Complete hike details, photos, and video on our Wawayanda page.
We decided to wander around Wawayanda on a fine September day – pleasant and in the mid 70s. As usual, we just slung together a route as we went.
12 miles – terrain is easy to moderate; distance challenging. Plenty of options for smaller loops here. Wawayanda terrain is less rocky and pretty level (most are old woods roads), and quite pleasant compared to what’s usual in North Jersey.
It’s also a very pretty park, and the trails are full of mountain laurel and rhododendron (come in May/June for their blooms, a lot along Pumphouse and Double Pond trails).
Notes: Google Maps and our GPS program show several of the trails here as drivable roads… they aren’t. It’s allowed on part of Cherry Ridge but you really want one of the main lots. Wawayanda charges a entrance fee Memorial – Labor day; which is covered by the NJ State Park Pass.
Route: Starting from the parking lot just inside the park… Hoerferlin (BLUE) north – Woods Road – AT (WHITE) – Iron Mountain (BLUE diamond on white) – Pumphouse (ORANGE) – Cherry Ridge Road (WHITE zig-zag on BLACK) – RED DOT – Double Pond (YELLOW) – Hoeferlin (BLUE)
Complete hike details, photos, and video on our Stairway to Heaven page.
Gorgeous and diverse section of the Appalachian Trail through northern NJ….
Hike first on boardwalks through marshy areas and over the Pochuck Suspension Bridge, then through hardwood forest, tall fields of wildflowers, over train tracks, a cow pasture (watch for cow pies!) and a boulder field.
All of this before steeply climbing up Wawayanda mountain on the “Stairway to Heaven” – lots of stone steps up switchbacks – to one of the best viewpoints in NJ: Pinwheel Vista. You can see the Kittatinny Mountains in the distance, farms in the valley below, and on a clear day, High Point Monument is visible. Read more…
For detailed hike directions, maps, photos and GPS coordinates, visit our Terrace Pond page.
4.8 miles - moderately challenging/challenging. Scrambling involved.
YELLOW (Terrace Pond South) – RED (Terrace Pond Red) – WHITE (Terrace Pond Circular) – BLUE (Terrace Pond North)
This is just a pretty trail, one of the best in Jersey really. A nice variation between easy, pleasant forest walking and rocky scrambling areas, a lot of nice trail packed into 5 miles. The weather was absolute perfect hiking temp, partly sunny with a nice breeze… and somehow there was hardly anyone on the trail.
In fact, we saw no one until we arrived at the Pond, and then passed a handful of people heading to the Pond on the Blue trail on our way back. This is a popular trail, too, so don’t go here expecting solitude… not sure where everyone was. In front of the TV for opening day of football perhaps?
Wildlife spotted… 3 deer, tons of frogs, couple of those adorable orange salamanders… and a snake…
For detailed hike directions, maps, photos and GPS coordinates, visit our Best Hikes in NJ – Wawayanda State Park – Old Coal page.
11 miles, mostly easy surface. Wawayanda’s trails are mostly level, woods roads. Really just pleasant, easy hiking in a beautiful park.
Wildlife spotted: A bear along “Sitting Bear” trail — how cliché… He was gleefully tearing into a dead tree looking for buggy snacks, well off the trail. We stopped cold in our tracks, looking around for mama. He was a young bear, but thankfully not a cub with mom in tow.
We had been making noise as we hiked so he was aware of us; and he couldn’t have cared less we were there, was too engrossed in snack time. We decided to continue past, keeping an eye on him.
At one point, he stood up and hugged a standing tree stump and started tearing into that… amazing to see, yet a little unnerving to see the raw power as he shook and clawed the dead tree.
(For detailed hike directions, maps, photos, video, and GPS coordinates, visit our Terrace Pond North page)
About 5.4 miles round trip. This trail is part of Wawayanda State Park in the Bearfort Ridge area in Hewitt NJ, and is not the more popular route to Terrace Pond. This is an alternate route that appears to be little used.
We were actually going to hike Bearfort Ridge trail to Surprise Lake, but a few minutes into the hike we ran into a large male black bear on the trail. On the few occasions we’ve ever seen bear while hiking, they run fast the other way. Not this guy.
He slowly meandered around… toward us. We retreated down the trail to decide whether to do the loop in the opposite direction, but the Quail Trail ran quite close to where the bear was headed anyway.
We made some loud noises to see if he’d wander off. Instead, it sounded like he was coming towards us… almost like we had just called him over! Very unusual behavior.
We opted to play it safe and went to a trailhead for Terrace Pond down the road a little bit. That trail head is across the road and headed south… away from the bear. We’d never done the trail so we figured we’d check it out.
We ran into a local who told us there are 3 bears that hang out near the houses by the trailhead and go through their garbage. This must have been one of them, which explains why he wasn’t afraid of us and didn’t run off.
Complete hike details, photos, and video on our Wawayanda page.
