain NY.

Lake Skanattati

We met at Lake Skannatati like we had done on the previous one, only instead of looping to the north, this time we would go south and focus on completing the section of the Long Path I was missing before doing anything else. We could then adjust the route accordingly based on time and mood of the group.
We started off following the Long Path to the south, past Lake Skanattati, then Lake Askoti, which means “This side” in Algonquin Language (Skanatatti means “the other side”). Lake Askoti was built in 1935, and Skanattati in 1938.
We followed the trail to the south across Seven Lakes Drive, along Askoti, then climbed a bit and crossed a utility line clearing. We then skirted Rock House Mountain, and I’m kicking myself now for not exploring the Rock House, which is a cave off to the left of the trail while going south. I’ll have to go back and see it another time. We crossed Gate Hill Road, then ascended a little bit more to the intersection with the Beech Trail. This was where we joined the Long Path on our return route of the loop the last time we were in the area. From here, this was all new to me.
We went up hill a bit more, and soon the trail joined onto an old farm road, now just part of the woods. I noted that there were some foundations or maybe a cellar hole to the left.

Old Conklin Farm Road

This area was a community known as Sandyfield. Charles Conklin, who’s family lands we had passed through on the previous hike, lived here until September of 1938.
We soon emerged at Lake Welch Drive near the intersection with St. Johns Road. James was trying to meet us in this area, and I directed him to the St. John’s in the Wilderness Church, which we were going to visit as part of a side trip. The Long Path went into the woods again to the right of the intersection and continued down hill slightly. To the left we reached the unmarked side trail that goes to the church, and turned here.

St. John's In the Wilderness Church

The trail came out to the road just a short distance from the old church, and James parked just to the right at a good pull off. We walked to the left to reach the church.
The story of the church is that of tragedy and remembrance. It started with a young well-to-do couple, John and Margaret Zimmerman, who’s very short marriage ended when John died, having choked to death on their honeymoon in Palestine.
Mrs. Zimmerman sought to erect the church in memory of her lost husband, and orchestrated it’s construction using native stone, built in a north of England style. The property was purchased from John Conklin in the Sandyfield area, and it was dedicated in November of 1880.
There was an occupied house across from the church, a guy I figure must be the caretaker, and Brad talked to him a bit. I probably would have if I hadn’t already gotten ahead. I headed back to the Long Path, and Brad cut through the guy’s back yard to catch back up with us all.

Old sign just off the Long Path

We reached a woods road on the Long Path and missed a turn briefly, but I went back and found it. We crossed Beaver Pond Brook, and then cut through more woods to a site of a plane crash that occurred in 1974.

Crash site

It was Flight 6231, which was enroute to Buffalo NY to pickup the Baltimore Colts football team. Three crewmen died in the crash. Atmospheric icing was said to be the cause, and the crash resulted in changes to cockpit design as well as in training still implemented today.
There was all sorts of crap strewn about the wreck site. Brad found the first piece right in the trail, and as we went around the next corner, there was a big heap of stuff as well as a nice memorial sign. We continued from here along the trail through woods heading to the east and south.

Crash site

We soon began to climb a bit more steeply, and when we reached the crest of the rise we found ourselves at Big Hill Shelter. I had been to this point before with Justin I think it was, on one of the last hikes I’d done on the Long Path in Harriman State Park.
Big Hill Shelter is one of the very old, historic shelters. It was built in October, 1927. When we got to it, we took a nice break. When it was built, there was probably a view from this point, but there’s not much of anything today.

Big Hill Shelter

After the rest at the shelter, we continued heading west southwest along the Suffern-Bear Mountain Trail, having completed the Long Path in Harriman. We followed this until it turned off to the left, and it’s yellow blazes went left, while white blazed Breakneck Mountain Trail continued straight ahead. We continued here.
This trail opened the same year as the Big Hill Shelter, and was established to connect the Suffern-Bear Mountain Trail with the Tuxedo-Mt. Ivy Trail. Breakneck Mountain was also known as Knapp Mountain.

Breakneck Mountain Trail

Breakneck Mountain Trail really didn’t live up to it’s name much. It was actually a pretty easy route atop the mountain above Breakneck Pond. Most of it was flat rocks that were pretty easy to walk on, with interestingly scattered glacial erratics along the way.

West Pointing Rock

The coolest rock on the mountain was West Facing Rock, an erratic that sort of points like an arrow near the western terminus of the trail. When we reached that point, we went straight on Tuxedo-Mt. Ivy Trail only briefly, then turned left on a woods road.

