Harriman and Beyond: Diamond Mountain / Halfway Mountain

Harriman State Park,
Rockland County,
New York

Estimated Length: 4 Miles
Estimated Time: 2:30 Hours

Hiking Partner:
Shimmy Rosenberg

Started at the Reeves Meadow Visitor Center on 7 Lakes Drive near Sloatsburg. Started at the Pine Meadow Trail and headed east till the Stony Brook Trail to the Kakiat Trail. Headed east on the Kakiat Trail until the Seven Hills Trail. Headed north on the Seven Hills up the screen scramble, and up to the great view on the top. Continued to the intersection of the Hillburn Torne Sebage (HTS) Trail, and headed down the HTS back toward the Pine Meadow Brook valley. From there took the Pine Meadow Trail back to the trailhead.

We started on the trailhead on Eagle Valley Road by the Power Lines. Headed up the trail where it splits at the loop. We found an old iron mine pit (don't know the name of this mine) which was fenced off all around. We made a right heading north on the trail. We kept on having to skirt around large puddles covering the trails by going thru the woods around them. Towards the end, we really got stuck where the trail crosses the southern end of the brook. It was totally swamped out and impassible. And all around was a swamp and there was no way around either. I don't know there isn't a bridge or a boardwalk here crossing the brook. We had to turn around and go thru the woods, and use GPS and our sense of direction to get back. We walked thru into the woods until we hit a residential street off af Sterling Mine Road, and then we walked from there back to Eagle Valley Road and then back to the car.

My camera had broken so we couldn't get good photos from this hike. I had to use my cell phone camera and Shimmy's cell phone camera. The weather was also very poor being very humid with an overcast and rainy sky, thus the photo quality is very poor.