[Journal entry for June 15, 2019; Cemetery along the Beech Trail, Harriman State Park, New York]. The day is sunny but cool. I park at the hikers’ lot located where the Beech Trail crosses Tiorati Brook Road. Multiflora Rose is blooming along the edges of the parking lot, and Mountain Laurel is blooming along the road. I take a short detour east along Tiorati Brook Road to view the little waterfall along Tiorati Brook that’s just upstream of where the highway crosses the brook. I then backtrack and take the Beech Trail south. It follows a little brook in the valley between Grape Swamp Mountain to the east and Nat House Mountain to the west. I make a short detour via an informal trail to a beautiful waterfall along the brook. The water falls in two stages, first over a steep scarp that is about eight feet tall, and then after passing through a pool, down a sloping rock ledge. The falls are decorated by small gardens of moss, fern and other vegetation, whose luxuriousness is nurtured by its spray. I continue along the Beech Trail, past many tall Mountain Laurel bushes in full bloom. Most of these have clusters of pale pink flowers, but a few have clusters that are a much more brilliant pink. I cross Hasencleaver Road, one of the many old mining roads in the park. I detour east to where the road crosses the brook via a very sturdy-looking bridge. I then continue along the Beech Trail.

Though I been planning for the last week to spend this Saturday hiking, I chose this particular hike because of a lunchtime conversation that I had on Friday with Bridget and Sean, two students interested in the rock of grave markers. I told them about the cemetery along the Beech Trail, but could not find any pictures of it. I decided to rectify my oversight. The cemetery is at the top of the hill, and though today the setting is among trees, it must have once commanded a very nice view, back when the hills of the Hudson Highlands were mostly clear-cut. It is near the corner of a rock wall, suggesting that it was at the periphery of somebody’s property. Four grave markers are inside the wall and a fifth is on the outside. They are made of marble. A plaque reads, “Dedicated to those who are part of our community and to those who have served our county, the Eagle Project Restoration, by LeRoy Babcock Jr, June 1990”. That plaque was there when I last walked this trail, which dates my last kike as post-1995. A crack in one of the markers has been repaired with steel reinforcing. I was able to read two grave markers. One inside the wall reads, “In Memory of John E Jones, Born April 21, 1817, Died January 16, 1896, But oh for the touch of a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is still”. I later looked up the verse; it is from the 1835 poem “Break, Break, Break" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Another, outside the wall, reads “Timothy Youmans, Co. K, 6 Heavy Artillery, Died April 7, 1865”. I later found an entry in a US Government roster than confirmed that Mr. Youmans served in the New York Sixth Heavy Artillery Sixth during the Civil War. He was discharged on February 8, 1865 for disability at age 31. I presume that he died shortly after of his injuries.

I continued along the Beech Trail, past a low rock scarp with large angular boulders at its base. I believe this scarp, and many others like it in the park, were formed by glacial plucking during the Ice Age. I took a quick look into a small cave in the rock face. It was empty. I had to search around for the Rockhouse Mountain Trail, for it is unmaintained. When I finally found it, it took me through wonderful Mountain Laurel groves that would have been impassible without it, owing to their interwoven branches. I lost it when the land opened-up and began a long bushwhack in which I tried to keep to a westerly heading. I passed a very large boulder field. I know of a several of them in the park. Some lie downhill of rock scarps, so the source of the boulders is easy to discern. This one (and one or two others that I know about) has only a small ledge nearby, and is more of a mystery. I finally came to a woods road that, on the basis of my map, I figured was the southward extension of Hasenclever Road. I took it south, and when I reached the power line right-of-way near Lake Askoti, I knew that I was right.

I walked the service road that follows the power-line, heading north, and intending to connect with the Red Cross Trail, but overshooting it. I went as far as the bay at the south end of Lake Tiorati before realizing my mistake. That part of the right-of-way was full of Mountain Laurel lit by bright sunlight, so I was glad to have walked it. The bay is very picturesque, too. When I finally found the trail, I was chagrinned to see that it has a large sign marking it. I took the trail back east, until I came to the Hasenclever Mine. It is one of the old iron mines of the Hudson Highlands. In the late Eighteenth Century, veins of high-grade iron ore (mostly magnetite, Fe₃O₄) were mined in small pits and troughs, and the ore was carted off to nearby charcoal-fired furnaces to be refined. This mine has a now-flooded pit, about the size of a large swimming pool, a long trough, and several smaller pits (or at least those were all the workings I could find). They were surrounded by many large piles of angular boulders – the rock tailings that had to be removed to expose the ore. I tested a few with my compass and found one small rock that deflected its needle. I guess that the miners had missed it, or perhaps discarded it in favor of bigger pieces.

I connected with Hasenclever Road, which I guess was the mining road used to cart off the iron ore. This was a different section of the same road than I had walked earlier today. It, too, was lined by beautiful Mountain Laurel. I took it east back to the Beech Trail and the Beech Trail back to my car. I hustled along, for the afternoon was becoming darkly cloudy and I was worried that a thunderstorm would begin.

On my way home, I picked up a sausage and green pepper pie at Calabria Pizza & Pasta Restaurant, off Route 303 in Orangeburg New York.

About four and a half hours of hiking.