Goosepond Mountain State Park

Like a backbone, a 2.6-mile segment of the Highlands Trail (teal blazes, widely spaced) is routed along Lazy Hill Road.  The once paved, now abandoned road spans the park from near the intersection of Craigville Road (CR 51) and NY-17M southwest to Laroe Road (CR 45), where the pathway becomes narrower.  A confusing maze of un-blazed trails, more like narrow bike paths, cross over the roadway.  Watch out for bikers -- even though they are not officially sanctioned.  Sporadically an orange blaze (always this color) in the form of an arrow points out one of these side paths; it would be easy to become lost by following one without a GPS and compass.   

There are wonderful sights from Lazy Hill Road of Goose Pond Mountain, which rises more than a thousand feet in the northwest section of the park.   This is also a great place to hike on a hot summer day since nearly the entire length is under a canopy of roadside trees.

A bridge is washed off its foundation where Seely Brook crosses near the southwest end of Lazy Hill Road, but hikers can easily cross at this point.

A few reminders of past residents include what was clearly a grand stair step entrance to a house (very close to the only “T” intersection of paved roads), an easily missed sign pointing out a path through a field to the “Board Family Cemetery,” dry-stone boundary walls, and stretches of barbed wire.  A few cutoff tops of utility poles remain scattered about at the side of the road.

There is no good trail map.  Use the Highlands Trail link above, scroll down to “Map2 Right” for a topographical map that includes Goose Pond Mountain.  Another map of the trails leaves the impression of a three year old given free reign on an Etch-A-Sketch.   The Google parking map in the tab above is incorrect by showing Lazy Hill Road meeting Davis Hill Road.

A separate Nature Trail goes into and around a 5-acre “compensatory mitigation wetlands” a little further north off NY-17M.  It is part of a 108-acre state regulated wetlands serving as a flood plain for Seely Brook. It includes a section of boardwalk above the swamps and is a quiet, beautiful spot with plenty of bird sounds and long, wide vistas of the flood plain.  A section of the two-loop trail, which is under a half-mile, passes by a small bottomland hardwood forest.  There is no place simply to sit comfortably and enjoy the sounds and views.  Small little benches are scattered about, but they are more like low wobbly footstools.