Iron Mines Loop #3, Harriman State Park

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
12/19/2015	7+ miles	3 hours 20 minute	1,587'	2.3 mph	778.5

Trail Map
Parking: Tiorati Circle

Directions: Iron Mines Loop #3

Notes:
No hunting Harriman hike. Our first day of very cold weather. We decided it was too cold in the Catskills (temps in the teens and 45 mph winds on the summits) for us, so we chose a short local hike. Temps were not too bad, but the wind was bitter when we were in areas not protected by trees. Only a few small patches of ice today and the occasional snow flake falling. My GPS was taking forever to get a signal, so we decided to just start hiking - I didn't want to just stand around and get cold. I have to start turning it on & waiting for a signal BEFORE I get out of the car. So mileage for us was a little more than 7 miles - oh and we didn't quite do the route as described.

Nice hike, but we missed a turn. We had just hiked on the Bottlecap Trail a few weeks ago, so we knew to look for the bottlecap "blazes". Glen was way ahead of me, and I noticed a ribbon on a tree, and what I think was a bottlecap on a tree quite a ways from the trail - in an area with a lot of blowdown. I thought the ribbon might be marking a tree that needed removing. Hmm. So, we missed the Bottlecap trail, and realized we had gone too far when we ended up at Times Square. We ended up just making a slightly longer loop by turning right onto the Long Path & eventually catching up to where we wanted to be. We went through the lemon squeezer - always fun. And we were able to do the rock scramble just past it. Trek made it to the top before we got there - we didn't seem how he did it, but I presume he took the easy way! I can't imagine he could do the rock scramble by himself. We almost missed another turn - we were hiking along the combined Surebridge Mine Road & the AT. We knew we had to stay straight where the AT splits off to the right. We saw a dog ahead and some trail maintainers (one of whom was climbing up a tree) which distracted us. We ended up continuing on the AT not realizing we had left the road. When we reached the volunteers & looked confused - they tried pointing us to the AT. One of them pointed us back the way we came when we said we were looking for Surebridge Mine Road. Oops! 

We modified the end just a bit (on purpose this time - not because we missed a turn!). After walking a bit down Arden Valley Road, we popped over to the right to take the Lake Tiorati Trail back to the parking lot (seemed like a nicer alternative than just doing a road walk).  

Lemon Squeezer

Rock scramble after the lemon squeezer

Greenwood mine

Swamp