Ramapo Mountain State Forest, NJ

ABOUT THE PARK: NJ Division of Parks and Forestry / Van Slyke Castle

TRAIL MAP:
NY/NJ Trail Conference North Jersey Trails Map 115 / no maps at park
Online brochure from the NY/NY Trail Conference

PARKING DIRECTIONS: I-287 to exit 57; north on Skyline Drive briefly; turn left into parking lot.

DISTANCE: 7.5, 10 or 12 miles

HIKE DIRECTIONS:
I started to hike here several years ago and it was so crowded I left and went elsewhere. Thought I'd give it another shot. I arrived at 7 am and there were already 10 cars in the lot that holds about 30 cars. (When I finished at 1:30, the lot was full and cars were hovering waiting for spots to open up.) The blue trail leads from the parking lot to Ramapo Lake and it was already Grand Central Station at 7 am. But rest assured, once you reach the lake and head out on hiking trails, you do leave all of that behind. Only ran into a handful of mountain bikers on the trails. The busiest part of the park is the lake and the blue trail from the parking lot to the lake.

Trails are well-marked, intersections are not so watch carefully for turns.
Follow the blue-blazed trail from the parking lot.
This trail eventually joins with the yellow-blazed trail.
Stay on the blue/yellow-blazed trail.
At .6 miles turn left on the yellow-blazed trail crossing the dam.

At .8 mile turn left on the yellow/red blazed trail.

At 2.2 miles continue left on the yellow-blazed trail.
Views of Ramapo Lake from the yellow-blazed trail.

At 2.5 miles, turn right on the red-blazed Cannonball trail (white C on red circle)
At 2.75 miles, turn left on the red-blazed Indian Rock trail (white square with red triangle)
At 3 miles keep right at the fork (not marked) stepping over a log, turn right on the orange-blazed Wanaque Ridge trail a short distance ahead.
Along the Wanaque Ridge trail, views of the Wanaque Reservoir.


At 6 miles, turn right on the blue-blazed trail.
At 6.25 miles turn left on the blue-blazed/red-blazed Cannonball trail.
At 6.5 miles: For a 7.5 mile hike, stay on the blue-blazed trail for about a mile back to the parking lot, for 10 or 12 mile hikes, turn left on the red-blazed Cannonball trail briefly then left on the white-blazed Castle Point trail.

Great views of the New York City skyline, Ramapo Lake and Wanaque Reservoir just before Van Slyke Castle.



The castle ruins are very interesting and there are little side trails for wandering around and exploring but if you have a dog with you be careful - lots of broken glass on the ground.




At 7.7 miles turn right on the paved access road which is the red-blazed Cannonball trail.
The red-blazed trail leaves and rejoins the access road a few times along the way before turning right off of the road for the last time and continuing on switchbacks.
At 8.75 miles keep straight on the gravel road (not marked).
At 9 miles: For the 10 mile hike turn left on blue to arrive at parking lot in 1 mile or to continue for the 12 mile hike, turn right on the red-blazed Cannonball trail (white C on red circle) to Ramapo Lake staying on the trail (gravel road) around the lake.


At 10 miles leave the red-blazed trail turning left on an unmarked woods road. Follow this road to continue around the other side of the lake back to the dam.
At 11.2 miles, after crossing the dam, turn right on the blue/yellow blazed trail, staying on the blue-blazed trail back to the parking lot.

LITTER REPORT:
In addition to the random can here, water bottle there, a large amount of litter was on the grounds of the Van Slyke castle. I had a large bag with me and even though I did not want to ruin the rest of my hike lugging that much garbage around, I could not in all good conscience leave it there so it was packed out.
Before:

After:

The total haul before being divvied up between trash and recycling:

Black Rock Forest, NY

ABOUT THE PARK:
Black Rock Forest - Black Rock Forest Consortium

TRAIL MAP:
NY/NJ Trail Conference West Hudson Trails Map #113
Online Map (not recommended - NY/NJ Trail Conference map is much better)
No maps at the park - ran into two different hikers who were lost because they had no map!

