Fairview Farm Wildlife Preserve, NJ

ABOUT THE PARK:

Fairview Farm Wildlife Preserve - Raritan Headwaters

DIRECTIONS: 

GPS Coordinates 40.702334, -74.699583

Parking at Raritan Headwaters headquarters.

TRAIL MAP: 

Fairview Farm Walking Trails - Raritan Headwaters

For the most part the trails are very nicely maintained but there are a few problems, one trail in particular that should be taken off of the map.  The outer portions of orange and green trails have not been mowed and are overgrown but are passable.  The X portion of the yellow trail should no longer exist.  It is full of thorny overgrowth eventually becomes completely impassable.  Avoid that part of yellow.

HIKE DISTANCE:  5.6 miles (The track above is missing .7 miles that was mostly a retrace to get out of a severely overgrown section of the yellow trail back to the parking lot.)

THE HIKE: 

I had never heard of this place before and happened upon it when looking at Google Earth where I save all of my tracks.  I hadn't see it on any other maps.  It's a very nice place with nice trails until they aren't.  So just avoid the problem areas.

The kiosk is to the right of the parking but there are no trail markers.  We crossed over to the left ...

... on the mowed path to the left towards the pond.

Continuing on to the figure 8 red loops.

At the start of the loop we went right and returned from the left.

Note the post with the blue markers up ahead - this is not on the map but we would need it later.

Leaving the loops and retracing back to the pond.

Continuing on around the pond.

I wanted to do the orange loops before heading over to blue.

Linking over to the orange loop is a bit overgrown.

But it came out on to a mowed path section...

...before ending up back on the unmowed section.

Leaving orange to walk briefly left on the entrance road ...

... back on a orange section heading towards the pond.

Just before the pond, left then right towards blue.

Here we are at blue - the marker on the other side of the creek. 

... along with POSTED signs in the same area.  I was not at all sure which way to go.

I ended up backtracking to that blue marker off of red and approaching that way where it was more obvious where the trail is.  So you cross the creek to the right of the blue marker, then switchback left behind the marker and right up on to the ridge.  This runs right along the property line.

Back at the blue markers on red ...

... and turning left on blue to see where it comes out at that creek crossing.

Approaching this way there is a posted sign on the left, the blue marker to the right of that and the yellow preserve boundary marker on the right.

Now heading back to do blue in its entirety.

It follows the ridge up above the creek ...

... then becomes a mowed path ...

... with creek crossings ...

... and becomes a woods road.

We continued from blue straight on to green.

The far side of green is a bit overgrown but not too bad.

Back on the mowed path there are views of the Watchung mountains.

From green we turned left on yellow.  This starts out as a woods road ...

... then becomes a footpath ...

... then starts to become more and more overgrown with lots of thorny vines.

A lovely area of pines ...

... but I would not go any farther than that.  It just became a tangle of thorns.

We had no choice but to go back the way we came.

Coming back out on green.

A stop at the butterfly garden.

Back at the parking lot.