[April 19, 2015; Old oaks near Indian Hill, Sterling Forest State Park, New York]. In the afternoon, Dallas and I hiked the Indian Hill Trail in Sterling Forest State Park, NY. We parked in the gravel quarry off of Orange Turnpike and took a woods road, marked with a blaze with a green bird, past the Warbler field and an old building with the animal cages, to the pond. We sighted egg masses laid by frogs in the shallows and turtles sunning themselves on logs. We then bushwhacked along the outlet stream, past many Trout Lilies not yet in bloom, until we intersected with the Indian Hill Trail (blazed in yellow). We climbed up atop Indian Hill, ascending past several rock scarps, beneath which were piled huge angular blocks of stone. The hills to the south seemed a bit more reddish then when I viewed them from this vantage last week. More of the Beech Trees are blooming. We then walked the ridge to a second viewpoint that looks east, across the valley of the Ramapo River, towards Harriman State Park. A little smoke was rising from the general area of Island Pond. I suppose that a brush fire has broken out. We descended into a valley and spent a few minutes viewing stout rock walls, three feet high and six feet thick, which lined an old woods road. They are a reminder of the time, a century or more ago, when this was bare of trees and actively farmed. We continued on the Indian Hill Trail, across the road and by a row of old Oak Trees, one with a trunk with a diameter of six feet or more. We came to, but passed by, a trail blazed in blue, near the spot where the Indian Hill Trail looped back around to the south. We passed a few more old oaks before joining the woods road. We walked this rather marshy road back to our car.

About two and a half hours.