PARKING DIRECTIONS:
New York Thruway (I-87) to exit 16; Route 17 West; Route 32 North; right on Smith Clove Road; right on Mine Hill Road to parking on right


HIKE DIRECTIONS:
This hike is 10.5 miles long and is longer version of the NY/NJ Trail Conference 6.5 mile Sutherland Pond/Scenic Trail/Eagle Cliff Loop which also incorporates Rattlesnake Hill, Hill of Pines and Black Rock.

Parking lot only has space for 3 cars so I suggest getting there early:

Trailhead is across the street from the parking area:


(Several trails are blazed yellow but are distinguished by the shape.)
Head uphill on the yellow diamond-blazed Mine Hill trail.

View from the yellow diamond-blazed trail:


At the intersection, turn right on the yellow circle-blazed Sackett trail.
At .6 miles turn left on the yellow square-blazed Stillman trail.
At 1 mile turn continue on the yellow square/blue blazed trail.
At 1.2 miles turn right on the blue/teal blazed trail.
At 1.3 miles turn left on the white-blazed trail.

View of Sutherland Pond from Split Rock on the white-blazed trail:


At 1.8 miles turn right on an unmarked woods road with Sutherland Pond on your left.
At 2.2 miles turn left on the blue/teal-blazed trail briefly before turning left on the yellow square-blazed Arthur trail and crossing a boardwalk.


At 2.5 miles keep left on the white-blazed Scenic trail.
At 3 miles turn right on the blue-blazed trail a short distance to the end marked on a large rock. Go around to the right of this rock for panoramic views at Eagle Rock:


New York City skyline in the distance from Eagle Rock:


Leaving Eagle Rock turn right on the red-blazed trail briefly then left on the yellow square-blazed trail.
At 3.5 miles turn right on the white-blazed Scenic trail.
At 3.7 miles turn left on the blue-blazed trail for a short distance to Spy Rock. The views aren't great but worth the short trip for historic value as this was a lookout post during the Revolutionary War.

View from Spy Rock:


Retrace your steps and continue left on the white-blazed trail, which you will be on for the next 3 miles.

View from Rattlesnake Hill:


View from Hill of Pines:


At 7 miles turn left on the yellow square/teal blazed Stillman Trail.

Arrive at Black Rock with views of the Hudson at around 8 miles:


At 8.5 miles turn right on the yellow circle-blazed Sackett Trail.
At 10 miles turn right on the yellow diamond-blazed Mine Hill Trail back to the parking area.

LITTER REPORT:
The only place we found litter was at Eagle Rock. This litter was particularly awful. There were two Capri Sun containers and a soda can. This leads me to believe two children were brought up to Eagle Rock to see the beautiful views, given their snacks and were taught that part of this wonderful outdoor experience is to leave your garbage behind. So sad.

Douthat State Park, VA - Middle Mountain/Douthat Lake

DISTANCE: 8.5 miles

TRAILHEAD:
From the cabins, drive down to the main road, turn right, then left into the Lakeside Campground parking lot. (I opted to drive this short distance since I needed my car to swing by the park office afterwards but it can easily be walked from the cabins.)


DIRECTIONS:
It had rained overnight and in the morning the skies alternated between looking quite dark and ominous, then breaking up with areas of blue sky and sunshine, then back to dark clouds. Went ahead with the hike and got spritzed on briefly a few times, but nothing that required donning rain gear. The views were obstructed by fog but that in itself was quite pretty. It was horribly humid but we made it up the mountain anyway.

From the parking lot, walk on the road towards the campground.


At the campground, keep to the right, turning right on the orange-blazed Salt Stump trail.


You will be coming up on several intersections and although there are plenty of signs, I found it to be a little too much information making it somewhat confusing, so I'll try to clarify for this hike.


At .9 miles keep left on the orange-blazed Salt Stump trail at the intersection.
At 1 mile keep left on the orange-blazed Salt Stump trail at the next intersection.
At 1.1 miles keep right on the orange-blazed Salt Stump trail at the intersection.
At 1.3 miles, keep left on the orange-blazed Salt Stump trail at the intersection with the blue/yellow blazed Brown Hollow trail which goes to the right.
At 1.9 miles keep right on the orange-blazed Salt Stump trail where the yellow-blazed Pine Tree trail goes to the left.

