Agile Trekker: Three Reservoirs Loop, Harriman

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
11/23/2017	6.3 miles	2 hours 38 minutes	1,147'

Map: NYNJTC Harriman-Bear Mountain South

Parking: Route 75, Call Hollow Road, gravel area on side of road

Directions: Take the aqua blazed Long Path heading west (same side as the parking area). It climbs uphill. Stay on the Long Path until you reach Big Hill Shelter, which has a view of the NYC skyline. Here the Long Path heads to the right and the yellow blazed Suffern Bear Mountain Trail stays straight. Take the yellow blazed Suffern-Bear Mountain trail. At the intersection of the White blazed Breakneck Mountain trail and the yellow blazed Suffern Bear Mountain trail, stay on the Suffern Bear Mountain trail, which heads to the left (I found this intersection a little confusing). Pass Third Reservoir on your left. Watch for where the trail crosses a wide unmarked woods road - this is Woodtown Road. Turn left on Woodtown Road. The trail is easy here. You will reach Second Reservoir on your left. The trail will follow the edge of Second Reservoir. Take a right onto an unmarked woods road. Pass another unmarked trail on the right - I believe this one was less obvious. Pass First Reservoir. Pass a water treatment plant on your left. Arrive back at the parking area.

We chose a hike in Harriman for Thanksgiving day. I wanted to find somewhere in Harriman I hadn't hiked before, so I decided to go for a hike with an unmarked woods road. I came up with this loop. In the beginning of the hike we saw 2 people, but otherwise we saw no one! It's great to get out when the trails are quiet.

Partway through our hike, we saw a buck bounding in the woods in front of us. It stopped in the middle of the trail and froze. Trek saw it and came excitedly running back towards us, and stood by us. He's such a good boy not chasing deer. We walked slowly ahead, and the deer took off - Trek still being a good boy and leaving it alone.

We had to pay attention around the intersection of the Long Path and the S-BM trail - had to carefully check our map in one spot, and then at a later spot Glen missed a sharp right turn on the yellow trail, where straight ahead looked like the more obvious route. We took a break at the shelter to have a snack. I took out my map and compass, but didn't really find anything worth orienting my map to see. We saw the Hudson, which isn't on my map. We did get a pretty decent view of NYC.

Past the shelter, we followed the yellow trail on a ridge. Again, the intersection with the white trail was a little confusing - it wasn't obvious to me where the yellow trail turned left, but we found it soon enough. This loop passes three reservoirs. There were rusted Keep Out signs. I put Trek on a leash so that he wouldn't go swimming in the reservoirs. It was unclear if the Keep Out signs were for just the water or for the area around the reservoirs. Hmm. We hiked around Second Reservoir, and had to make a turn off of one unmarked woods road onto another unmarked woods road. Here I did decide to take out my compass to orient my map again. This way I could tell that the woods road I saw was actually the correct woods road to turn onto (it was). Woohoo - a chance to practice my compass skills for more than just checking views. We continued on with Horse Chock Brook to our left. We past First Reservoir and more Keep Out signs. And No Trespassing signs.

These trails are not marked as restricted areas on the Harriman map, so I think its fine. I did some research afterwards and learned about Letchworth Village, which closed in 1996. The reservoirs are still used however, so no dog swimming.

My hip wasn't too sore when hiking, but got more sore after and the next day.