Skip to content
Tom's HikingTom’s Hiking

Destinations

Top 5 long day hikes in Harriman State Park

Harriman has 200 miles of marked trail and 31 lakes, and it asks for no permit and no reservation. Two Port Jervis Line stations sit close enough to walk in from. Five long days built on the park's own published mileage, with the lots that fill, the roads that shut in winter and the blazes you have to keep straight.

DestinationsPublished August 30, 202613 min read
A stand of white pines silhouetted on a low headland above a still lake, reflected in the water under a banded orange and deep blue twilight sky
Lake Tiorati at twilight. Harriman has 31 lakes and reservoirs, and the trail network threads between most of them.Photo: Juliancolton — CC BY-SA 4.0

Harriman is the second largest park in the New York State Parks system. It has 200 miles of marked hiking trail, 31 lakes and reservoirs, and a low tangle of rocky ridges you can walk all day without asking anyone's permission. There is no hiking permit to get and no reservation, quota or lottery to win. Most of the hiker parking areas are free, all year.

The park is open seven days a week, year round, dawn until dusk, and on a Tuesday in October you can have a summit to yourself.

It is also close. Two stations on the Port Jervis Line, Sloatsburg and Tuxedo, sit near enough to the western edge that the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference lists the trails you can reach on foot from each of those villages. From Sloatsburg it is a one-mile road walk to the Pine Meadow Trail. Not many parks this size put a trailhead within walking distance of a train.

The long version of Harriman does not get written about much. The park's own recommended hikes top out at seven miles and the famous ones are three or four, which is why it has a reputation as a place for a half day. That reputation is wrong. Four separate trails run more than seventeen miles inside the park boundary, and the network they cross is dense enough that you can put together eight, ten or twelve miles of ridge, lake and old mine road without driving anywhere else.

The difficulty here is navigation, not climbing, and there is no paperwork at all. Harriman's junctions are unsigned, several trails share the same blaze color, and a few of them run along the same footpath for half a mile before splitting again. We have not walked all five of these. We worked from the documents the park publishes itself, because in Harriman the trail names, the blaze shapes and the mileages are what decide whether your long day goes well.

Destinations

What are the best long day hikes in Harriman State Park?

Five days of roughly seven and a half to eleven miles, built out of the park's own blazed trails: the Elk Pen circuit past the Lemon Squeezer, the Pine Meadow loop from Sloatsburg, the Long Path and Dunning circuit through Times Square, the Timp-Torne over West Mountain, and the two Ramapo-Dunderberg loops off Route 106. They run easiest first, ordered by how much navigation each one takes, so start at the top if this is your first long day here.

Every trail length quoted is the figure printed on the park's own trail map, and every loop credited to the park comes from its own recommended hikes sheet. Harriman's literature stops at seven miles, so a long day here is something you assemble; where a total is our arithmetic on the park's numbers rather than the park's own figure, we say so in the distance line.

A blue pond ringed by low wooded hills seen from a rock ledge, with a hiker's dark pack resting on the rock in the foreground under a bright summer sky
Island Pond, on the Appalachian Trail between Elk Pen and the Lemon Squeezer.Photo: Mwanner — CC BY-SA 3.0
01

The Elk Pen circuit: the A.T., the Lemon Squeezer and the Arden-Surebridge

From the Elk Pen hikers' lot, Arden Valley Road, off Route 17 at Southfields

Distance
About 10 miles, three of them back along Arden Valley Road (the park's short version is 5)
Trails
Appalachian Trail (white rectangle), Arden-Surebridge (white with a red triangle), Long Path (turquoise)
Trailhead
Elk Pen hikers' lot, Arden Valley Road
Navigation
Easiest here. Two or three junctions, all obvious
Season
Arden Valley Road closes to vehicles on 1 December

The park publishes this one as a five-mile loop and describes it in two sentences: take the A.T. through the meadow to the Arden-Surebridge, turn right, follow the Arden-Surebridge about three and a half miles until it meets the A.T. again at the Lemon Squeezer, then turn left on the A.T. and follow it back to the lot. It is the easiest way into the middle of Harriman, because both ends of the loop are landmarks you cannot miss.

It starts across an open meadow, and it turns around at a cleft in the rock narrow enough that the Appalachian Trail squeezes through it sideways.

