Cole Hill State Forest

[edit] Description

An 874 acre reforestation area owned and maintained by NYSDEC, located in the Town of Berne. Various trails and old forest roads are scattered throughout the four sections of the Forest. The old forest roads in the northern, eastern and western sections lead you off onto private property. The Long Path trail passes through this Forest, and is marked with aqua-colored blazes and disc markers. The northern section is extremely marshy, so except for winter activities, it’s not advisable to go there during warmer months. There is one main loop in the eastern section, which brings you back to Cole Hill Road, where you can cross into the trails in the central section. This trail goes generally west, crossing 2 bridges, then the road. Another loop begins here across the road, which leads to another parking area at the west end at Irish Hill Road. Cross the road here to do the trails in the western section. Several bridges are in this section as well. This will bring you out to County Route 3 (Wilsie Road), then go left on this road, and look for trailheads on your right side to make your way back to your vehicle.

[edit] Directions

‘’’From Albany’’’ Take Route 443 (or Route 85 to Route 443) going southwest to East Berne. Just west of town, turn left onto County Route 2. Look for the State Forest sign in about 1 mile. There are parking areas on the left side of the road here. Trails lead off from both sides of this road.

[edit] Suggested Routes and the Local DownLow

There are trails on both the east and west of cole hill road. The area to the east is made up of wide jeep roads with a few options to venture off onto private camp woodstock trails. This area is within a mile of the doppler radar and that area has a dynamite section of long path as well as some tough double track off of filkins hill road. To the west of cole hill road is the long path trail which is sweet singletrack that gets split up by roads. It first intersects with a road (i think rt. 3), and continues as long path. adjacent to this area is a x-c ski area that is not usually well maintained-so this also plays as singletrack. we trimmed it back again last year to make it more mtb friendly, but it will need similar attention each season. The Long Path then crosses Irish Hill Road (this also is adjacent to a x-c area, but this area is rather wet during most seasons) and flows tightly to Wilsey Road which can be used to get to Partridge Run WMA. The trails described here for Cole Hill SF are good for at least 2 hours of fun challenging trail-riding. The area has tons of potential but it does not get used enough-we have old trails that did not get used enough and are now too overgrown.

[edit] Trail Map

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