Complete hike details, photos, and video on our Sterling Forest page.

Finally a “cool” 80 degree partly-sunny day… what a nice change.

Sterling Forest is just over the NJ-NY border in New York, to the west of Harriman State Park. We hadn’t been there in awhile, and decided to check out the Bare Rock trail and Greenwood Lake overlook. There is a small viewpoint trail from the Bare Rock trail that leads to an open area with a wide view over Greenwood lake and makes for a nice break spot.

After that we just put our route together as we went, and ended up at the fire tower, which was open.  Even though it was overcast that day, the 360° views were nice. There are two other nice small overlooks, before and after the fire tower. Near the visitor center, you can check out an old iron furnace and some other building ruins. Read more…

NJ Hiking Sterling Forest Moderate, Viewpoint

Sterling Forest, Allis to AT out and back, 8.7 miles, 4.5 hours. Mid 80s, cloudy then sunny and humid/hazy.

Wouldn’t recommend this route, traffic noise at parts, trail wasn’t bad, a little overgrown and grassy, just not very scenic. We wanted to get some basic miles in to train for a trip so it met its purpose, but wouldn’t go again. Anyway here’s the info:

From central Jersey: Parkway North, 87 N, 17N to 17A west. Parked at P8 on the NYNJTC Sterling Forest map (#100). Pass the Renaissance Fair, P8 hikers parking on the left, well marked and large; with PortaPotty.

Walk back out the driveway and cross the road to the beginning of the Allis Trail (Blue; co-aligned with Highlands Trail). For the first mile to 1.25 mile the trail is parallel to 17A – and is audible. Trail then veers west slightly away from road.

Then crosses a large utility cut. The blue marker should indicate to go right but doesn’t, and the utility cut must have taken down marked trees because it is TOTALLY not obvious where to go. We wandered off to the right checking for a trail and found a woods road marked with pink tape. Then kept going and finally on the other side of the cut, near the road, was a Blue blaze. Climbed up the big hill and went some more and finally found the Blue marker and trail.

Little later, crosses a power line cut where on the way back we saw 3 guys with dirt bikes. Continues, just before the junction with the AT there are two viewpoints but it was sunny and hot and hazy so we didn’t linger. The Blue ends at the AT while the AT continues with Highland toward the east. We chose to go North on the AT. Basic AT trail, not as overgrown.

A little while later we climbed up a bit of a rocky hill and encountered a guy with his unleashed Rotweiler who was nice. Talked to him for a bit before decided to head back as the next part of the trail was steep downhill to a road, didn’t see much point in continuing.

Was going to have our snack bar when we got to the AT-Blue junction but just as we got there a unleashed Lab was blocking our path and barking and growling like it wanted to eat us. FINALLY the owner got it to come to her, but it proceeded to pull and gnash at us as we tried to squeak by it on the trail and continued to freak out even after we were out of sight. Perplexing that people with uncontrollable aggressive animals feel that they can be off leash. We found a rock later to have our snack, the sun was staying out now and it was humid.

Tried a diff way home; 17 thru Ramsey. The first Wendy’s was N and annoying as the drive-thru dumped you onto the highway. There was a nicer one later to try next time. Saved us some tolls and maybe some time with this route.

Wildlife spotted: 1 Deer, 5 Turkeys, 2 Garter snakes, 3 Black Snakes – never run into that many snakes on one trail before.

NJ Hiking Sterling Forest Appalachian Trail

8.5 miles. BLUE – YELLOW – BLUE (Sterling Ridge/Highlands) – RED – WHITE.

From central Jersey: Parkway N, 87N to 17 to 72 Sterling Mine Road to 84. Visitor Center is very nice, several displays, a ranger, maps, exceptional bathrooms. P11 hiker parking is across the road from the visitor center parking. Basically most of the trails in Sterling are woods roads, just the Ridge trail is a nice regular trail.

Took BLUE in front of Visitor Center. Huge ruin of a furnace from the 1700s was neat and the trail very nice… briefly then it turned into a road. Followed Sterling Lake, but this wasn’t nice hiking along houses. Finally YELLOW came in on the left so we took that, but that was a woods road.

Hit P8 hikers parking on 17A with Porta, then backtracked back in and took BLUE Sterling Ridge/Highlands Trail which was very nice and a couple nice viewpoints.  Arrived at the Fire Tower and climbed that for nice views. There is a picnic table here as well. Blue Sterling continues and we should have taken that but we opted for RED then at the junction took RED south… all overgrown woods roads, nothing thrilling. Picked up WHITE and headed North to P12 then had to walk up the road, no trail, to BLUE at the furnace and to the parking lot.

NJ Hiking Sterling Forest Highlands Trail