Long Path Snow Slide,Lake Skanatati Area

Harriman State Park,
Rockland County,
New York

Hiking Trails:
Arden-Surebrige: Red blaze
Long Path: Green blaze
Various Bushwacks

Total Time: 1:40 hour
Estimated Distance: 2.35 miles
Level of Difficulty: Moderate, but more difficult because of snow
Level of Recommendation: Highly recommended, especially in the snow!
Points Of Interest: Great view, amazing snow sliding

Hiking Partners:
Debbie Koegel
Avichai

Google Map of Parking:

View 2012 Hiking in a larger map

We had just gotten our first significant storm of the season on Saturday, and it had also snowed a few icy inches the previous Wednesday. So there were two layers of snow, with a new fresh layer. The lakes were not yet fully frozen, but one of my highlights of winter is doing a snow hike. The serenity and freshness of such hikes are truly exhilarating. I also like going down some of the hilly parts in fresh snow by sliding down. The tree cover has to be sparse and open, and the hill steep but not to steep to do this. This hike affords these options if you bushwack slightly off the trail, which is what we did.

We parked in the parking area off Seven Lakes Drive at Lake Skanatati. We took the Arden-Surebridge Trail up the mountain to the view. We then bushwacked from the view down to the Long Path, and this bushwack afforded a great snow-slide down the mountain. We continued along the Long Path up some hills and down some valley's, and were forced to turn around approaching the Nurian Trail due to time constraints (we had originally intended to reach the viewpoint on the Nurian Trail near the southern end of Hogencamp Mountain.

The route back was mostly bushwacking up and down hills and sliding down, parallel to the Long Path. Once we reached the western end of Lake Skanatati we took the Long Path along the side of the lake back to the parking area.

Map of the Route

Lake Skanatati Starting to Freeze

Me on the Top of Pine Swamp Mountain Lookout

Sliding Down Pine Swamp Mountain

Avichai at the Pine Swamp Brook

Hiking on the Long Path

Avichai at Lake Skanatati

Me at Lake Skanatati

View a time-lapse slideshow file of me sliding down the mountain in the snow.