All Blog Posts (324)

This park is on the newer Jersey Highlands Trails map but there is also a map on the township web site and a free map on the NY/NJ Trail Conference site.  Parking lot coordinates: 40.971152,…

Like my life isn't busy enough without trying to wedge out more computer time to search and research hikes, I figure since I don't Facebook, Tweet, or whatever other venues are out there to share whether I purchased a new broom or sneezed that day, I decided to combine a little of two of my favorite things:  writing and writing about hiking.

If anyone is interested or even if you're not but just want to placate this old hiker, check it out.  Be warned: I don't do short writing.…

After a few weekend obligations and my nagging cold kept us from getting in any hikes other than a couple jaunts at Cheesequake, we were happy to get back out this weekend.

Since we were dog-sitting in south Jersey we took advantage of having lodging only about a half hour from Belleplain.

This park is in the Pine Barrens... so it's all endless pine and Atlantic white cedar – quite different from the north part of NJ. It's also flat as a pancake so the hiking is…

This past weekend was too good to pass up making the most of both days.  Sunday we drove up to Sterling Forest (leaving before dawn to get the most of the shorter daylight hours). 

We'd never been to Sterling before so a stop at the excellently-staffed and extremely helpful Visitors'  Center was well worth the extra time. We were also most grateful for the personal highlights as well as precautions for the various trails from one of the park's rangers accentuated by the Center's…

If you look at the upper right corner of the North Jersey Trails Map 116, there is a little park just over the NY state line called Cascade Lake Park.  Apparently it is a newer park that not much has been done with until fairly recently.  There is an online map from 2006 but it is outdated and it took me a while to figure it out.  Turns out the map shows woods roads that are blazed sporadically with old, faded blazes.  I could not find a few of the trails but that could have been due to poor…

This hike will put you into scenic view overload as you cross hilltop meadows with views of the rolling hills of Pennsylvania all around.  But beware - those rolling hills will give you quite a workout.  This hike involves several fairly steep up and down stretches.  There are some building complexes on the horizon that you need to turn a blind eye to and apparently there is a shooting range nearby that you will need to tune out but for the views, it is well worth doing this hike.  This…

We were looking for a hike that was relatively nearby and not too long, as we were going to be out late the night before. Thompson Park  was on our list of 'short hikes to check out'.

I'd always thought this park was just a take-a-stroll, play-some-soccer kind of park until I stumbled upon it's trail map online. The longest trail on the park map listed was the…

Headed a little south to try to eek out just a little more fall foliage and I did find some of the last of it.  I hadn't actually intended to hike Ted Stiles Preserve in conjunction with Washington Crossing State Park but there appeared to be a connection so I took both maps along just in case.  Once I got to that possible connection point and saw how easy it was to hop from one over to the other I thought, what the heck, and continued on.  Turned out to be a 14 mile hike total.

It's…

We ended up at Morristown National Park for Veteran's Day Weekend, hiking Jockey Hollow and a bit into the adjacent Lewis Morris Park. It had been over two years since we'd done the…

The setting sun in the Pine Barrens should have been an ominous sign for me. Instead, the fading light on a beautiful fall day only accentuated the calm and beauty of the quiet woods around me. The chill of the coming evening invigorated me, pushing me onward into the waiting pines.

Little did I know that a scant hour later I would be lost and bleeding, running blindly…

Decided on Green Lane Park in southeastern Pennsylvania in an attempt to find some fall foliage, and it ended up being a good choice. While open areas like the highways on the way or around the water were past peak or had mostly leaf drop, in the forest on the trails themselves the leaves were gorgeous.

We'd never been to this park before, so we…

JORBA maintains multi-use trails south of the Manasquan River in Allaire State Park and their map is available online.  Although I read about trails north of the river, I could find no map online.  NJ DEP kindly sent me a copy and here is a scan of it.  What is nice about these trails is that loops can be formed with multi-use and hiking only trails, I…

We've created a NJ Hunting Season Calendar for Hikers.

This covers Nov 2011 - Feb 2012.

Basically we got tired of trying to sort through the Deer Regulation Sets for dates, and decided to just take all the dates listed across all the…

When we were last at Jenny Jump we nearly got carted off by swarms of mosquitoes. So when a windy Saturday was forecasted we thought it would be a prime time to go back and check out the Jenny Jump Trail (even a gentle breeze usually thwarts mosquitoes).



The first view on the map isn't much,…

Fall foliage in New Jersey usually starts in the northwest corner of the state in the Delaware Water Gap and along the Kittatinny Ridge, so on yet another nice fall day we headed out that way. The foliage was kind of a mixed bag still, but hiking Mt. Minsi is always nice. It was quite hazy but the views were still great.

Normally when we hike Minsi we just…

Lots-n-lots of views… but also lots of up-n-down on this route. We hadn’t done Wyanokie High Point in about two years so we headed back to Norvin Green (one of the most rugged parks in NJ, and one of our faves) on a really nice early Fall day.

Chikahoki Falls was gushing from the recent rain, but so were the trails… a few were so wet the water was actually…

Like many other Jersey hikers here, we're also in an "elevation-challenged" area which requires us to travel at least a good hour (preferably 1-1/2hrs.) to hike above sea level. :(  But that hasn't stopped us from ferreting out as many hikes as possible that afford some good elevation changes, views and some challenging trails, too, and are within an hour's drive time. 

Hartshorne Woods in…

Finally, a decent day off with no rain in the forecast... I really wanted to get out hiking since I have not been able to do much this summer. Now, living in South Jersey, there is no where to go with any kind of decent views, so I figured I would have to drive a little bit. I had decided to go to Baldpate Mountain outside of Trenton, with a side trip to Washingtons Crossing SP in NJ/PA. The ride took about 1 1/2 hours , which really wasn't bad and faster than I thought. There are very few…