Hoyt Farm Park Hike

No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow. Planned to do a hiking while spring is still on its way. Identified The New York Ramblers hiking club from internet and selected a hike randomly which was Hoyt Farm Park, Long Island, New York lead by Chris Zeller.

This is my first hiking in the New York area. Mailed Chris requesting whether I can join his hike on 31st Match 2013. Chris responded within a day with the details and confirming me to join his hike.
 
On the night before hike around 11:00 PM packed for tomorrow's hike with the plan of waking up at 5:45 AM.
 
Morning started from home at 6:30 AM. On the way to station packed a sandwich from Subway. Reached New York Penn Station at 7:45 AM. During call Chris mentioned that I can find some hikers in the station and asked me to join them. After reaching the Long Island ticket counter spotted a person with a guess and asked whether he is here for hike. He said yes and he is Michael. Then following him I joined other hikers to whom Mike introduced me.

Chris briefing the group about the hike

We reached Deer Park station, New York at 9:15 AM which is our starting point for the hike. As soon we off boarded the train we met Chris and our hike started at 9:20 AM. Chris said this hike is going to be 14 mile hike and we will plan to complete by 6:00 PM. We started walking through the New York State conservation area. This conservation area is more than 10 acres of trails and bike paths. Initially I started walking by chatting with Mike. Mike was sharing his previous hiking experiences and educating me about some of the around places.

Next on our way we came across the Pilgrim State Hospital which was a psychiatric center located in Brentwood, New York. At the time it was opened, it seems to be largest hospital of any kind in the world.

Latter we walked on local roads to cross Long Island Expressway, Sagtikos Parkway and Northern Boulevard. Though I am saying we walked on local roads, Chris made this route quite interesting and challenging. Instead of walking all way on road, Chris created his own hike trail which connects the road by crossing bushes, fence, rolling rock trails. At this point I realized creating own hike trail is not an easy task. It needs good planning and knowledge about the surroundings.

Hoyt Farm Park

After this we proceed through Hoyt Farm Park and latter walked following the power line to vicinity of Lake Ronkonkoma. On our way following the power line and completing around 9 miles so far we had lunch around 1 PM. During lunch Jim and Sheila treated us with Easter egg chocolates. Thanks Jim and Sheila !!!. Chris treated the group with cookies. Thanks Chris !!!.

After lunch we started walking actively following the power line. We targeted now to complete the hike by 5:00 PM to beat the rain. Chris active walking motivated the group to walk actively which helped us to beat the rain and reach our destination Ronkonkoma station around 4:15 PM.

GPS has tracked our total hike as 16.9 miles from Deer Park to Ronkonkoma and we have averaged 3.0 mph while moving and climbed 546 ft. Thanks Jim for the route map and statistics.
.



Hoyt Farm Park Hiking route map