Daniela Wagstaff's Blog – December 2011 Archive (3)

I usually avoid Ringwood State Park because of the firing range smack in the middle of the hiking trails - listening to incessant gunfire is not my idea of a relaxing day in the woods.  But I figured Christmas Day might be a good option.   Even though the firing range's web site says they are always open, I seriously doubted anyone but me would be there on Christmas Day and I was right.  It was just me, my dog, a ton of birds and a bear.  I would have never seen the bear had he not taken a…

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,…

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  There is an online map from 2006 but it is outdated and it took me a while to figure it out.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…