Who is harriman state park named after

Beginning in , the Palisades Interstate Parks Commission built dozens of group camps throughout Harriman State Park to welcome the urban poor and provide them with hot meals and outdoor experiences. The Harriman Group Camps are the model upon which many group camping programs and sites throughout the world are based.

The facilities at the camps, which are nestled in the woods next to the many lakes at Harriman State Park, consist of dining halls and recreation buildings, cabins and tent platforms, and waterfront facilities. Nature Centers offer environmental education programs designed to teach campers about the woods and instill in them a lifelong sense of wonder for the natural sciences.

For generations, the group camps have provided children and families with their first outdoor experiences. The camps are operated by a wide variety of organizations, from outdoor recreation clubs to not-for profits servicing homeless children and the disabled, from the surrounding New York and New Jersey area.

Tentrr is now at Harriman State Park. Take the hassle out of camping and spend more time enjoying the outdoors. With a fully-equipped canvas wall tent all set up and ready for you, it really is a better way to camp. Called the Railroad Ranch, the property was the private retreat of the Harrimans of Union Pacific Railroad fame and the Guggenheims, then prominent in copper.

The rich wildlife habitat has been preserved since the turn of the century when the owners established a private hunting reserve and working cattle ranch. For 75 years, the ranch maintained healthy game, waterfowl and fish populations, allowing todays park visitors to observe a rare concentration of wildlife in its scenic, natural surrounding. Twenty-seven of the original Railroad Ranch buildings, from the cookhouse to the horse barn, are still intact, furnished and carefully maintained.

During the summer there are regular tours of the Railroad Ranch buildings. Fishing, hiking, horseback riding and mountain biking are other ways to experience the beauty of the area. Yes, there are black bears, and they are becoming increasingly bold around the leanto shelters of the park. There are also bears who visit the campgrounds of Beaver Pond and Sebago Cabins.

For this reason, never sleep with your food nearby, but bring an approved, bear-thwarting bear canister for your food. Even though black bears go into hibernation around the end of November, you cannot trust the Harriman bear to hit the snooze button.

Black bears have been seen in Harriman State Park in winter, outside their dens. Bear tracks have been spotted in the freshly-fallen snow. Use a bear canister and see our post on bear activity. Yes, you can; in fact, you can pick and eat in every New York State park. Blackberries, raspberries, blueberries — both high and lowbush — wineberries and serviceberries grow in abundance along the hiking trails of Harriman State Park. The forest fruit ripens at the very end of June.

Blueberries and huckleberry bushes look similar, and certainly the fruit looks similar, too. But the huckleberry is smaller and black the eastern variety, that is and grows in denser clusters on the bush.

When is blueberry season? When are the other berries ripe for picking? Blueberries are usually ready around the second week of July, with huckleberries ripening the following week.

Blackberries are ready around the final days of July and into the first week of August. Elderberries follow the blackberries and are ripe by mid-September. Last of all are the grapes in Harriman. A wide variety of grapes grow wild in the park, including small fox grapes sour and not for eating, but great for preserves , Concord loose-skin varieties, and other tough-skinned grapes grown by former residents of the meadows and valleys of Harriman. These grapes ripen in September — early October.

Picking the grapes makes a great outing in the cooler weather! Other areas of Harriman-Bear Mountain are not open to hunting. Is snowmobiling allowed in Harriman State Park? Where can I ride my snowmobile? Snowmobiling is allowed and is free! High areas offer spectacular views scattered among the forested peaks. Low paths offer access to tumbling brooks and lakeside settings.

Several very scenic overlooks approximately a mile into the trail provide vistas of the valley and glacier scoured exposures of bedrock. The rocks throughout the park are dominantly granitic and amphibolite gneiss of Middle Proterozoic age.

The Ramapo River Valley is carved into the fracture zone of a large northeast-trending fault, an offshoot of the greater Ramapo Fault that borders the western margin of the Newark Basin. In this region, however, rocks on either side of the fault are both Proterozoic gneiss. Many of the low areas are swamps or bogs which were once glacial kettles and ponds that filled with muck and organic debris over time.

Such bogs in the region have been cored and examined for pollen residues to determine the progression of reforestation of the region after the ice melted. Cores reveal that after the glacial ice retreated roughly 15, years ago, tundra grasses and shrubs persisted for about years, and were ultimately replaced by spruce-dominated forests around 12, years ago. These gave way to the more modern deciduous forests beginning around 7, years ago. These changes in vegetation reflect the gradual warming of the climate as the glaciers retreated northward.

One of the most scenic locations within the park is named Claudius Smith Den, a small overhang beneath a massive cliff and barren hilltop consisting of granite gneiss. The hillsides around the den are host to mountain laurel that blooms starting in late May through June.