Ringwood State Park, NJ - Five Ponds Loop and Bear Swamp Lake

ABOUT THE PARK: 

Ringwood State Park - NJ Department of Environmental Protection

 

DIRECTIONS: 

GPS Coordinates 41.11915, -74.23845

Parking Lot C

TRAIL MAP: 

North Jersey Trails Map 115 - NYNJ Trail Conference

Five Ponds Loop Trail Map - NYNJ Trail Conference

PEAK BAGGING: 

Mount Defiance

Ilgenstein Rock

 

HIKE DISTANCE:  10.6 miles

The Five Ponds Loop only is 5 miles

 

THE HIKE: 

Start at the kiosk in Parking Lot C to go in a clockwise direction.

Swan Pond

After two days of rain there were lots of puddles and streams on the trails.

Side trail on the left leads to an overlook.

After retracing from the overlook and continuing on pink for a short distance, we detoured left on red to summit Mount Defiance since we were so close.

There is actually a faint trail that leads to the left to ...

... the summit of Mount Defiance.

Having retraced on red, left on pink to continue the loop.

The little red efts are out and about.

Glasmere Pond

Weyble Pond

Pink joins the white trail for a bit.

Couldn't get these - too high up in a tree.

Pink continues to the right but we went left towards Bear Swamp Lake but would be returning to this point to continue the pink Five Ponds Loop later in the hike.

On an unmarked woods road.

The Gaia app showed a short trail which would cut off a significant amount of woods road walking so we gave it a shot.

Brodie's trusty nose actually kept us on the trail even though it no longer exists.

It was a very short distance until we reached the white trail where we turned left then immediately right on blue.  I would have to remember this intersection for picking up that defunct trail on the way back.

From blue we turned right on the Bear Swamp Trail.  This trail is not shown on my 2009 map but it is on the 2017 map yet the trail appears to be very unused and was flooded out in many areas due to the recent rain.  Surprisingly I was always able to rock hop without having to ford through the puddles.

Red ends at yellow where we turned right ...

... then left on blue to circle around the far side of Bear Swamp Lake.

Blue starts out very rocky and rugged ...

... then becomes a gravel, sometimes paved, road.

At the far end of Bear Swamp Lake, over the dam for ...

... basically the only view of the lake when leaves are on the trees.

Left on the Cannonball Trail heading towards Ilgenstein Rock.

Right on white.

Coming up on the Ilgenstein Rock overlook.

Views of the New York City skyline.

Bear Swamp Lake down below where we had just been.

Napping

There is one thing that wakes him up immediately.

Continuing on white/yellow ...

... with a short bushwhack to the left for the actual summit of Ilgenstein Rock.

Staying on white to the intersection where we had come from the old trail before turning on blue.

You would never know it was there if you didn't have a track to follow.

And/or Brodie's nose.  I actually found an old while metal marker on a tree along the way but it had almost been completely devoured by the tree.  Just a little corner was sticking out.

Coming back out on that unmarked woods road where we turned left ...

... then left back on to the pink Five Ponds Loop.

The trail through the grass to Brushwood Pond was too overgrown to navigate through ...

... so we skirted around to the left where there was another opportunity to catch a view of the pond.

The only few seconds of sunshine during the hike.  Of course it was blue skies and sunny on the drive home.

Gatun Pond

Pink joins in with white again for a bit before leaving.

It wasn't until the last half mile that we ran into other hikers.  Turns out the man way up head is the NYNJ Trail Conference volunteer who designed and maintains the Five Ponds Trail.  We happened to catch up with each other and chatted all the way back to the parking lot.

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