ABOUT THE PARK:
Campgaw Mountain Reservation - Bergen County Parks
DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 41.051821, -74.191408
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| Parking Area Q - almost at the far end Park Drive away from the more heavily used parking areas. |
TRAIL MAP:
Campgaw Mountain Reservation - NYNJ Trail Conference (free map)
North Jersey Trails Map 115 - NYNJ Trail Conference
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HIKE DISTANCE: 9.25 miles
THE HIKE:
My intention was to hike trails I had not hiked back in December 2014 in addition to newer trails added since that time. I initially regretted my decision to hike here. At 7 AM there were already too many people and too many (MANY) off leash dogs. I dodged both through the more popular areas but once on the Backslope Trail there was nobody else around. Then later in the hike I found a whole network of trails not on the map and had that all to myself. It saved the day!
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| From this parking area you literally take two steps into the woods ... |
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| ... and turn left on the red trail. |
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| Red soon crosses over Park Drive. |
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| Passing through a power cut. |
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| At the end of red we turned left to loop around the pond on orange. |
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| Authorized personnel go into that? |
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| A baby! |
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| I really don't want to touch litter in this era of COVID so I treat it like poop when picking it up. |
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| Managed to wrangle another one into that same poop bag without touching it. I will never be able to wrap my head around the fact that so many people think this is OK. |
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| Coming out on the ski area parking lot where the trail turns right following the perimeter of the lot to ... |
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| ... the corner where there are no markers and where it is overgrown. |
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| Once through the overgrowth several downed trees block the way. |
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| Beyond all of that, the trail is clear the rest of the way up the mountain. |
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| Coming up on views at the top of the ski trails. |
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| Female house finch. |
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| Birds seem to enjoy hanging out on the ski lifts. |
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| Two male and one female American goldfinch. |
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| Eastern bluebird and barn swallow. |
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| Looping around over to the yellow Backslope Trail where we encountered nobody else. |
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| These two ... |
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| ... let us get very close before they took off. |
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| The first cistern. |
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| Second cistern. |
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| With nobody else around we took a break right on the trail. |
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| At the end of yellow back at the top of the mountain. |
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| Swinging by the overlook one more time while nobody was there. |
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| The birds were all gone but the barn swallows returned while I was standing there. |
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| Heading over to the newer silver-blazed trail via blue ... |
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| ... then red. |
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| After a very short distance on silver ... |
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| ... right on an unmarked woods road. |
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| This woods road is clear and easy to follow. I had intended to follow the loop around back to silver. |
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| We passed a couple of very distinct trails to the right. |
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| A bridge on the left where the loop of the woods road continues. |
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| But I decided to follow the path along the dry creek which would be very nice with water flowing. |
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| Some very faint paint blazes. |
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| A bridge! Instead of turning left over the bridge, we turned right on a trail to see where that would lead. From this point on none of these trails are on any map. |
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| Some green paint blazes along this trail. |
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| As I suspected, confirmed by the tire tracks, these are mountain bike trails. |
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| This trail crossed a creek at an old dam. This part is on the map and it looked like continuing would lead to Route 202 so I backtracked a bit then kept left on a different trail in hopes of connecting back to one of those two bridges. |
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| Indeed, we ended up about half way between those two bridges and turned right heading to the second one. |
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| Now left over this bridge where we had turned right previously. |
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| A marker, the only one I saw. |
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| There are several trails splitting of in this area but we headed to the left in search of that first bridge ... |
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| ... where we ended up coming in the opposite direction from where we had been previously. |
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| We backtracked a little then kept left staying with the remainder of the woods road loop we had started. This side of the woods road was not as well-defined as the first section. |
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| Old horse riding trails? |
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| The dashed like on the Gaia app is the silver trail and we were on course to meet back up with it. |
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| And here we are back on silver where we turned right. |
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| Passing by Mevo Farm. |
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| Back on red ... |
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| ... coming out right where I had parked. |
Those deer look docile. Today I encountered two bucks that stared me down. Not sure I would want to encounter them during rutting season. They already have big antlers. Luckily, I passed without incident. You stay safe out there!
ReplyDeleteHiking doesn't come without hazards and I have the scars to prove it. None from wild animals, though. I find staying upright to be more hazardous than wildlife :)
DeleteThank you for sharing your experience. I love taking my 10 month old German Shepherd dog on hikes. How do you deal with tick issues when hiking in more overgrown trails with your dog? My dog is on Bravecto but I still worry. Thanks
ReplyDeleteI use Simparica, which is similar, and rarely find ticks on Brodie. If there are any that I didn't see, they are dead in his bed the next day (that has only happened once this year) so it hasn't been an issue at all.
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