Appalachian Trail
To Prospect Rock
Distance: 6.35 miles
Duration: 3:41:56
Elevation Min: 555ft
Elevation Max: 1383ft
Elevation Gain: 735ft
Maps: New York-New Jersey Trail Conference #116
Parking Instructions: Driving towards NY, it's directly across the street from the Greenwood Lake Marina. The signs say permit parking only, but if you drive to the very back of the lot it becomes State Park territory and is free for parking.
First things first, thank goodness there was a porta-potty at the parking area.
Now after that, the trail starts right behind the kiosk warning of bears and ticks. It follows a nice stream on the blue state line trail while ascending Bearfort Mountain. At parts the trail was slightly flooded resulting in slightly wet socks, but that's due to heavy rainfall all last week. After a little over half a mile and a lot of climbing, the yellow Ernest Walter trail begins. From there we were treated with gorgeous views of Greenwood Lake and the surrounding highlands.
The trail head of the yellow Ernest Walter trail.
Some views from the yellow trail.
After having to pry ourselves away from this gorgeous view and the most incredible breeze we descended just a little bit back into the forest and followed the trail to Surprise Lake, and then continued to stay right on the yellow trail (it veers left onto the orange trail).
About 10 feet off the trail is this nice view of Surprise Lake.
Back on the yellow trail we ascend again through a beautiful cover of some tree/bush that I can't remember the name of for the life of me, but it has long, banana-length leaves and flowers in the spring and its gorgeous even when flower-less. That continues to another vista, not as grandiose as the previous but still a nice place to see the terrain of the horizon and catch your breath.
Very faintly in the distance we could see NYC from this vista.
Shortly after that there's a brief descent to a split in the trail. The yellow trail continues left while a short side trail brings you to a gorgeous overlook of West Pond (prime picnic location).
At the West Pond overlook where we were greeted with the most incredible breeze.
Does anybody know what these markers were for? There were a few along the trail and I'm very curious.
After returning on the yellow trail, we followed it to another split. Left brings you to the highest peak of Bearfort Mountain (1437ft) on an unmarked trail (we didn't go, but it's labeled on the map), and turning right continues on the last leg of the yellow trail until it finally meets up with the AT where we turned right. And followed until the NJ/NY state line.
This was along the AT. Scared the life out of me, but thankfully at that point it can't do any physical harm!
It's always fun hiking into a new state.
At this point we began to encounter quite a few thru-hikers and backpackers who were all incredibly friendly as always (one guy even asked me if I was thru-hiking, what a compliment!). We followed the AT to Prospect Rock, where we sat down to have lunch.
The AT continues after Prospect Rock to Bellvale Mountain in Orange County, NY.
After lunch we turned around and took the blue State Line trail back down to the parking lot where we made use of that porta-potty yet again and called it a day.
WHAT A GREAT HIKE! We picked a gorgeous day (high of 84, near constant breeze), we didn't see a single soul in Abraham Hewitt State Forest, and the ones we did see on the AT were incredible kind and friendly. There was a quick climb at the beginning that was rough, but then for the rest of the hike we never moved more than 100 feet which was very nice on our bodies. Also, it was just a gorgeous set of trails.
Hike Summary:
- Blue trail from parking lot
- Left onto yellow trail (entire trail)
- Right onto AT
- AT to Prospect Rock
- Retrace on AT until right onto blue trail (entire trail)
- Blue trail to parking lot
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