Chenango County High Point Trip Report

Date: September 17, 2000
Author: David Galvin

I will spare the gentle reader with my own idiosyncratic and, frankly, ridiculously circuitous drive to these high points. It is best, instead, to take I-88 to the Bainbridge exit, from which you get onto Route 206 heading south. In about three miles you will reach Bennettsville. Here you will make a left onto the East Afton Road. There is a road sign at the intersection. Take this road about four miles south to where Clark Road (also called McMullen Road about a quarter mile east in Delaware County) intersects it. The first Chenango County high point will be about a quarter mile NW of the intersection. I went to a mobile home about an eighth of a mile north of the intersection and on the west side of the road. It had a newly dug pond in front of it and some extensive landscaping. When I asked if I could climb the hill the owner, who seemed to know that I was a highpointer, said, "Sure. Take the road by the house; it goes right up the hill. Have fun."

The road, more of an ATV trail, heads up and west to another trail going north and south along the hill's contour. Taking this trail a couple hundred feet south lead me to a hunter's tree stand on my right. The height of land was just to the west of the tree stand in open woods. All this land is private property.

To reach the other two Chenango high points, continue on East Afton Road past Clark Road a short way to a fork. Take the right fork, Sherman Hill Road. This gravel road becomes Hunt Road after making a sharp right in about a half mile. About two miles from East Afton Road you will notice a State Forest sign on the left, right past a driveway with a cable across it. I parked by this sign and found an old woods road running about NNE on the opposite side of the road. I followed this though somewhat cluttered third growth woods to some small but typical Catskill Delta sandstone ledges, where the road faded away. The two high points are among the undulations on the top of this hill and are rather hard to discern. I wandered about above the 2000' contour looking for small variations in the topography and my altimeter as I stumbled over dead falls, slowdowns and healthy hardwood sapling. I am pretty sure I got them both. This area is all on New York State Forest land, so access is not a problem.