At higher elevations on the Salt Stump trail there will be views but these were not clear on this particular day due to the fog.



At 3.2 miles you will finally reach the top of Middle Mountain where you turn left on the light blue-blazed Middle Mountain trail. This runs along the ridge, I believe actually inside George Washington National Forest, with the Douthat State Park boundary to the left.

The elevation along this section of the Middle Mountain trail reaches 3,125 feet.

At 4.5 miles turn left on the blue-blazed Blue Suck Falls trail. I did not see a sign here so you need to watch for the turn. It is a sharp turn to the left that starts to go downhill.

Keep left on the blue-blazed Blue Suck Falls trail passing the yellow-blazed Tuscarora trail on the right.

At 6.4 miles turn left on the yellow-blazed Pine Tree trail.

At 7 miles, turn right on the orange-blazed Middle Hollow trail.


At 7.5 miles keep straight on the orange-blazed Middle Hollow trail where the white-blazed Laurel View trail crosses, heading towards Douthat Lake.


At 8 miles reach Douthat Lake and turn left on the blue-blazed Heron Run trail.



Continue through the campground and along the road reaching the parking lot at 8.5 miles.

Douthat State Park, VA - Beards Mountain/George Washington National Forest

DISTANCE: 13 miles (8 miles without George Washington National Forest)

TRAILHEAD: If staying in a cabin, simply walk uphill on the road towards the Guest Lodge where you will find the Guest Lodge trailhead at the top of the road.

DIRECTIONS:
A couple of things I wanted to do on this trip - hit the trail at the crack of dawn since I could practically walk out the cabin door onto a trail, and hike a bit into George Washington National Forest.

Head up the blue-blazed Guest Lodge trail. (My pedometer registered .2 miles here, the distance from the cabin to the trailhead, which is included in all of the distances.)
At 1 mile turn left on the yellow-blazed Mountain Top trail.

At 1.4 miles arrive at a scenic overlook of Douthat Lake. In this picture the sun was rising over Beards Mountain behind me but had not climbed high enough to light up Douthat Lake. The mountain ahead is where Hike 1 took place.


At 2 miles, turn left at an unmarked connector trail to reach George Washington National Forest. The log you see to the left is a step up for the unmarked trail. The yellow-blazed Mountain Top trail continues to the right. The unmarked trail is overgrown and hard to see at times but veer to the right going uphill and you will run into the light blue-blazed trail in George Washington National Forest at the top of the incline.


A note about George Washington National Forest: I can't speak for the entire forest since this is the only part I saw but the trails were terribly overgrown. They seem to be staked out for restoration and according to a mountain biker I ran into the following day, the trails are in very bad shape everywhere, he had checked into it and was told restoration was to take place with stimulus money received. Aside from that, according to the topo maps, I had thought the trail would be along the ridge of Beards Mountain. It was actually somewhat lower so there were no views at all until an overlook was reached over 2 miles out.

At this point I turned back around and backtracked to Douthat State Park where the trail are much better maintained and much more scenic. So in my opinion, you won't miss much by skipping that part George Washington National Forest. It wasn't awful, just not what I had expected. Subtract 5 miles from distances below if omitting GWNF.

At 6.4 miles reach the Douthat State Park boundry and follow the unmarked trail downhill, meeting back up with and turning left on the yellow-blazed Mountain Top trail.


A view to the east from the yellow-blazed Mountain Top trail:


At 8.2 miles turn right on the blue-blazed Buck Hollow trail.
At 9.3 miles turn left on the blue-blazed spur trail to an overlook of Douthat Lake.


If you have a dog along, this is what your dog might look like 2 days and 21 miles later...

She was OK, had a little power nap and we were off and running again. We both found this to be a very nice (and surprisingly less buggy) spot for a break.

Retrace your steps back to left on the blue-blazed Buck Hollow trail.
At 10.6 miles turn right on the white-blazed Wilson Creek trail.
At 11.5 miles turn right on the orange-blazed Ross Camp trail. You can turn left here, go a short distance, then turn right on the road and walk a much shorter distance along the road back to the cabins. We went right and took the longer, more scenic route.
At 12.2 miles turn left on the blue-blazed Guest Lodge trail.
At 13 miles, arrive back at cabin.