ABOUT THE PARK:
Black Rock Forest - Black Rock Forest Consortium
DIRECTIONS:
NOTE: There is no longer any parking allowed along Mineral Springs Road.
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| Parking on Old Mineral Springs Road - CLOSED - as of March 2020 parking here is not allowed. |
TRAIL MAP:
West Hudson Trails Map 113 - New York New Jersey Trail Conference
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HIKE DISTANCE: 9.1 miles
THE HIKE:
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| Highlands Trail/Scenic Trail from Old Mineral Springs Road. |
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| The trail starts out as a wide woods road. |
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| Just a short distance in, waterfalls. |
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| The trail continues up parallel to the waterfalls. |
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| Nearing the top, a quieter Mineral Spring Brook. |
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| Rock hop over Mineral Spring Brook. |
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| Lots of saplings at the top. |
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| Off to the right the sign says "Blueberry Overlook - not a connecting trail - marked but not mapped." |
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| It's not a very long trail. |
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| It comes out at a clearing where the markers stop ... |
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| ... and there are a few cairns to the left ... |
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| ... but not much in the way of views. Maybe when the leaves are down. |
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| Continuing on to ... |
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| Jupiter's Boulder |
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| Much better views here ... |
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| ... but the Gunks and Catskills are under early morning low clouds so we'll have to stop again later in the day on our way out. |
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| At a T-intersection the Highlands Trail goes left, the Scenic Trail goes right; we turned right. |
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| The Scenic Trail leaves the woods road to the left. |
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| It's a rugged trail along a swamp in this section. |
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| At a T-intersection, white turns left joining the yellow Arthur Trail which is the way I was going to go but ... |
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| ... Brodie tried crossing and those boards went right under so we turned right on yellow instead. |
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| Yellow ends at Jim's Pond Road where we turned left. |
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| Jim's Pond Road |
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| Jim's Pond |
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| Looking back at Jim's Pond. |
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| Jim's Pond Road continues on then veers left ... |
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| ... on Continental Road |
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| A left at the Chatfield Stone House on Chatfield Road. |
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| Stillman memorial at the intersection. |
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| Chatfield Road to ... |
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| Tammarack Pond |
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| A belted kingfisher on that little island out in the pond. |
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| A little farther along Chatfield Road, a left on the blue Chatfield Trail. |
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| The trail comes out on an open rock slab ... |
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| ... with some views. |
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| At the end of the Chatfield Trail, right on the Scenic Trail... |
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| ... then right on a different section of the Arthur Trail. |
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| At the end of the Arthur Trail, left on the Highlands Trail ... |
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| ...then right at the fork when the white Scenic Trail joins in. |
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| Now retracing on the Highlands Trail/Scenic Trail. |
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| An open rock slab to the right ... |
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| ... with a helicopter ... |
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| ... a red-tailed hawk ... |
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| ... and a turkey vulture. |
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| Then back to Jupiter's Boulder ... |
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| ... where the low clouds are gone and the Gunks and Catskills are visible. |
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| Heading back down. |
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| The top of the falls before descending .... |
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| ... to the large falls. |
Beautiful pictures of a beautiful area. Thanks for sharing! Joanne from Denville
ReplyDeleteDid you run into many people on this one? It looks like it has potential to be a dog-friendly hike for us, but we try not to take the dog anywhere there are crowds...
ReplyDeleteI started at about 7:30 AM and saw absolutely nobody until the last mile. Ran into one hiker, a couple with a dog at the waterfalls and two women coming up just as I was almost back at the car and I think that was around 2:30 PM. There were 4 cars parked there including mine. I have found that the eastern side is pretty crowded and was pleasantly surprised to have mostly had this southwestern side to myself.
DeleteExcellent! Thank you for the info :) We're adding this one to our list :)
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