Black River County Park, Chester, NJ. 14.8 miles.
Warm and humid. Rt. 206N to 513 W. Park at Cooper Mill.There are bathrooms open when the Mill is, but also two Portas in the parking lot. Kiosks at Cooper, Kay, Bamboo & Willowbrook have nice maps.
BLUE trail along the river (very scenic, lots of people take this pleasant walk but don’t go very far) then to Kay Environmental center which doesn’t seem to have bathrooms outside and always seems closed so not sure if they are inside.
Have to walk along the road of Kay then cross and walk along a residential road to re-pick up BLUE (can take red instead and bypass Kay but it is harder and more hilly).
BLUE continues then follows Bamboo Brook to Lamerson Road. At this point, the trail becomes less maintained and has a LOT of sticker bushes to walk thru – long pants needed, we got scratched up.
We had a storm the day before and had to scramble thru a blown down tree. Eventually ended up at corn field that you walk around, then cross Longview road and meander thru some fields as well. Interesting mix of trail.
End up at Bamboo Brook Outdoor Center (follow signs to single bathroom inside).
From here the trail continues thru fields and over a river, to Willowwood Arboreum where we stopped for a snack.
There are bathrooms inside surely, but I opted for the porta in the parking lot which was the fanciest I’ve ever seen (flushing mechanism and foot pump operated sink).
We back tracked the same way, except opting for RED around Kay… much more challenging than we remembered. Heard four-wheelers in the are between Longview and Lamerson road, did not hear them in the morning.
Barely saw anyone all day, until we were within a mile of the car.
*Bonus – this park is mere minutes from the Wendy’s on 206.