Trail News: August 2007
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A new three-mile trail connects the Warner Creek Trail/Long Path directly to the Devil’s Path on Plateau Mountain. For Long Path hikers, this extension over Daley Ridge eliminates a five-mile detour that included a road walk along Rt. 214. It also creates a 23-mile section of Long Path from Phoenicia to Platte Clove without a road crossing.
The new extension picks up in Silver Hollow Notch and heads north, steeply zig-zagging up to the relatively flat top of Daley Ridge. From the tranquil evergreen summit of Daley Ridge the trail drops down into a narrow col from which it ascends the south slope of Plateau Mountain through the “Dark Woods,” a very dense fir and spruce section of forest. It soon joins the existing Devil’s Path.
A day loop is possible by parking a car at the end of Notch Inn Road. Hike up the old eroded road to the Long Path-Warner Creek trail crossing in Silver Hollow Notch (about 0.75 mile). Take the blue marked trail left (north) to the Devil’s Path and Plateau Mountain. Turn left (west) on the Devil’s Path to Route 214 and the Devil’s Tombstone state campground. Walk south on 214 to Notch Inn Road and back to your car. There is a daily parking fee at the campground during the summer months when it is open. If more then one car is available for a short shuttle, the total walk may be just under six miles; the full loop is about eight miles.
Owing to work on the Millennium Pipeline in Bear Mountain-Harriman State Parks, a 200-yard length of the Blue Disc Trail has been temporarily rerouted a short distance to the west of the right-of-way. The reroute begins a few hundred yards uphill from the Johnsontown Road trailhead, across from the pipeline distribution station, where the trail is identified with a laminated sign posted on a tree. Blue flagging tape leads from there, roughly parallel to the pipeline, to reconnect to the current Blue Disc Trail at the top of the hill, where there is another sign posted for hikers arriving from the north. Hikers are requested to use the temporary reroute and avoid the pipeline. Also note the possibility that the reroute will be extended from the pipeline station south to Johnsontown Road between the stream and the current trailhead location to avoid the short road walk that now experiences some traffic. Other trails are affected by the pipeline and are posted on the web.
Pete Senterman, Catskills trails chair, reports that blow-down from the April 15 ice storm in the Catskills has been cleared and all trails are now passable.
Dave Webber, Shawangunks trails supervisor, reports that a new 0.6-mile white-blazed trail at Minnewaska State Park Preserve connects the Peters Kill parking area to the High Peters Kill Trail near Dickie Barre. The trailhead for what has been named the Bull Wheel Trail is about 0.1 mile from the parking area along the Peters Kill Loop trail. The Bull Wheel Trail appears on the Shawangunk Trails map #105 as an unmaintained path.
The Stillman Trail Bridge in Storm King State Park, is now complete and passable, having been rebuilt by the West Hudson North crew.
In order to reduce hiker confusion, mishaps around the Ramapo Torne, and inadvertent walking into homes in Sloatsburg, the Hillburn-Torne-Sebego Trail (HTS) (orange blazes) has been extended to be co-aligned with and to overmark the unofficial “old red” trail, which had been marked red or red with a white border. The HTS extension, length 0.8 miles, now extends west from the top of the Ramapo Torne, descends steeply down the western slope, and then turns north on a woods road. It then continues north on the woods road, without any elevation gain, until it ends at the 7 Hills Trail, where the latter comes down off Ramapo Torne and turns sharply north on its way back to the Pine Meadow Trail and the Reeves Meadow Visitors Center.
V3 Last updated: August 1, 2007 Copyright © 1996-2008 New York-New Jersey Trail Conference Privacy Statement.