Hike #734; Sterling Forest Area Loop

Hike #734; Sterling Forest Area Loop

10/27/13 Tuxedo Park/Eagle Valley Sterling Forest Loop with Brad Anesi, Derek Baker, Brandan Jermyn, Lyz Hagenbuch, Ric Giantisco, Justin Gurbisz, Stephen Argentina, Steve Levy, Julia Vogalsang, Ed DiSalvo, Seth Gollhardt, and Vicky Tiburzi Bowman

The group along the Highlands Trail at the state line

This next hike would be something a little more complicated, a little more adventurous, but also give people options. I had been talking to Brad about doing a hike to his house for quite some time, looping from there and then returning. He didn't want to have a large group there, and he also wanted to do a hike where we moved along at a fast pace.

I didn't want to exclude any of the regulars who would want to join in, so I asked Michele Valerio if she'd be willing to co-lead a second version of the hike with less distance. She agreed, and Brad and I started making plans on what to do.

There were a few places on my previous hikes that I had been wanting to cover but we never got around to it, one of them being Bare Rock on the Sterling Ridge. I also wanted to do some of the other trails within Sterling Forest and explore some of the mines.

With only the basic idea of these couple of places I wanted to see, and knowing I wanted to tie it in with my previous hikes, it was completely up to Brad from here to plan out the route. He posted the hike, and we talked about who could probably handle it. I didn't know much of the route Brad had in mind, but I know the people who come out and what they can do. I put Brandan, Derek, and Steve on the list, and after meeting Ed recently on the Ramapos knew that he could do it, so we added him. Brad wanted to keep the number at around 15. We knew everyone else he'd put on the list could handle it. He planned a 25 mile route that we'd move along at a good pace on.

About 16 or so signed up for Michele's abbreviated version, and I think only 13 came on ours. We started much earlier, just at sun up, while the others started at normal 9 am. This was one of the last long days of the year, and we wanted to make use of that as best we could.

We started at Brad's house and headed along Table Rock Road to Sellierno Road, then turned left onto the abandoned Fairway Lane, which crossed the abandoned right of way of the Sterling Mountain Railroad, in a cut. We then cut across the golf course, which despite cold put us walking through the sprinklers. We got out the other side on Gate Road until we got to the parking area for the Red Back Loop Trail in Sterling Forest. We'd done some of this before, but Brad had some other stuff to show us.

We cut off trail almost immediately. What was really nice about this intrepid group, the elite of the group in terms of speed and stamina, was that we could just go through any craziness and no one fell behind. I love my regular groups, and I can usually just break off and they can do their own thing, but this time I didn't have to worry. It was nice to not have to be in the front determining which route we took, I could hang back and climb around and experience the place.

We came soon to the workings of the Moorhead Mine, at first just a trench through the woods. I'd tried to climb into this thing on one of the previous trips to the area, but it was full of water. This time, we made our way in through a hole, with a single wooden beam still in place, bracing the top. We carefully went around it and descended into the mine. It opened up at the top, then went further in. Justin and I got all the way to the back, and he stuck his head up into a hole, but there was no other way through. We turned back, exited the way we went in, then descended into yet another hole of the Moorhead Mine further down the trench.

This mine too went a ways back a slanted shaft, which we followed to the end. We checked out everything we could, not worrying about time that much, because we could certainly make it up.

We continued along the trail, with the rush from having done something cool already. The trail followed old mining roads for a while, and after passing some swamp land, Brad led us off trail yet again, beyond some tailings piles to a giant abandoned iron roaster! We of course had to get inside. The thing was badly rusted and looked ready to collapse in on itself. Touching the metal, some of it was paper thin and just flaked away.

Someone spotted a cable nearby, which we assume might have been some sort of a pulley system for a holder that would have carried ore to the roaster. We continued off trail a bit from here and passed some lovely old masonry walls that are now below the roadway that is now the Red Back Trail.

We then came to yet another old mine shaft, mostly collapsed. Ric tried to fit in. It had a pipe coming out of the ground nearby, which served the dual purpose of de-watering and ventilation. We continued on Red Back Trail, and then went off again when we got to a cool split rock that Brad wanted to show us. We shimmied through, then made our way past a natural rock overhang. We got back out to the trail and followed it to another off trail woods road, which took us down past a pond and over a wooden bridge, then past an abandoned house to reach Long Meadow Road.

We turned left on the road, and headed south for a bit, but then passed the Scott Mine Hoist, an abandoned tower on the right side, and Justin had to go see about climbing it. I continued on ahead, knowing we'd lost time in the mines, and didn't want to lose Brad who was continuing ahead. Additionally, this was far too visible from the roads, and we'd already once been scolded by Palisades Interstate Park Commission rangers in the past!

We did follow a trail for a brief time here, but then cut off to the right to follow yet another abandoned woods road up hill. This led us to the Paterson Mine, a long cut. The opening was full of water. We continued on, and a second opening looked somewhat promising. Justin and I tried to get in, walking along the edges, but it too was too full of water to merit much exploring.

The next one we reached was Mountain Mine. It too was full of water, but impressive looking with timbers still around the entrance. There was really nowhere to get in anything, so we continued ahead, along woods roads and tailings piles, and then around an area full of glacial erratics.

The next mine we came to on another forgotten woods road was the Long Mine. There was a small entrance that looked really promising. Lyz, Ric, and I went in, and I think Justin was right with me when we went in. He almost continued ahead when I summoned him. Lyz and Ric somehow ended up a little further down, but Justin and I used his light to descend from the narrow opening to a slightly lower depth. This slanted mine continued further below us, but there was water after a short distance.

