Spotting a bear while hiking the Beaver Brook Trail.
The main feature of this hike is Lost Lake and it’s beaver lodge/dam. Right at the start is pretty Saffin Pond.
10.7 miles. easy to moderate trail surface, mix of woods road and more rugged trail in the Mahlon Dickerson Reservation, Morris County.
ROUTE: Highland Connector (BLK Diamond on TEAL Diamond) to Highlands (Teal) to Beaver Brook (White) out-and-back.
For detailed hike directions visit our main Beaver Brook to Lost Lake page.
Great early-fall weather, upper 60s and cloudy. The lot had a lot of cars but once away from a few people at the pond we passed one hiker couple the whole day.
Saffin Pond along the Highlands Trail:
Other than the pond and the lake, there aren’t fantastic views along the trail, it’s just pleasant hiking – nothing real fancy.
It’s also nice if you want to do a long hike, but turning around at Lost Lake makes a nice day out too.
Beaver Brook Trail.
Split Rock near Lost Lake.
Lost Lake is damned on the right by beavers.
Crossing Beaver Brook.
The Beaver Brook Trail becomes more rugged after Lost Lake.
We did see a very large black bear – this is the fourth time spotting a bear this year – which is more than we’ve seen total in all the rest of our years hiking.
We hiking along a hilly ridge of sorts, about a mile from our turnaround point when we heard noises on our left that seemed like things were falling.
We’d been hearing acorns clunk around us all day, but the noise was more than a small animal or deer would make rustling through the woods.
The brush and trees down the little valley to our left were dense so we couldn’t see well as we hiked along, then I turned back slightly at one point and saw him – we almost walked by.
We were surprised to see a bear up in a tree, in plain view, grabbing acorns or berries or something.
Large black bear spotted in a tree in a valley below us:
We looked around for other bears and saw/heard nothing else.
He was occupied with his snacks, plus he was up in a tree and down a valley thick with brush and far enough away that we had a moment – so we quickly took some video and photos while he was in the tree.
As soon as he started meandering down the tree we got moving out of there.
We just turned around at that point – no sense in pushing on to the end of the trail and risking getting the bear between us and our route out.
The rest of the hike was uneventful, though we did spot a small woodpecker by Lost Lake on the way back.
A few years ago (2006*), we hiked to the lake via the other parking lot and a pileated woodpecker flew by us on the trail on our way back.
That was the first and only time we’ve seen one and it is such a large, striking-looking bird I was hoping to luck out again.
I think I can “settle” for the bear hanging out in a tree, though.
(*Edit 5/2020: Looked up the GPS data out of curiosity to add a date… a “few years” is now a million years ago. No Trail Blog entry.)