To make a full day of it, keep going. From the Lemon Squeezer the Arden-Surebridge runs east to the junction that everyone in this park calls Times Square, where you pick up the turquoise Long Path and follow it back out to Arden Valley Road, roughly two and three quarter miles by the park's reckoning, then walk the road back west to the car. That is the sequence the park uses for its own seven-mile Fingerboard Circular, started from a different lot.

Done from Elk Pen it comes out around ten miles, and the road is more of that than you would expect: the park puts the Elk Pen lot 3.7 miles from the Tiorati Circle. You also give up the stretch of Appalachian Trail past Island Pond that the park's shorter loop returns on.

Why it's here: Two landmarks you cannot walk past by accident, and the Appalachian Trail for the best of it. If you have never linked blazes together before, start here.

A tall white pine leaning over a gray lake with a large split boulder on the shoreline in the foreground and forested hills across the water under heavy cloud
Pine Meadow Lake, the turning point of the Pine Meadow Trail.Photo: Mwanner at en.wikipedia — CC BY-SA 3.0
02

The Pine Meadow loop from Sloatsburg station

From Reeves Meadow Visitor Center, Seven Lakes Drive, or on foot from the train

Distance
About 10 to 11 miles (the park's short version is 4.5)
Trails
Pine Meadow (red square on white, 6.6 miles), Kakiat (white, 6.7 miles), Stony Brook (yellow, 1.8 miles)
Trailhead
Reeves Meadow Visitor Center. The park calls the parking limited
Getting there
Sloatsburg station on the Port Jervis Line, then a one-mile road walk
Navigation
Three trails, one stream crossing, two parallel stretches

This is the car-free one. The Trail Conference lists Sloatsburg as giving access to the Pine Meadow Trail after a one-mile road walk, with connections onward to the Seven Hills, Reeves Brook and Kakiat trails. Leave from Hoboken or change at Secaucus and you can be walking uphill within a couple of hours of leaving the city. Reeves Meadow Visitor Center is the driving trailhead, and the park flags its parking as limited and asks you not to park on the roadside.

The park's own four-and-a-half-mile version goes out on the Pine Meadow Trail to Pine Meadow Lake, back along the same trail to the Kakiat, straight on across the stream, then left onto the Stony Brook where the two split, which returns you to the Pine Meadow Trail near the lot. The Pine Meadow Trail alone runs 6.6 miles and the Kakiat 6.7, so there is plenty of trail here to turn that into a ten or eleven mile day by going further out before you turn around.

Add the road walk at each end and you get a full day out of a train ticket.

Why it's here: The only long day on this list you can do without a car, and Pine Meadow Lake is a better turnaround than most trails give you.

A still lake in low early-morning light mirroring a shoreline of oak and maple in full orange, red and gold autumn color under a pale clouded sky
Lake Skannatati in autumn. The lot here is free and it serves the Long Path and the Arden-Surebridge.Photo: Juliancolton — CC BY-SA 4.0
03

Lake Skannatati: the Long Path, the Dunning and Times Square

From the Lake Skannatati parking lot, Seven Lakes Drive

Distance
About 8 miles (the park's short versions are 3 and 4)
Trails
Long Path (turquoise, 20.4 miles), Dunning (yellow, 3.4 miles), Arden-Surebridge (white with a red triangle, 5.9 miles)
Trailhead
Lake Skannatati lot, Seven Lakes Drive. No fee
Navigation
Times Square, where three blazes meet with no sign

Lake Skannatati is the best free lot in the park for a long day, because the Long Path runs straight through it. That is 20.4 miles inside the park, second only to the Suffern-Bear Mountain, and the park's parking sheet gives this lot access to the Arden-Surebridge as well.

The park's own Skannatati Loops sheet gives a three-mile and a four-mile option from here, and the four-mile one is the more interesting: follow the Long Path up the right-hand side of the lake for two miles, stay straight where the Dunning goes off right, and keep on until you reach Times Square, then take the Arden-Surebridge right for two miles back to the car.

Times Square is the junction this park is known for. It is where the Long Path, the Arden-Surebridge and the Ramapo-Dunderberg all meet, and the park's own trail map prints the name on that spot, which is more than the ground will do for you. Get it right and the country beyond opens up: from Times Square you can run out along the Arden-Surebridge towards the Lemon Squeezer, or push on north along the Long Path, and come back the way you came for a day of around eight miles.

