Four Birds Trail - 11/8/09

[njHiking.com]

Headed to the Farny Highlands to do a northern section of the Four Birds Trail that we hadn't done before. (Four Birds is 19 miles in length, one-way) This part of the trail is part of the Pequannock Watershed and requires a permit (altho the other 4 cars there didn't seem to have a parking sticker so not sure how much that is enforced).

There was significant leaf drop which totally obscured the trail. It was well-blazed but still hard to follow due to the leaves. A gentle uphill of about a mile led to a excellent viewpoint over Charlotteburg Reservoir, followed by an easy walk down a wide woods road along the ridge, with views the whole way.

We managed to TOTALLY miss a not-obvious-at-all turn off the woods road and had a pleasant but completely off-route romp before realizing it. We backtracked and located the turnoff.

The trail then drops steeply and goes through a nice forest that feels very secluded. We went to the end of Timber Brook Lake then retraced our route back. We had planned on continuing on to Split Rock but decided that after raking leaves the ENTIRE day before and having a decent uphill on the return trip... we better call it a day at about 7.25 miles.