ABOUT THE PARKS:
Highlands Trail NJ 7 - New York New Jersey Trail Conference (This states the length of this section is 5.1 miles, to be updated, but the length is actually more like 8 miles.)
Voorhees State Park - New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
Union Furnace Nature Preserve - Hunterdon County Parks
Spruce Run Recreation Area - New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 40.693245, -74.894329
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| Group Picnic Area Parking |
TRAIL MAPS:
Voorhees State Park - New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
Union Furnace Nature Preserve - Hunterdon County Parks
Spruce Run Recreation Area - New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
HIKE DISTANCE: 12.3 miles
THE HIKE:
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| The teal diamond blazed Highlands Trail continues on the bridge. |
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| When I checked the weather before leaving the house it said 0% chance of rain and cloudy all day. It rained all the way there but fortunately stopped just as we started hiking. The cloudy part - that turned out to be wrong, too, which made for very hot hiking in the sun later on. |
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| A mushroom that matches Brodie's backpack. |
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| Following along the power cut to the left. There were tons of birds in this area but in the fog the camera just won't focus on them. |
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| It did focus on some thistle in the power cut. |
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| Turning into the power cut |
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| Got a little bit of this one. |
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| Now following along the power cut on the opposite side. |
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| Without fog I can never focus on brown birds like this veery. I suppose it takes fog for the camera to focus on them. |
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| A left on a park road briefly ... |
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| ... the right where the pink trail joins the Highlands Trail. |
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| As I was taking this picture of the point where Shawnee and I had left the Highlands Trail on the pink trail, I heard a very loud noise and turned to the left just in time to see ... |
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| ...this tree crashing down but it got hung up in some other trees. |
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| Continuing on the Highlands Trail. |
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| The Highlands Trail descends to Poplar Lane for a road walk of a little over 1 mile. |
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| Passing a property with a cute bird area. |
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| Left on Buffalo Hollow. |
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| There might be a view from this bridge but we'll have to wait for the return route since it's all fog this early. |
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| The bridge goes over railroad tracks. |
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| Coming up on Route 31. |
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| A feral cat who was not pleased to see Brodie walk by but he did not notice. |
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| Now a little bit of an icky road walk on Route 31. |
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| We went through Muller Toyota's lot to stay farther away from the road. |
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| There is a crosswalk at the traffic light but since it was early and there was a break in the traffic with no cars in sight, we crossed on over before the crosswalk but doing so later in the day would have been suicidal. |
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| At the traffic light, right on Van Syckles Road. |
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| Spruce Run Reservoir is on the left but that's for later - for now just after crossing the bridge ... |
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| ... right into Union Furnace Nature Preserve. There is parking for Spruce Run directly across Van Syckles Road from this park entrance. Starting the hike here leaving out Voorhees State Park would make the hike around 5.7 miles. |
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| A short distance in the trail forks left on a mill race. |
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| After leaving to the left, a sustained uphill climb through the woods. |
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| Some sun poking out of the fog. |
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| After reaching the top, the trail descends back down. |
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| I would expect there would be more views in the winter but this is all that can be seen of Spruce Run Reservoir in the summer. |
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| The trail ends in a residential area and turns left on Serpentine Drive. |
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| There are no blazes along this road, it just goes all the way to ... |
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| ... Van Syckles Road where the blazes pick back up for a left turn. |
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| It's just a short distance along Van Syckles Road before crossing over to Spruce Run Reservoir. |
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| At the end of the chain link fence, the trail turns right. |
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| At first it appears that the trail is flooded out but it isn't, it goes right and uphill into the woods. |
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| Not a whole lot of reservoir views yet. |
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| There are a couple of open stretches that are overgrown but they are short. |
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| Entering my favorite part of the entire hike ... |
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| ... a magical spruce forest. It is gorgeous and peaceful with pine needles to walk on. The pictures don't do it justice. |
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| At the park road (left goes to the boat launch) the trail turns right ... |
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| ... and follows the paved road for about 1/3 of a mile ... |
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| ... then turns left towards the picnic areas. |
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| Spruce Run Reservoir |
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| Picnic tables everywhere so we grabbed one for a break. |
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| Moving onward. |
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| The Highlands Trail follows the beach area on the walkway. Dogs are not allowed on the beach and I wasn't sure if that included the walkway or not so to play it safe ... |
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| ... we walked on the grass well away from the beach area. |
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| Meeting back up with the walkway at the other end of the beach. |
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| The walkway comes out at the main road where the Highlands trail turns left towards the park entrance where everyone (except us because we did not drive in) coming in has to pay an entrance fee. We crossed the park road instead and kept straight on the boat launch road. |
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| The road to the boat launch looks peaceful enough but this time of day it was not. The speed limit is 25 mph yet cars with boat trailers went zooming past us. It was not pleasant and I could not wait to get off of this road |
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| Meeting back up with the Highlands Trail where it turns right on the boat launch road (where we had turned left to the picnic areas earlier). And of course the sun was out the entire time with minimal shade. |
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| Finally, a left into the woods leaving that road behind. |
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| Now it's road walking on Van Syckles Road with considerably more traffic than when we were on this road earlier. Plus that hot, hot sun. We stopped in every little bit of shade for a break and a drink of water. |
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| Heading for the shade for a break. |
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| Passing by where we had entered Union Furnace Nature Preserve earlier. |
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| Crossing Route 31 at the crosswalk. |
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| More full sun but up ahead ... |
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| A spot of shade compliments of Muller Toyota. |
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| A right on Buffalo Hollow Road. |
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| Would there be a view now from that bridge over the railroad tracks? |
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| Yes! A nice view of Spruce Run Reservoir where we had just hiked from. |
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| Fortunately there was more shade than full sun now. |
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| A right on Poplar Road at the whimsical road signs. |
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| And a left back into Voorhees State Park at the gate. |
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| Hot and tired and it's all uphill. |
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| But when the break is over, Brodie is back up and on his way. |
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| Taking the pink Vista (or rather Vistaless) Trail back. |
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| Brodie sitting in one of George's thrones. |
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| Baby robins newly hatched overhead. |
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| At the end of pink, we turned left ... |
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| .. on red. |
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| At the end of red, straight towards group camping. I went this way because it was a more direct route back to the car. I know dogs are not allowed to camp but would it be OK to walk through? I figured nobody would be there so we would give it a shot. |
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| Not a soul around, |
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| Straight through to a connector trail which would take us to the blue Hill Acres Trail. |
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| On the blue trail, looking back at the connector trail. Yikes! In our defense, there was no such sign at the other end where we entered the campground. No harm done. Nobody was around and we had walked through quickly. |
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| Blue leads to the Highlands Trail where we were right back at the parking lot. |