Miss it and you will walk a long way on a trail whose blaze you were not expecting.

Why it's here: A free lot sitting on a twenty-mile trail, and the most useful junction in Harriman to learn on a day when you have hours in hand.

04

The Timp-Torne over West Mountain

From the Anthony Wayne Recreation Area, exit 17 on the Palisades Parkway

Distance
9.8 miles end to end, the park's own figure for the trail. Its loop from Anthony Wayne is 4.5
Trails
Anthony Wayne (white), Fawn (red), Timp-Torne (blue, 9.8 miles), Appalachian Trail (white rectangle), Beechy Bottom Road
Trailhead
Anthony Wayne Recreation Area, with a gate and a booth rather than a pull-off
Navigation
Five trails, and the A.T. merges with the Timp-Torne before splitting again

The blue-blazed Timp-Torne runs 9.8 miles inside the park and spends most of them on the open rock of West Mountain and The Timp, in the northeast corner where Harriman meets Bear Mountain State Park and the ground finally drops away to the Hudson. This is the one you walk for a view instead of a lake.

The park's four-and-a-half-mile version is the short way onto it: from the gate opposite the booth at Anthony Wayne, take the Anthony Wayne Trail right, continue straight on the Fawn, turn right when you meet the Timp-Torne, follow it until it merges with the Appalachian Trail, stay right on the A.T. where they split, then turn right onto the Beechy Bottom Road bike trail to come back to the gate.

The long version does not need any arithmetic from us, because the park already publishes it: the Timp-Torne is 9.8 miles inside the park, and walking the thing end to end is the day. It is point to point rather than a loop, so it wants two cars, or a willingness to turn round at The Timp and come back the way you came.

Anthony Wayne is a full recreation area with a gate and a booth rather than a roadside pull-off, and it is one of the lots the park's parking sheet puts no limited-parking warning on.

One thing to check before you go: the Appalachian Trail and the Ramapo-Dunderberg are on a marked detour across the Palisades Interstate Parkway via the Anthony Wayne overpass, and Bear Mountain State Park has detours near the Bear Mountain Inn affecting the Suffern-Bear Mountain, Appalachian and Major Welch trails for construction it says runs through summer 2027. Neither closes this loop, but both change how the trails join up at the edges.

Why it's here: The best views on the list, and the one trailhead here that is a whole recreation area rather than a lay-by.

A rocky footpath climbing through waist-high ferns in an open oak wood, with a white blaze marked with a red dot on a tree trunk beside the trail
The Ramapo-Dunderberg on the slopes of Black Rock. The blaze on the trunk is the one to learn: white with a red dot.Photo: Daniel Case — CC BY-SA 4.0
05

The Ramapo-Dunderberg over Black Rock and Bald Rocks

From the Route 106 pull-off at the Ramapo-Dunderberg crossing

Distance
7.5 miles, the park's two loops from this one pull-off walked back to back (3.5 and 4)
Trails
Ramapo-Dunderberg (white with a red dot, 17.2 miles), Dunning (yellow), White Bar (horizontal white bar), Nurian (white), Victory (blue), Triangle (yellow)
Trailhead
Route 106 pull-off. The park calls the parking limited
Navigation
Hardest here. Three of the four trails share a footpath somewhere

The Ramapo-Dunderberg is the classic Harriman ridge walk, and at 17.2 miles it is the fourth of the four trails that run more than seventeen miles inside the park, behind the Suffern-Bear Mountain, the Long Path and the A.T. It goes from the Ramapo valley in the southwest all the way to Dunderberg Mountain above the Hudson. The middle of it, over Black Rock and the open slabs at Bald Rocks, is the best few miles of walking in the park.

It is also the route that most rewards knowing what you are doing, and the giveaway is the park's own description of the short version.

Take the Ramapo-Dunderberg about a mile and a half from the Route 106 pull-off, go left on the Dunning, and then the instructions become a run of warnings: the Dunning and the White Bar run together for about half a mile, stay left on the White Bar when they split, the White Bar and the Nurian then run together too, stay left on the Nurian until it ends, and turn right on the Ramapo-Dunderberg to get back.