Conklin Road

We reached an intersection of another woods road just a bit further down, which I believe is the old Conklin Road. We turned right and began following this to the west. The road had a whole lot of forks to it that were not shown on my map, but we did what looked like was the right one and it worked out just fine. We passed by some lovely swamps and wetlands, and then eventually emerged along the south side of Lake Wanoksink.
It turns out that Lake Wanoksink was one of three planned lakes that were intended to work together, with a complete sewer system to serve multiple planned camps in the area that were never built. The state cold not afford to fund the camps, and so Civilian Conservation Corps were pulled out before completion, and only Lake Wanoskink was finished. The first one, which was where we saw woods roads heading out, was to be Lake Minsi. It partially filled up with the drain was filled in, but the dam was removed in 1984. CCC continued service in some camp areas until 1942, but not here.

Lake Wanoksink

Lake Wanoksink was the only one of three lakes planned to be completed on the Christie Brook, which was named for a local family who had a sawmill on the head waters of the brook in 1850. Wanoksink means “place of sassafras” in the Mohegan language.
Lake Oonatookwa was down stream from Lake Wanoksink, and also never completed. The dam was started, then never used. The name means “place of cattails”, which is probably all there is now.
We stopped at a great little access point for a swim in Lake Wanoksink, which was great.

Brad found an old 7 UP bottle

After a good break, we continued along the woods road on the south side of the lake. The original Conklin Road (Which was actually called Woodtown Road and changed to Conklin by William Hoeferlin in the forties I believe) continued through where the lake is now and picks up on the other side along the brook.
The woods road we ended up on took us to the red dot blazed Pine Meadow Trail along the shore of Pine Meadow Lake. Once there, we turned left to follow the shore south for a bit, and soon reached some stone ruins.

Pump house ruin

The stone ruin was reportedly that of a pump house constructed in 1936. Many reportedly mistake this for the Conklin family cabin, but that would have been just to the east of this location, and there is reportedly little or nothing left of it, and it’s been gone since 1942.
The Conklin family had lived at Pine Meadow at the cabin since colonial days, and they farmed the land in what was the meadow. By the time the State of New York took the land over, it was Ramsey Conklin and his family who were living there.

Ramsey Conklin’s sons went to work for the CCC to work on construction of the area lakes and roads, and persuaded the CCC to leave one of their family cemeteries alone.
One such cemetery, which reportedly held the graves of Ramsey Conklin’s parents and sixteen others, was reportedly to be covered over by the lake. As the lake was being completed in 1934, then park Superintendent John Tamsen had a pyramid of earth covered in rip rap constructed on top of the grave sites, then planted mountain laurel, so that it would protrude from the water to mark the site even after the lake filled.

Ramsey Conklin is seated in front of his cabin; his sons, Theodore and Nick, stand with him. The building, at the head waters of Pine Meadow Brook, was believed to be over 100 years old when John B. McCabe of Thiells took this picture in 1933. Conklin and his family were evicted by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission in 1935 to complete the construction of Pine Meadow Lake. The cabin, left on the shore, has been ruined but a chimney is still standing.

I’d never heard of the story before, and Brad started telling me about some of it when we got over by it to take a swim. I think he said something about it being exhumed, but I read into it further, and they were not. Apparently there are still graves under the rock pile.

Aerial image showing Conklin cemetery site

The rocks were pretty obvious, and it wasn’t really all that far out, so Amy, Marcus, and I swam out to it. When I climbed onto the pile of rocks, I found one memorial marker, which I picked up and held over my head for a photo from the shore.

On the Conklin mound in Pine Meadow Lake

The Conklins never moved further than Haverstraw some fourteen miles to the south. Ramsey Conklin had no deed to the land and was evicted, and went to live in abandoned school near Ladentown. He later built a shack to live in on Limekiln Mountain.

1935 article on Ramsey Conklin's discharge from Harriman

When we were done with our break, we got back on Pine Meadow Trail and started heading back the way we came. We went past the pump house ruin, and then continued along following some of the water line installed by the CCC.

Pine Meadow Lake

We continued to the woods road on the west side of the lake, from which point a lot of routes all come together. We headed down hill to cross the Christie Brook, and got on the yellow blazed Diamond Mountain-Tower Trail and began to head up.
Along the way, we passed by the 1930s remnant of the major sewage system that was installed to work on the three aforementioned lakes. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but reading into it, it’s quite amazing and ironic that we followed this route considering the history and the order in which we visited each site. Quite amazing.

Never used sewage tank

We climbed rather steeply, and soon got to the top of the rise where there was a good view to the west, and we could see Pine Meadow Lake pretty well.
Diamond Mountain-Tower Trail was actually a combined two trails that are now yellow blazed, going up and down the ridge. Diamond Mountain Trail used to go to the northwest, just to the top of the mountain to join the rest of the trail system and offer a view. Tower trail was built later, without permission by one of the trail club members as a shortcut between the fire tower that used to stand on the site and the trails to Pine Meadow Lake.

