Hike #721; Storm King Mountain to Helbing Farm

Hike #721; Storm King Mountain to Helbing Farm

8/25/13 Storm King Mountain to Helbing Farm with Scott "Tea Biscuit" Helbing, Amanda Lance, Michele Valerio, Brad Anesi, Larry Philips, Teal Prange, Chris "Cupcake" Kroschinski, Ariel, Mari Anne ?, Doug DeGroff, Steve Levy, Jennifer Berndt, Tom Vorrius, Gabe Franklin, Daniel Stone, Tim ??, Serious Sean Dougherty, Fernando ?, Julie Valasquez, Will ?, Jon Wilson, Melody Ashby, Geoff Keiser, Angela Castro, Sherry Masedman Smith,  Alicia ?, Mark R, Chandresh ?, Karen L, Bruce Duesterhoeft, Jaque Melo, Christopher Rodriguez, Diana D., Jen ?, Rita C, Laura C, Mahvash Saba.

The group along Sutherland Pond

This next hike was a point to point once again ending at the Helbing Farm, where my family had settled just outside of Woodbury New York, and where they operated a boarding house. My cousin, Dorothy Morris, still lives in the beautiful property along the Mineral Springs Brook on a portion of the original property, one of the few tracts of land remaining in private ownership sorrounded by West Point Military Academy land.

It had been too long since I'd visited Dorothy the first time I led a hike to this point, and I love having my group see some of the family history and experience some of the places visited and trails walked by generations of my family.

We met at Dorothy's house in the morning, and I went through the normal routine of trying to figure out car shuttles. It's never an easy task to get people together and off to the beginning point. This was such a large group and it can be quite frustrating. Somehow, we made it (and we had to drive way down the road to get to the right place due to a median).

Our starting point was the trail head for Bobcat Trail in Storm King State Park. This white blazed trail followed an easy route slightly up hill a bit to the Howell Trail. A few missed the turn and had to come back. Howell Trail headed more steeply up hill to an open meadow on the rocks with sparse tree cover. Dan opted to take a shortcut and meet up with us later along another part of the Howell Trail.

The Howell Trail was rather steep, and reached a lovely overlook across "The Clove", a valley with the Stillman Spring creek flowing through it. The trail led down hill to yet another several overlooks across the Hudson. The group was pretty much split in two the entire way down, with Brad taking the lead on the fast group, and me near the center circulating through. Our last overlook in this section was called Pitching Point, with views up the Hudson.

The trail descended slowly to Rt 218, where it ended. The Stillman Spring Trail breaks away from the road just up hill a little bit. An unmarked trail led us parallel with the road for a bit directly to the Stillman Spring Trail, and we followed this up hill. Two other guys were walking up this trail as we continued, and they wanted to know what group we were. It is always funny to me when they assume we're Appalachian Mountain Club or some other group, not some up and coming group like Metrotrails that is still making a name for itself.

The trail was long and steep, and partially followed an old woods road. I was concerned from early on because the group in the back were having such a hard time keeping up. In a lot of ways Storm King Mountain is just as and possibly more difficult than a lot of the peaks in the Catskills. Still, we made the long climb up to the top, and I hung back with a few people. Tim was having some trouble, but I saw him on the way  up. He was running low on water and I told him I'd give him some of mine when we got to the top. Unfortunately, it was hard to keep on track of people and we had to keep moving on. Someone told me they saw him with us, and I figured he was okay. Certainly, he wasn't all that far behind us, but we didn't realize for sure that he was missing until reaching Black Rock Forest.

We turned right on the Bypass Trail, which led to some view points where we all took a break. Gabe headed out on his own to check out more views to the east and came back. From here, we got on the Highlands Trail over the top of Storm King Mountain, and then down the west side over Butter Hill with more great views. We descended from here down to a driveway where the trail descended further to the road. We went underneath Rt 9W in a tunnel, when I realized Tim wasn't there. I unfortunately didn't have his phone number and couldn't call him. We had to continue on.

Because the group was taking so long with the up hill, I had to change the route of the hike to an equal distance but easier route. I chose to remain on the dirt road from here to the visitor's center. It wasn't bad, and in fact it offered a nice view at a bend in the road.

After a break at the visitor's center, we went through a covered foot bridge and followed a trail along a brook up stream back out to the road to Alec Meadow Reservoir. I believe from there we got on the White Oak Trail. This was a relatively easy trail that took us out and along the outlet dam of Arthur's Pond I think it was. After a break and doing some silly things we continued on along the trail which took us out to Sutherland Road. We walked along the shore of Sphagnum Pond, and then Sutherland Pond.

I had seen Sutherland Pond, but never swam in it before. It's weird to think that generations of my family had made the trip up there and swam in that same pond. We made our way on an unmarked trail along the western shore which led to the swimming spot. There were a couple of fishermen there, but they were on their way out and happily told us to go on ahead and swim.

This ended up being one of my favorite swimming spots of the Summer. It felt amazing. We spent a good amount of time here before finally moving on back to Sutherland Road. We followed it to another left onto the Highlands Trail, also the route of the Scenic Trail, and followed it over a knoll and began to the descent back to Mineral Springs Road.

On the way, we took a break at and climbed on Jupiter's Boulder, which offered us views toward the Catskills and Schunemunk Mountain. We did some practice climbing on the rocks, and Gabe showed us all up with his superior skills.

We descended further down, crossed Mineral Springs Brook, and soon reached the base of the Mineral Springs Falls, which wasn't flowing too heavily this time. Gabe, Alicia, and I climbed to the top of it. It was surprising that more people didn't want to go in.

From the falls, most of the group remained on the trail heading down to Old Mineral Springs Road, while Gabe, Brad, Alicia, and I continued bushwhacking and walking in the creek down stream. We reached an abandoned road, then turned right and followed it back up to Old Mineral Springs Road, and left out to Mineral Springs Road. We ended up getting back to Helbing Farm at almost exactly the time that I told everyone I expected to finish.

Dorothy made us an amazing dinner. Her cooking is really fantastic, and she's the most hospitable person I know. Everyone had a great time lounging around, eating, and chatting. I started making phone calls to figure out where Tim was. We had Woodbury Police show up, but just as they came, Tim showed up, actually not all that far behind us as we had thought he'd be. I suppose our swimming stop and other breaks allowed for some time for him to catch up!

Tea Biscuit and I opened the swimming pool up, and a couple of us took a dip. The pool is perfect, without harsh chemicals and just the right temperature.

This seemed like another one of those perfect perfect ways to end the Summer, but of course the Summer was far from over. In this group, we milk the warm weather for all we can get.