That is four trails and two shared stretches, and the whole description turns on blaze colors.

The neat thing about this pull-off is that the park publishes a second loop from it, on the other side of the road. Lake Skenonto is four miles: cross Route 106 on the Ramapo-Dunderberg, go left on the Victory for about two miles, right on the Triangle for about a mile, then right on the Ramapo-Dunderberg to come back. Walk both loops back to back and you have 7.5 miles of park-published trail out of a single parking space, without a derived number anywhere in it.

It is the only day on this list where every mile is one the park counted for you.

The other reason this one is last is the parking. The park describes the Route 106 pull-off as limited and asks you to make sure your car is safely off the road, and the same road closes west of Seven Lakes Drive on 1 December.

Why it's here: The finest ridge in Harriman, reached by the sequence of junctions most likely to catch you out. Do the other four first.

Which blaze is which in Harriman State Park?

Harriman's trails are identified by a painted blaze rather than a sign, and the blaze is a shape as much as a color. These are the blazed trails the five days above use, plus the four long spines that cross the whole park, with the blaze the park prints on its own hike sheets and the length it prints on its own trail map. Note how often a color repeats.

TrailBlazeLength inside the park
Suffern-Bear MountainYellow21.4 miles
Long PathTurquoise20.4 miles
Appalachian TrailWhite rectangle19.2 miles
Ramapo-DunderbergWhite with a red dot17.2 miles
Timp-TorneBlue9.8 miles
White BarHorizontal white bar7.3 miles
KakiatWhite6.7 miles
Pine MeadowRed square on white6.6 miles
Arden-SurebridgeWhite with a red triangle5.9 miles
DunningYellow3.4 miles
Anthony WayneWhite2.7 miles
NurianWhite2.6 miles
Stony BrookYellow1.8 miles
FawnRed0.6 miles

Three trails in this table are blazed plain yellow, three are blazed plain white, and off the table the Victory and Lake Tiorati trails are blue like the Timp-Torne while the Triangle is yellow again and the Menomine a yellow rectangle. Color alone will not tell you where you are.

Two small things worth knowing: the Trail Conference calls the Long Path aqua where the park calls it turquoise, and the park's own parking sheet spells the Ramapo-Dunderberg with a u, while its map and hike sheets spell it with an e.

What is a blaze, and what is a concurrency?

Blaze
A painted mark on a tree or a rock that tells you which trail you are standing on. In Harriman it is a shape as much as a color: the Appalachian Trail is a white rectangle, the Ramapo-Dunderberg is white with a red dot, the Arden-Surebridge is white with a red triangle. The park marks its junctions with these rather than with signposts.
Concurrency
A stretch where two separately named trails run along the same footpath, so both blazes turn up on the same trees. The park's own Bald Rocks route has two of them back to back, and the place where the trails part again is where a Harriman day tends to go wrong.
Pull-off
The word the park's parking sheet uses for roadside hiker parking as opposed to a lot. It flags two of them, both on Route 106, as limited, and asks you to make sure the car is completely off the road.
Woods road
An old cart or mine road now walked as trail. Harriman's official map carries them in its legend as their own line type, and a good share of the park's flatter walking is along one.

How do you avoid getting lost in Harriman State Park?

Harriman is not remote and the ground is not dangerous, but it is genuinely easy to lose track of which trail you are on, and that has more to do with how the network is built than with carelessness. There are around 200 miles of trail in a park you can walk across in a day, the junctions carry blazes rather than place names, and several trails share a color. These are the habits that keep the day on track.

  1. 01

    Learn your blazes before you leave the car

    Write down the sequence for the day as shapes, not just colors: white rectangle, then white with a red triangle, then turquoise. Three of the trails in the table above are plain yellow and three are plain white, so a color on its own does not tell you which trail you are standing on.

  2. 02

    Count junctions, not minutes

    Harriman routes are described by the park as a run of turns rather than distances, because that is how the network actually works. Know how many trail crossings come before yours and which way you turn at each. If you have passed more junctions than the description has, you are already off the route.

  3. 03

    Expect two trails to share one footpath

    The park's own Bald Rocks description has the Dunning and the White Bar running together for about half a mile, and then the White Bar and the Nurian running together after that. When two blazes appear on the same trees you are on a concurrency, and where they split is where you have to make a choice.

