NjHiking.com's Blog (187)

On a whim we decided to revisit Baldpate Mountain on Memorial Day Weekend, as it had been over 2 years since we first checked it out (see "Baldpate Mountain – Ted Stiles Preserve" post) and we were looking for something under an hour…

The great thing about keeping a Trail Blog is being able to track info about your hikes – but the downside is that it underscores how quickly time passes.

I was sure we were just at Pyramid until I noticed that the last entry for it was over a year ago - and that was for the 
Butler…

We'd just been to Morristown National Park last fall and did the Grand Loop at Jockey Hollow, but is was not long after Snowtober had made a mess of hiking trails around the state and we wanted to hit the park in the Spring.

We really enjoy the Grand Loop and…

We decided to head over to the Black River Park in Chester as we hadn't been for about a year and a half, and that was during the fall so we wanted to head over in spring.

We parked at the Cooper Mill lot and took the Black River trail. A common turnaround spot is the intersection of Bamboo Brook Trail with Conifer Pass, but we kept on going as the…

Sometimes you get so familiar with a place that areas go overlooked.

I was flipping through 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: New York City, yet again, but this time a spot on their Cheesequake hike map caught my eye - "Steamboat Landing".

Part of the allure of Cheesequake for us is that we can go without having to plan a route or look at the map and…

We've added several pages of South Jersey hikes... an area that often gets overshadowed by north Jersey's rugged hiking.

For hike details, photos and some video check out....

Double Trouble State Park

Easy, sandy trails through pine barrens and around cranberry bogs with views of Cedar Creek and Mill Pond Reservoir.…

This is the first time we'd gotten around to checking out Bass River State Forest. We'd always headed to the other Pine Barrens area parks instead, mainly because I'd never had much info on the trails here.

It doesn't appear in any of our hiking books other than a mention in the New Jersey Walk Bookof some short trails, and I'd never…

Headed to Harriman again on yet another unseasonably warm February day. This time is was to Pine Meadow Lake from Kakiat County Park.

This route takes in several view points - along Mountain, SMB and Raccoon Brook Hill trails. Pine Meadow Lake was a lovely break spot as usual and we also decided to take a woods road over to see Lake…

Oh Harriman, we adore your wacky place names: Almost Perpendicular, Elbow Brush, Claudius Smith Den... and this moderate to difficult hike takes in all three. [Harriman Trails: A Guide and Historyis a great source for the origin of place names and park history, along with description and mileage charts of every trail in the…

The Woods of Wenonah is a U-shaped wooded area that surrounds the town of Wenonah. It has several short trails, with access paths that lead off into neighborhoods. It's not remote by any means, as houses are visible along most of the route. It's a nice little park though, and we felt the Comey's Lake area was the prettiest part.

If you are in the South…

Trails here are super easy - flat, level, packed sand typical of Jersey's Pine Barrens. This park is more of a 'hey let's go for a walk or have a picnic" kinda park and not a remote hiking destination but it's worth a visit. A big highlight of this park is the long section of boardwalk called the Pine Swamp Trail.

The trails are not really blazed, there are…

For our annual New Years Day hike we ended up at Mahlon Dickerson Reservation. Many people had the same idea, whether it was to take advantage of the unusually mild (low-50s) winter day or maybe getting an early start on a New Years resolution to exercise more.

We chose Mahlon because we wanted a moderate loop that we'd mostly done before so we didn't…

We took a little time off around the holidays so of course we needed to get some hikes in. Since it was a weekday we wanted a park that was no-hunting (though it is closed a few days in December) plus we didn't feel like driving far so we decided to hit up Hartshorne Woods Park in Middletown.

It was also forecast to be very cold (like in the mid-30s…

Between the busy holidays and all the mild-weather hiking days, we've gotten a little behind on our hike write-ups!!

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South Mountain Reservation - Hemlock Falls - 12/22/11

With mild weather in the forecast for Jersey – in the mid-50′s in December! – we had to go hiking. Sometimes, you just need to ditch things and go for a…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…