We continued on through the mine, with some light from different entrances above. We then got to the part Brad knew about, the larger entrance, and he was already inside with Julia and Ed. Lyz came out into the big room from an upper level rock shelf. We could go right down to the water, and it didn't look like there was much more of the mine we could explore, but it was great.

We spent a good amount of time in this one, definitely my favorite one of the day. We continued from here, just following Brad off trail. We went down a rocky embankment to another little overhang, and eventually hit the Sterling Valley Trail. We followed this for a while to the right, then turned hard left heading to the Sterling Lake Loop. Stephen I believe went the wrong way, continuing straight on the one woods road, and so Lyz turned back to find him. We finally got him on the phone and he caught back up. We followed the trail to the lake, then turned right over the causeway crossing the north side, and then kept to the west side heading south.

When we got near the end of the trail section at the road, we turned right on the orange blazed Bare Rock Trail, which paralleled closely an old woods road, but kept off of it somewhat because of erosion issues. It took us up hill for a long time, briefly joined the Highlands and Sterling Ridge Trails, then descended into the west valley between two sections of the ridge. The West Valley Trail is supposed to be in here somewhere but I don't even remember seeing it. We continued up the next ridge and over to the spur trail to Bare Rock, where we met up with Michele's group. We arrived at this point almost on time as planned, for the two groups to join.

We took in the amazing view of Greenwood Lake from here. Michele had in her group Jen Berndt, Tamara, Dan Yu, Cory Salveson, Carol Van Giezen, Dan Stone, Terri Allen, Marcello, Herbig, Mark Norman, and and others including some newcomers too. We chatted for a while, and soon were on our way, all as one big group for a time on Bare Rock Trail.

We continued on this trail until we got to the next trail. The two groups got very well intermingled, and some of those who were in our group were behind some of the ones that were in Michele's group. We had to make sure we wouldn't get anyone confused! We passed a limited view to the east, where we could see the Sterling Fire Tower, and then descended to the the West Valley again. When we got to a woods road, I forget which trail it was, we parted ways with the other group. Stephen wasn't feeling so well, so he opted to continue on with Michele's group instead. The rest of us followed the woods road for a ways, then stopped at where we thought there was a junction with another trail. This trail had been abandoned, but only the blazes closest to either end of the trail were removed. The other white tags nailed to trees were still in place. We managed to find them, which seems like a miracle sometimes, and followed them up hill to the Highlands Trail, then turned right on it southbound.

We continued on the trail over the NY/NJ state line, with just a little peg in the tree to show us where it was, then began descending off of the ridge. There were some good views of the Wyanokie Mountains in the distance as we descended. We could see Monksville Reservoir at our last big descent. After a bit, we turned left onto the old woods road that leads over the hills toward the Patterson Mine. I had been here once before, the day I met Jillane, Nov 23 2008. This time, we found another Patterson Mine hole, but the same kind of water filled pit. It had one board bracing still in it's entrance, which was strong enough to hold both Justin and Brad at once! They're crazy.

We continued on the woods road to reach another, the route of the Hasenclever Iron Trail. We followed this through the woods out to the Peter's Mine area, and the old railroad spur. We accidentally got off of the trail and onto one of the abandoned structures, then had to climb down. One of them had a tunnel under it that I don't know what it went to. Some of the Ramapos live in this area, and we've heard they don't like anyone wandering around, and so we hurried through onto the abandoned Peters Mine Road, then continued on Hasenclever Iron Trail over the power lines. Someone had dumped a whole bunch of sticks in the middle of the trail going down the power line, which I had to head through. We followed the trail to it's end in Ringwood State Park, and then turned left to pass Ringwood Manor.

We walked in front of the manor and past the giant chain, then over through the parking lots. We were going to continue along Crossover Trail, which was technically closed. There was caution tape across the foot bridge over the creek toward Mill Pond Road. We jumped it and headed up to the road. Originally we were going to hike Crossover Trail to Shepherd Lake, but this sort of fell through because of time and lack of light. We opted to go left and follow the road north over the state line again. The next intersection, at Eagle Lake, had an abandoned section of Eagle Valley Road, which we followed parallel with the lake, now part of Eagle Valley Trail. We continued on the used part of the road and it led us to Scott Mine Road. We turned right here, and then we passed a playground I recognized from my previous Sterling trip. Just beyond that, the abandoned Fairway Lane that we'd hiked earlier started on the left. We followed this and then retraced our steps back to Brad's house. I powered on ahead of some of the group, actually feeling a little pain in my legs this time.

Stephen apparently left Michele's group to walk roads and to try to catch up with us, but Dan Yu was good enough to pick him up and drive him the rest of the way.

Julia had broken off much earlier to come back to Brad's to get the food ready. Somehow, she had lost her way and was wandering in the woods for hours! Looking very tired, she made her way through Brad's front door well after all of us had arrived! It's a good thing she made it out alright!

We had a very nice time eating all sorts of yum yums at Brad's and there was actually quite a bit left over. I don't know how, because as I recall we were all starving. There was also a giant "success" cookie with "25 Miles Yes" written on it.

It was a great feeling to have the hike done, and since Derek drove us, it was nice for a change to be able to relax, not have to be as awake for driving. I'm sure it was good for him too, having not hiked for several months and then coming into something difficult.

I felt like I'd had a real workout this time. Climbing over rocks, through mines, going up and down hill, moments of running. It was really great. I need to have workouts like this more often. I felt very healthy in the next few days, which of course went back to feeling slovenly and unhealthy after eating tons of breakfast sandwiches and chocolate over the next week. At least I have an idea of what the right thing to do is.