ABOUT THE PARK:
DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 40.33039, -74.13979
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| One of many parking lots, crazy busy on a nice weekend later in the day. |
TRAIL MAP:
HIKE DISTANCE: 9.6 miles
THE HIKE:
I generally avoid popular parks like this because they get so crowded but with arriving around 7 AM and sticking to dirt trails (90% of the people will be on the paved trail) I managed to not run into too many other people. LOTS of dog walkers so it can be really annoying having to constantly manage a reactive dog. On the up side, there are only a few hunting days which had already happened and I needed a no hunting option closer to home on a Saturday so this was it.
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| Starting off by looping around the Woodland Trail and Misty Walk which start to the left of the picnic shelter. |
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| Coming off of the Woodland Trail, straight would be back to the parking lot but an unmarked trail to the left leads past the picnic shelter ... |
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| ... to the Reservoir Loop on the left. I would be making this into a longer loop by combining it with the Marlu Trail. |
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| Swimming River Reservoir |
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| The Reservoir Loop turns left at the Marlu Lake parking lot. We would be returning that way later but for now, straight ... |
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| ... to the Marlu Trail. That actually goes to the right but to the left is another trail closer to the lake. |
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| It connects back to the Marlu Trail so that is the way we went. |
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| Marlu Lake |
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| Back on the Marlu Trail ... |
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| ... along the edges of fields. |
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| When the Marlu Trail meets up with the paved trail, left ... |
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| ... over the bridge. |
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| Just the other side of the bridge, left on the Reservoir Loop. |
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| Crossing over the paved trail staying with the Reservoir Loop. It also turns left here back to that parking lot but we'd be doing that later. |
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| Balloon #4 of 2022. |
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| Balloon #5 of 2022. |
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| The Reservoir Trail, according to the map, turns right before hitting the paved path. I did not see the turn but this is the way I wanted to go anyway. Right on the paved path a short distance... |
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| ... then right before the bridge to retrace the section we had done previously when we had come off of the bridge from the other direction. |
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| I am glad we came this way again because I took an unmarked side path down to the lake which turned out to be a really nice and scenic path along the lake for quite a while ... |
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| ... before coming back out on the Reservoir Loop. |
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| Now back at the paved trail turning left towards the Marlu Lake parking lot. |
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| Just before the parking lot, right on the Reservoir Loop to retrace all the way back. |
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| Where there were only a handful of cars in the lot at 7 AM, it was now completely packed. |
Hi Daniela -- what a beautiful day yesterday, and a perfect day for a Monmouth County hike! (Not quite in my neck of the woods, but I constantly come up to Monmouth County to hike in one or more of their excellent parks...and Thompson is never a bad choice!) Hopefully, I'll get to hike there with a couple of friends from Toms River, as they rave about that park as well. Looks like they put some additional blue trail markers (on the white circles) on the Woodland and Reservoir Loop trails -- that always helps. (One criticism I have of the Monmouth County Parks is that the trails can be hard to follow due to less-than-descriptive trail markers, meaning that they can be sparse at times.) I know they pretty much follow the skiing-like levels of difficulty instead of individual colors, but having the trail name spelled out also helps greatly!
ReplyDeleteI've been on all the trails you were on, but one thing I haven't done is connecting back to the Reservoir Loop after completing the Marlu Trail (as it joins with the Thompson Loop [paved] trail.) (I'm mostly talking about that cool bridge-to-Boardwalk section which I have never seen there before...unless it's new.)
Great that you picked up those balloons, too...always an ugly sight at an otherwise beautiful park. Anyway, another great post, and I look forward to your next hike!
Jim
It was such a teaser of a day, wasn't it? Yesterday in the 60's, today snow. I know that bridge wasn't there when I was there last and it has been quite a while. I googled it and found it was due to be finished Spring 2012 so wow, it has already been there 10 years. https://www.visitmonmouth.com/Documents/130/411_New%20TrailBridgesNotice_nov11.pdf
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