  4. 04

    Carry the paper map, and know which map you have

    The park's free trail map is a PDF from its own GIS bureau and it states plainly on the sheet that all boundaries and trails are shown as approximate. There is an official app as well: the park's hike sheets tell you to download the NY State Parks Explorer app for the full official map. The detailed Harriman maps come from the Trail Conference, and unlike its Bear Mountain sheet you have to buy them.

  5. 05

    Do not follow the compass needle blindly

    The Trail Conference warns that the New York and New Jersey area has many iron mines scattered about that can affect the accuracy of a compass. Harriman is full of them, and several trails run straight past the old workings. Use the compass with the map and the terrain, and treat a needle that disagrees with the ground as suspect.

  6. 06

    Put a headlamp in the pack every time

    The Trail Conference's advice is to always carry a small headlamp or flashlight when hiking, especially if there is a chance you will be out after sunset. On a ten-mile day in the second half of the year, there is. The park itself closes at dusk.

A wide stony woods road climbing gently through bare and yellowing oak and beech trees, the ground completely buried under fallen brown leaves
Leaf-down in Harriman. Late in the season the footway disappears under the leaves and the painted blazes are most of what is left to follow.Photo: TheTurducken — CC BY 2.0

Can you hike Harriman State Park without a car?

Yes, and it is the most underused thing about the park. Sloatsburg and Tuxedo are both stations on the Port Jervis Line, which the Trail Conference labels NJ Transit/Metro-North: it is a Metro-North line, and NJ Transit runs the trains on it. They leave from NJ Transit's Hoboken Terminal, and you connect from Penn Station in New York City at Secaucus Junction.

The Trail Conference lists what each of those places reaches, under its stops for the west side of the park. Tuxedo gives you the Kakiat, Ramapo-Dunderberg and Triangle trails, with connections onward to the Blue Disc and Tuxedo-Mount Ivy trails. Sloatsburg gives you the Pine Meadow Trail after a one-mile road walk, with connections to the Seven Hills, Reeves Brook and Kakiat trails.

That is the western side of the park, which is how the Trail Conference files it, and it covers the Pine Meadow day above and the southern end of the Ramapo-Dunderberg.

Two things are worth planning around. Service to these stations is thin: the Trail Conference describes hourly service to Suffern but less frequent service to Sloatsburg, Tuxedo and Harriman, so check the return times before you set off rather than after. And be careful with the station called Harriman, further up the same line: the Trail Conference names trails for Sloatsburg and for Tuxedo, and none at all for it. Sloatsburg and Tuxedo are the two you want.

There is a bus option as well. Coach USA runs from the Port Authority Bus Terminal with stops serving the east and south of the park, including Suffern, Route 202 at Viola Road, Tomkins Cove, Jones Point and the Bear Mountain Inn.

Which Harriman trailheads fill up?

The park publishes a sheet of seventeen designated hikers' parking areas, and it flags two of them as limited in its own words. A third, Reeves Meadow, carries the same warning on the park's Pine Meadow Loop sheet instead. That flag is the most useful thing on either document, because the limited ones serve some of the best trails. On a weekend, treat those three as somewhere to arrive early or skip.

The park calls these limited

  • Ramapo-Dunderberg pull-off, Route 106 about two miles from the Kanawauke Circle. The park asks you to make sure the vehicle is safely off the road
  • Victory pull-off, Route 106 about two and a half miles from the Kanawauke Circle, same wording
  • Reeves Meadow Visitor Center, the Pine Meadow trailhead, with a request not to park on the roadside. That warning sits on the park's hikes sheet rather than its parking sheet

Designated lots it does not flag

  • Anthony Wayne Recreation Area, exit 17 on the Palisades Parkway, a full recreation area rather than a pull-off
  • Lake Skannatati, on Seven Lakes Drive two miles down from the Tiorati Circle, free and serving the Long Path and Arden-Surebridge
  • Elk Pen hikers' lot on Arden Valley Road, the Appalachian Trail trailhead
  • Tiorati Beach and Silvermine picnic areas, which do charge a parking fee between Memorial Day and Labor Day
  • White Bar, Beech, St Johns Road, Red Cross, the Long Path lot on Route 6, and the Suffern-Bear Mountain pull-off past Beaver Pond Campground
A high wide view over the Hudson River in late autumn with the Bear Mountain Bridge spanning it in the distance, bare brown ridges on both banks and a marshy flat in the foreground
The Hudson at the Bear Mountain Bridge, seen from the eastern side of Dunderberg Mountain, at the far end of the Ramapo-Dunderberg. The park's map measures that trail at 17.2 miles inside the park.Photo: Mr. Matté — CC BY-SA 4.0

When is the best time of year for a long day in Harriman?

