Trail Conditions - Winter 2010/2011

[njHiking.com]

Post trail/park conditions for New Jersey (as well as PA/NY) here.

Include the date, park, conditions (how much snow/ice, is it slushy, melted away...) and a trail photo if you have one.

Sharing this info helps other hikers decide if they should make the sometimes long drive to a trailhead, as winter conditions can vary greatly between different areas.

Winter hiking tips and snowfall depth resources can be found on our Winter Hiking page.

[Brom Vermeulen]

 Wednesday, 12/15. I hiked the Highlands Trail from Ryker Lake to Mt Stockholm today ( #30 in my NJ1k Quest). The trail was in great shape, for the most part, but a few sections were solid ice. The picture was taken near Rock Ledge Road, where I started bushwhacking to the summit. You can get around the ice without too much trouble.  I believe the car is a late 60s Firebird convertible; needs a little work!

[njHiking.com]

12/31/10 - Delaware Raritan Canal State Park. Parked at Rocky Hill (lot was cleared), and headed south. About 4-5" inches of wet snow on the ground, plenty of footprints and ski tracks to follow. I used my YakTrax, but they were not really needed as the snow was slushy and pretty grippy.

The towpath is easy and level (we usually bike and not hike here, but thought checking it out in the snow would be fun... it was). The canal was frozen over, and we saw a deer and only 1 other person. With the warm weather today and forecasted for New Years, this snow won't be around long.

 

 

[Brom Vermeulen]

Although it's probably completely different by now, these were conditions on the Rattlesnake Swamp Trail and the AT near Catfish Mtn. on New Years Eve.3-4 inches of snow, no traction aids needed.

[njHiking.com]

1/1/11 - Cheesequake State Park. 5-6" of trampled wet snow, high in areas after the Green trail splits from the Red... now after the warm temps and rain... probably down to an inch or 2 of slushy snow, or less.

[Daniela Wagstaff]

1/1/11 - Pocono Environmental Education Center, Delaware Water Gap NRA, PA
I would say the snow there is probably all gone by now.  When I started at 8 am on 1/1/11, snow depth varied between 1-2 inches, 3 inches tops, with a lot of icy spots.  Microspikes worked very well.  By 2 pm I would say 50% of the snow had melted or was slushy where I had started in the morning.  On the drive out from about Sparta, NJ (Route 15) on, there were entire fields with no snow cover.  More pictures here.

[Daniela Wagstaff]

1/3/2011 - Harriman State Park/Lake Skannatati
Harriman has a little bit of everything right now.  Goes from no snow at all to ice to occasional knee deep drifts.  I'd say average snow depth is 3-4 inches where there has not been a lot of foot traffic.  From the warm temperatures over the weekend the snow had melted down, compacted and refrozen so you pretty much walk on top of the snow now.  Definitely need microspikes but the trails can be hiked.  More pictures here.

[njHiking.com]

1/16/11 - Cheesequake State Park. Still a decent amount of snow on the ground here, ranging from 3-6"+. The trail was pretty trampled but the snow was fluffy, not icy. I used microspikes which just makes winter hiking a breeze, but you could manage without traction aids. We saw people on snowshoes and skis as well.

Beautiful sunny morning, but still on the chilly side - and especially cold near the lake.

[njHiking.com]

1/22/11 - Wharton State Forest, Batsto. South Jersey has little or no snow on the ground in this area, but trails that have seen decent foot traffic can have packed snow on them... which is how The White Trail was - hard-packed snow/ice onabout 40% of the route, in patches going from dirt to snow and back.

While fine to do the trail without traction aids, I tossed on the microspikes after about a mile of sliding on a couple of icy spots. It seemed silly to have them on the dirt sections, but was nice to not have to gingerly walk over the icy sections.

[Daniela Wagstaff]

About 20 miles farther south at Estell Manor Park on 1/23/11just a couple of patches of hard-packed snow/ice, maybe 5%.  More pictures here.

njHiking.com said:

1/22/11 - Wharton State Forest, Batsto. South Jersey has little or no snow on the ground in this area, but trails that have seen decent foot traffic can have packed snow on them... which is how The White Trail was - hard-packed snow/ice onabout 40% of the route, in patches going from dirt to snow and back.

While fine to do the trail without traction aids, I tossed on the microspikes after about a mile of sliding on a couple of icy spots. It seemed silly to have them on the dirt sections, but was nice to not have to gingerly walk over the icy sections.

[Daniela Wagstaff]

Cheesequake State Park - 1/26/11
Lots and lots of snow, sometimes knee deep.  The red and green trails were semi-compacted, the yellow trail had a little bit of foot traffic at the first branch, no foot traffic at all where it loops around and joins back up with the red/green/blue.   I followed the blue trail where there was only one set of snowshoe tracks - it was treacherous and I wasn't even sinking much deeper than the snowshoe tracks.  Red/green were definitely easier.  There are several broken off trees across the trails and lots of trees bowed over from the weight of the snow.  Had to really pay attention on the steps on the trails because I could not see them and putting my foot in the wrong place meant sliding down between the steps.  It was obvious it had happened to others before.  Bypassing the steps was hard because the snow was too deep.

[njHiking.com]

1/30/11 - Monmouth Battlefield State Park. We decided to take our snowshoes out for a spin, and found about 14-15" or so of snow on the trails here. The trails had a mix of snowshoe, ski and some foot traffic... but without snowshoes or x-country skis, I think you'd tire pretty quickly stomping thru rather deep snow - the boot prints we saw sunk about 10-12" down. The sun was out and started making the snow wet and less powdery.

We turned off the main route onto the yellow trail, which was unbroken. Then we just kind of wandered around across fields and such. Lots of tracks there as well as vast areas of unbroken snow.

Main trail, snow is deeper than it looks here:

[njHiking.com]

2/6/11 - Turkey Swamp County Park, Freehold. Still roughly 5-6" of snow on the ground, but with the temps in the "balmy" upper 30s and the sun out, the snow became really wet. Our plan was to get in a quick 5 or 6 miles by doing the perimeter of the park.

It looked like it would have been hard packed and we had opted for traction aids instead of snowshoes but we ended up cutting the hike short because sinking into wet snow was getting annoying.  Thought about heading back to the car for snowshoes, but I think the snow would have just stuck to them.

Regardless, it was nice to get out in the sunshine.