View from Diamond Mountain Tower site

The two trails were both blazed yellow and made into one for simplicity, and the fire tower was removed from the mountain about 1984. When we got to the top, Brad pointed out where the tower used to be anchored to the open rocks.

Lake sebago

We turned further down the Hillburn-Thorne Sebago Trail down Halfway Mountain to the yellow blazed Stoney Brook Trail and crossed, then turned right to join the Tuxedo-Mt. Ivy Trail. We followed that to the Sebago Dam, then followed it across to the other side of it on Seven Lakes Drive. We followed the trail through the woods on the west side of the lake to the road that goes to Camp Nawakwa.
When we got to the road, the others all went ahead except for Rob, Amy, and I, and we waited for James. James was behind because he got phone service and had to make a call or something. He caught up and we were on our way.

Face rock

As we walked the road to the camp, a couple of cars went by, but no one said anything to us. I was getting text messages from Brad updating where we should turn, so we were good. James pointed out a cool face in the rock on the left side of the road as we continued.

Informal trail along Sebago

When we passed the last building on the road in the camp, there were people on the porch who assured us the rest of our group had passed by maybe twenty minutes prior. There was a faint trail leading down from the cabin to directly beside the shore of the lake. We followed it, then eventually cut away from it over a peninsula into the lake to the northwest. The trail descended to a very nice spot at the end of the peninsula, and the yellow triangle blazed Triangle Trail came in from the left and continued on the shore for a little bit.

Lake Sebago

At this point, James and I waited for a little bit, and Rob and Amy were still a bit behind. I heard Rob call out, and so I responded. They stayed along the shore of the lake rather than take the cut over along the peninsula on the clearer route, so I went back to try to help guide them with my voice, and fortunately they were able to make it back to the more cleared trail. We followed the short bit of the Triangle Trail along the shore, and then it turned away to the left. We continued straight ahead on the shore following an informal trail until we caught up with the rest of the group. I could see Julia’s pink hat in the water before everyone else. Of course, she was in the water at the first chance she got.

At Lake Sebago

Lake Sebago is named so meaning “big water” in the Algonquin language. There was once a large swamp in the area, which was filled in when the dam and lake were completed in 1926.

There was once a saw mill under what is now the lake, and SCUBA divers have reported that the ruins of the old mill can still be found under the water today.
The camp, “Nawakwa”, means “in the midst of wilderness”, and is home to the Adirondack Mountain Club’s camp opened about 1930.
We continued along the shore, which got grassy and nice, and there was an informal trail, but it seemed to break in two with a lower and upper route. Some of us, including me, were on the upper, and others were on the lower.

Picnic?

We eventually all ended up on the lower route, and the little path gave way to an old woods road. We continued along until a picnic area, pretty overgrown, came into sight to the right. Apparently there was a swimming beach to the north side of Lake Sebago, but it’s not open any more. Or at least I don’t think it is based on what I’ve seen. It was kind of like “what if everyone all of a sudden died” because it didn’t look like anyone had been around for a couple fo years. We kept walking, and to the right was an abandoned building, like maybe a shower house or something. I’m not exactly sure w hat.

Abandoned thingy

We didn’t go too far into the recreation site. Brad and Julia had lots of suggestions of more stuff we could do, and I wanted to do all of it, but we just wouldn’t have the time to be out of there by dark.
We kept going from the recreation site on a woods road that cut more inland a bit.
Soon, we cut into some other abandoned camp. There were a few abandoned buildings we walked out between, and then continued on the woods road beyond, with a couple of foundations and such. It turned out that this road we were following was the Old Johnsontown Road, which now leads to Haverstraw Mason’s Camp. Maps now show the old route as Masonic Camp Road. The abandoned part was something else, probably not associated with the Masonic group.

Old camp

We continued from here on this back road, and eventually we came out to where we could see some more buildings. Rather than go to them, we cut into the woods to the right. We wanted to try to avoid some of the buildings, but then it seemed unavoidable and we went by a house with a lady on the porch. She greeted us warmly, and told us we needed to go out the road and blah blah blah something to get to the road. Brad had something else in mind, so he just agreed and we continued on.
We ended up turning right on Aesculapius Road, and the lady could still see us from her porch. She hollered at us that we were going the wrong way, and I hollered back that we had someone who had gone this way before. She kept saying stuff that I could barely hear. I could see this becoming problematic so we had to move.