October and early November, and then again in April. Harriman's summits are low and wooded, so the views open up when the leaves come off, and the same leaf-off that makes the ridges worth walking also makes the whole park cooler and drier than it is in August. Autumn is also when the lakes are at their best.

Winter changes the driving more than the walking. The park closes several roads to vehicles from 1 December, or the first snowfall, through 1 April, weather permitting: Arden Valley Road, Tiorati Brook Road, Lake Welch Drive, and Route 106 west of the Kanawauke Picnic Area towards Route 17.

The park's hunting sheet gives the same 1 December date for three of those roads — Arden Valley Road, Lake Welch and Route 106 west of Seven Lakes Drive — and adds that no access or parking is allowed once they are closed. Between them those closures affect the approaches to two of the five days above, so check where the barrier goes up before planning a winter start from Elk Pen or the Route 106 pull-offs.

Autumn also brings deer hunting, and it is worth understanding rather than avoiding. Harriman runs a permit hunt by lottery to deal with over-browsing, over roughly 20,000 acres, about 40 percent of the park, on weekdays only and not on holidays.

The rules the park issues to its own permit holders say that all trails are considered safety zones where hunting is not allowed, that shooting across trails is prohibited, and that hunting is banned within 500 feet of any building, shelter, group camp or parking lot and within 150 feet of roads. A weekend hike is not affected at all, and a weekday hike on a marked trail is walking through a safety zone.

The one hazard that runs from spring right through autumn is ticks. New York State's health department advises staying on cleared, well-travelled trails and walking in the center of them, wearing enclosed shoes and long pants tucked into socks, checking clothing and exposed skin frequently while you are out, and doing a full-body check at the end of the day. On a ten-mile day through fern and low brush, that last one is not optional.

Gear that earns its place on a long Harriman day

Nothing here is required and the park asks for none of it. These are the three things a ten-mile day in a park with unsigned junctions and an early sunset actually leans on.

Best Day Hiking Backpacks of 2026

Best Day Hiking Backpacks of 2026

Read the guide →

Best Running Headlamps of 2026

Best Running Headlamps of 2026

Read the guide →

Best GPS Hiking Watches of 2026

Best GPS Hiking Watches of 2026

Read the guide →

Questions worth settling before you drive up

Do you need a permit to hike in Harriman State Park?

No. Harriman requires no hiking permit, no reservation and no quota entry, and the park is open seven days a week, year round, from dawn until dusk. The only money involved is parking at a few of the lots: Lake Tiorati and Lake Welch charge per vehicle daily between Memorial Day and Labor Day, and Lake Kanawauke and Silvermine charge on weekends and holidays in the same window.

Those four are the whole of the park's fee list, so the designated hikers' lots at Elk Pen, Lake Skannatati and Anthony Wayne carry no parking fee.

Can you get to Harriman State Park by train from New York City?

Yes. Sloatsburg and Tuxedo are stations on the Port Jervis Line, which the Trail Conference writes as NJ Transit/Metro-North's. Trains run from NJ Transit's Hoboken Terminal, with connections from Penn Station at Secaucus Junction. The Trail Conference lists the Pine Meadow Trail as a one-mile road walk from Sloatsburg, and the Kakiat, Ramapo-Dunderberg and Triangle trails as reachable from Tuxedo. Service to both is less frequent than to Suffern, so check the return times first.

Why do so many people get lost in Harriman State Park?

Because the park packs about 200 miles of trail into a small area, marks its junctions with painted blazes rather than signs, and reuses blaze colors. Several trails are plain yellow, several are plain white, and three are blue. Some trails also share the same footpath for stretches before splitting again. None of it is dangerous ground, but a wrong turn at an unsigned junction can add miles before anything looks wrong.

