Alder Lake and Millbrook Ridge Trail, Catskills

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
9/29/2018	9.9 miles	5 hours 55 minutes	1,969	36:00

Map: NYNJTC Catskills, Map 142
Parking: Alder Lake access road
Directions: Clockwise around Alder Lake to Millbrook Ridge Trail. East on Millbrook Ridge Trail to Overlook. Return to Alder Lake and go clockwise around the lake back to the parking area.

Today we decided to work on the Millbrook Ridge Trail, on map 142. The drive here was gorgeous. Beaverkill road has a river on one side and farms on the other side. I told Glen I could live there. He said, "I'm not buying a farm." It's just so peaceful. The open fields just set off the mountain views in a nice way.

We started off on the west side, near Alder Lake. The parking area was pretty crowded actually. We saw a bunch of people out fishing in the lake. And then lots of people camping around the lake. There are a number of primitive campsites around the lake. And a porta potty at the parking area. We saw one group who hung their cooler and 2 trash bags the same way you'd hang a bear bag. Ha! I've never seen that before. You can't drive your car to the campsites, but on the other hand, the camp sites are within a pretty easy walk back to the parking lot.

At the very beginning of the hike there are building ruins - of the Coykendall Lodge. I love reading about the history of abandoned buildings we find. This one was owned my a railroad magnate. The trail around the lake was muddy. Oh yeah. But it seems like its a popular day hike to just do a loop around the lake. We went partway around the lake, and then east on the Millbrook Ridge trail. Once we were on the Millbrook Ridge trail we didn't see anyone. We had a vista view in mind, and decided we'd hike there if we had enough daylight hours. Looking at the map, we wondered if the high point on the Millbrook Ridge trail was a Catskill 67 hike. We hadn't done any research ahead of time to check. We just noticed the elevation and thought - huh, maybe this is one. So we studied our map and decided to try and find the high point just in case. Well. We found a cairn on the trail. So was the trail the high point? Our map showed it to the right of the trail. We bushwhacked around. But it was pretty flat, so it was really hard to tell was there a higher point. We even tried using Glen's phone to check the altitude and Gaia GPS to try to come up with an approximate summit location. After wandering around for a while, we decided good enough, and went back to the trail. Turns out it is a Catskill 67 summit.

We did make it to our hoped for turn around point, which had a nice view. We hiked back and did the opposite side of the loop around Alder Lake. I was thinking about letting Trek take a long swim at the end. But there was a dam near where the trail rejoined Alder Lake. There was no way I was going to let him swim anywhere near a dam, so he missed out.

Stone wall next to Coykendall Lodge ruins

Coykendall Lodge ruins

Coykendall Lodge ruins

Coykendall Lodge ruins, overlooking Alder Lake

Coykendall Lodge ruins

Coykendall Lodge ruins

Alder Lake

Summit searching

Is this the high point?

Not the summit, but a great view and our turn around point

Glen said this looks like pencil shavings

High point on the trail. Cairns on it. Is this the high point?

Possible summit photo

Alder Lake