Old water system

We got to the end of the road, and turned to the right and cut past a few of the cabins, which were not occupied at this time. We headed down through woods to a stone causeway that carries a water line over a tributary to Little Long Pond.
This water system could be something of a very old scout camp, because the earliest ones in the area opened up in 1917. Little Long Pond is also known as Lower Kanawuake Lake, one of three lakes, which also include Middle and Lower Kanawuake. It’s named such from a Native American word meaning “place of much water”.

Little Long Pond

We continued to follow the old water system until it led us out to a little woods road. There were some apparent ruins there as we headed down hill on it. It’s not surprising, since a 1930 map showed at least seven scout camps at Little Long Pond by that time.
We passed a huge group of kids with a couple of adult leaders walking through the area apparently looking for a place to camp as we were heading out to Route 106. When we got to the bottom, we turned left, and soon crossed over the finger of water separating the Little Long Pond section with Upper Kanawauke Lake.

Old shelter at K-9 Camp Leeming

The woods road left the probable former camp and came out to Rt 106 where we turned to the left. We followed the road for a short while, then cut off to the right into a bit of a cut that might have once been a trail. The 17 camps in the area developed over thirty miles of what was called the White Bar Trail system. One of the trails in Harriman still bears this name, and is part of the original alignments.

This camp was on Lower Kanawauke Lake

It’s amazing that there were so many camps at one time, and today only a fraction of them still exist. We followed this old road up to where another camp used to be, reportedly K-9-Camp Leeming. Brad and Julia knew of a collapsed shelter off to the left that would have likely served the White Bar Trail, which we went and checked out. It was quite collapsed, but recognizably similar to a scout shelter on the Long Path to the north I’d seen.

Ruins of Camp Leeming

The old roadwal led out to more deteriorating former camp structures. There were some small buildings, and then footings for other buildings with barely any wood left. I spotted some old metal mattress bases, and stone lined walk ways that would have gone between separate buildings.
The foundations and the ruins got worse as we continued on. It made me think that some of the sections might have been abandoned in phases. We continued on after the last of the buildings, and continued along the shore of Middle Kanawauke Lake. Only the Upper of the three Kanawauke Lakes is a natural lake, the other two were dammed.

Old Camp Leeming ruins

There was really no trail to speak of for a while, just woods that didn’t have much undergrowth. We followed the shore of the lake all the way to the outflow from Lake Skanattati down to Kanawauke. The creek that connected these lakes was once known as the Stillwater Brook, but barely anything of that still exists because above Kanawauke it flows out of Skanattati, and above that Lake Askoti and Lake Tiorati, below them all Lake Sebago.
When we got to the top of the dam and the finger of Skanattati, there was a guy walking through we at first thought was a ranger, there to holler at us for “bushwhacking”.

Skanattati

It turned out the guy had a tent set up near the outflow himself and probably shouldn’t have been there either, which was a bit of a relief. We continued from here to the north, and soon crossed over the causeway at the west side of Lake Skanattati.
We then followed a trail to the north that was not on any map through the woods along the west shore of Lake Skanattati, and it didn’t take too long before we reached the Long Path again.
This would get us right back to the parking lot where we started. We followed it for a bit, then found a good spot off trail to the right that would be great to take one last dip.

Lake Skanattati

It was in a bit of a cove, with a nice view to the north, but it could not easily be seen from the parking area off of Seven Lakes Drive, which was perfect. We relaxed here for a bit before getting out and moving on.
The water seemed so much colder at this point because it was so much later in the day, but I needed the cool off pretty bad.
We were soon on our way the short distance back to the parking area to end the hike. The sun was just starting to set over the water, making our timing about as perfect as it gets.

Sunset over Skanattati

This hike was exceptionally good for me because it completed an important section of the Long Path, covered a whole lot I’ve never done and probably wouldn’t attempt without Brad and Julia, gave both challenging and relaxing sections, and had a great deal of history that inspired hours of reading and research on my part.
I knew when I first read about Harriman and bought the maps to the land years ago that the park would be like a whole new world, and could take a life time to explore. Now, I’ve hiked probably more than half of all of the trails within it, both official and unofficial, and it’s very satisfying to look at a map and have such a deep understanding for what I see.

The gift of Harriman

The more I cover in Harriman, the more I love it. I completely understand the value of the Harriman gift to the people. There’s still so much more to do; it may very well take more than a life time to explore it all, but I’ll try.
On October 29th, 1909, E. H. Harriman’s then nineteen year old son, Averell, right, donated the lands necessary to create Harriman and Bear Mountain State Parks (NY) along with a one million dollar check to fund it’s development. George Perkins, left, said "By this act you have conveyed a fortune and a domain."