Schunemunk Mountain Loop

Hiked on May 14, 2016

This hike goes up Schunemunk Mountain in Mountainville, NY. Schunemunk is a double ridged mountain with Baby Brook flowing between the ridges.

Parking

From Ringwood I took 17N to 32N to Creamery Hill Rd, Starr Rd, and Taylor Drive. There is a parking area on Taylor Drive (just past Creekside Ln) for about 10 cars.

Trails

NYNJTC Trail Map 114
From the parking area, cross the street and follow Yellow Jessup Trail
North (right) onto White Sweet Clover Trail
West (left) onto Orange Western Ridge Trail
South onto Blue Ridge-to-Ridge Trail
East (left) onto Yellow Jessup Trail
Side trip on White
South onto Black Dark Hollow Trail
About 100 yds West by the train tracks
South (right) onto White Sweet Clover Trail
South (right) onto Yellow Jessup Trail

Description

Followed the Yellow Jessup Trail across a field into the woods. The trail follows Baby Brook up the mountain. This is a good ascent with a nice waterfall. Continued Jessup onto the Eastern Ridge with great views of the Hudson, Newburgh, and the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge.

The rock on the ridge is conglomerate with lots of quartz stones of varying size up to about 4 or 5 inches. If you're interested, check out the puddingstone page on Wikipedia. It talks about the Schunemunk puddingstone along with that found in Bearfort/Bellvale Mountain in West Milford, NJ and Warwick, NY. This surprises me because the matrix between the quartz is gray while the one on Bearfort/Bellvale is purple (and I thought unique). It's also interesting that the Wiki page only details three other puddingstones. Perhaps this is a rare occurrence.

The trail on the ridge is mainly conglomerate rock with lots of pitch pine. It's a fun hike because there are lots of little ups and downs to climb over.

We took a right on the White Sweet Clover Trail to get to the Western Ridge. It was a steep climb down which required a little care. It crosses Baby Brook and then a short climb up to the ridge. We took a left onto the Orange Western Ridge Trail. We found the Western Ridge not quite as interesting but did offer some nice look-outs (often back to the Eastern Ridge). We then crossed back on the the blue Ridge-to-Ridge Trail which had a nice climb up. Took a left onto the Yellow Jessup Trail.

In about 1/4 mile look for the White Trail Marker. It was on a piece of plywood that wasn't very noticeable but the arranged rocks give it away. Follow the makeshift rock path down to the Megaliths. These a large tablets of the conglomerate that look like they broke off the mountain and fell on top of each other. It's an easy walk on top and we also went down and around. Another hiker told us there are ways to get in and around the openings but we couldn't find an easy way. The drops we'd have to descend made me wonder how we'd get back up, so we kept to the easier areas. It is definitely a very cool and unusual formation and well worth the diversion.

Heading back to Jessup, take the left on Yellow. Less than 1/2 mile will be the trail head for the Black Dark Hollow Trail. We decided to take this for a little different route than how we ascended the mountain. Taking a right onto Black, it was a lot of descent at a reasonable grade. Met up with the White Sweet Clover trail after about 100 yds on the train tracks and took it right. As we approached Route 87 there are some rock walls from what I guess was a homestead or farm. Just by the trail there was a pretty old growth tree (I think it was maple; should have made a note) about four feet in diameter. Followed White back to Jessup and the parking area.

The loop described is about 8.6 miles and took 5 1/2 hours with stops for lunch, a little rest, and the diversion on the Megaliths.

My daugher had a great time. Highly recommended.