Onteora Lake, Catskills

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
12/3/2016	7.1

Map: NYNJTC Catskill Map 146
Parking: Sign off of Route 28 shows parking area. There is one parking area immediately off of the side road. However, pass through gate and drive to the lower parking area.
Directions: This hike is a series of 3 loop trails - yellow, red, and blue. From the parking area, start out on the yellow trail. Where trail splits, stay left on the yellow trail. Turn left on the red trail. Where trail splits, stay right on the red trail. Turn right on the blue trail. Where trail splits, stay right on the blue trail. Where trail splits, stay right on the blue trail. Turn right on the red trail. Wehre trail splits, stay right on the red trail. Turn left on the yellow trail. Where trail splits, turn left on the yellow trail, to the parking area.

It's still rifle season in the Catskills, but we decided to try our luck. I've read that there have been 4 hunting fatalities in the Catskills this season. Yikes! There were so many cars in the two parking lots, I figured we didn't need to worry about hunters in the area. We still wore our orange hats and Trek wore his orange vest, but we didn't go full out yellow/orange, like we sometimes do. This is an easy hike, with many distances/variations possible. It appears that most people come and do just the yellow loop. We came across so many people out for a stroll. We helped one couple who had no maps, and didn't know if they were going the right way. There are many loops and if you don't have a map, it could get confusing. Once we got off of the red trail, all of a sudden there were no more people. We saw no one on the red and blue trails at all. I checked out a couple of camping spots on the red trail - I figure if we ever want to bring Moxie along for a backpack, this might be a good place to do it (easier hiking, don't have to do long distances, and best of all - 2 ponds). We did hear gunshots while we were further out on the red and blue trails, so we were glad we were orange'd up. We kept Trek on leash for the whole hike - partially due to the number of people on the yellow trail, and partially due to the gunshots. We did stop at one of the lakes on the way back, and let Trek have a short swim. He wanted to swim really badly, but he didn't last long - after all its December.

Picnic area near the parking lot

Trails were clean except for this dumping area off the blue trail. I'm guessing someone used to live here, and used the area to dump their trash. We thought about trying to pack some out but it was big/heavy trash.