How much elevation gain do these hikes have?

New York State Parks publishes trail distances for Harriman — on its trail map and its recommended hikes sheet — and no elevation figures on either, so any exact gain you see quoted for these routes is somebody's GPS track rather than the park's number, and we have not invented one. Harriman's climbing arrives as a long series of short steep pitches on and off rocky knolls rather than one sustained ascent, so a ten-mile day here takes longer than ten flat miles would suggest.

What is Times Square in Harriman State Park?

It is the name for the junction where the Long Path, the Arden-Surebridge Trail and the Ramapo-Dunderberg Trail meet in the middle of the park. The park uses it in its own Skannatati Loops description, telling walkers to proceed right on the Arden-Surebridge after reaching Times Square, and prints it on the trail map at that spot. What arrives on the ground is three blazes rather than a name, which is exactly why it is worth knowing what all three look like before you get there.

Is there a free map of Harriman State Park?

Yes, from the park. New York State Parks publishes a Harriman trail map as a PDF and points hikers at its NY State Parks Explorer app for the full official map, and the trail key on that PDF is where the trail lengths in this article come from. The map itself states that all boundaries and trails are shown as approximate. The detailed Harriman-Bear Mountain maps are the Trail Conference's, and unlike its free Bear Mountain sheet those are sold rather than given away.

Which roads close in Harriman State Park in winter?

The park's hikers' parking sheet lists Tiorati Brook Road, Lake Welch Drive, Arden Valley Road, and Route 106 west of the Kanawauke Picnic Area towards Route 17 as closed to vehicle traffic from 1 December, or the first snowfall, through 1 April, weather permitting. The park's hunting rules give the same 1 December date and add that no access or parking is allowed once the barriers are up.

Sources

Facts on this page were checked against these. Conditions, fees and rules change — check the official page before you go.

  1. Harriman State Park — New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation · checked August 30, 2026
  2. Harriman State Park Trail Map — New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation · checked August 30, 2026
  3. Harriman State Park Recommended Hikes — New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation · checked August 30, 2026
  4. Designated Hikers Parking Areas — New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation · checked August 30, 2026
  5. Harriman State Park Hunting Rules and Regulations — New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation · checked August 30, 2026
  6. Bear Mountain State Park — New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation · checked August 30, 2026
  7. Harriman-Bear Mountain State Parks — New York-New Jersey Trail Conference · checked August 30, 2026
  8. Public Transit Resources — New York-New Jersey Trail Conference · checked August 30, 2026
  9. How to Read a Map — New York-New Jersey Trail Conference · checked August 30, 2026
  10. Ten Hiking Essentials — New York-New Jersey Trail Conference · checked August 30, 2026
  11. Free Maps & Guides — New York-New Jersey Trail Conference · checked August 30, 2026
  12. Port Jervis Line schedules — MTA Metro-North Railroad · checked August 30, 2026
  13. Lyme Disease and Other Diseases Carried by Ticks — New York State Department of Health · checked August 30, 2026

More from Basecamp

Photo: Famartin — CC BY-SA 4.0

Destinations

The Appalachian Trail, explained

2,197.9 miles of continuous marked footpath from Georgia to Maine, free to walk and open year-round. What the corridor actually crosses, the three honest ways to hike it, and the places along it that ask for a permit or a fee.

Photo: Bernard Spragg. NZ — CC0, cropped

Destinations

Top 5 day hikes in Zion National Park, from a paved mile to the chains

A paved mile beside the river, an hour to a ledge on the east side, a day spent wading upstream, and half a mile of chains on a sandstone fin. Five day hikes worth planning a Zion trip around, with Park Service mileage, the shuttle stop for each, and the permit and river rules that decide whether you walk them.

Photo: Ronnie Macdonald — CC BY 2.0

Destinations

Day hiking the Grand Canyon, and how far down to turn around

From the railing the Grand Canyon is a photograph with no scale in it. Twenty minutes down the trail it has heat and grain and a floor. Eight turnarounds on the South Rim's day trails, ordered by how deep each one takes you, with Park Service mileage and the rule that shapes the whole day: coming up takes about twice as long as going down.