ABOUT THE PARK:
Jenny Jump State Forest - New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates to Lake Just-It Parking 40.86669, -74.96914
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| Lake Just-It Parking Lot |
TRAIL MAPS:
Jenny Jump State Forest Trail Map - New York New Jersey Trail Conference
Jenny Jump State Forest - New Jersey DEP (Note that the Mountain Lake trail is now dark blue, no longer yellow as shown on this map although there are a few remaining yellow blazes.)
HIKE DISTANCE: 8 miles
THE HIKE:
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| The blue-blazed Jenny Jump Trail cuts through the parking lot on the woods road to the left. The path to the right leads to... |
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| Lake Just-It |
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| North on the Jenny Jump Trail. |
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| It was pretty horrifying to see many decomposing deer carcasses thrown off the side of the trail in the power cut. No pictures of that - can't get that image out of my mind as it is. |
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| The Jenny Jump Trail leaves the woods road as a much more enjoyable foot path. |
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| Climbing up. |
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| Some winter views at the top. |
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| Those volunteers work so hard building stone steps ... |
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| ... and she bypasses every one that she can. She never has been fond of steps. |
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| In order to make this hike a loop (or figure 8, rather), there needs to be some road walking. Coming up on Hissim Road. |
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| The trail continues on the other side of the road but here is where we turn left on the road. |
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| Pullout parking as another parking option. I was going to start here but where to park was not clear driving by and I decided this was too high up anyway which would have involved climbing at the end of the hike so I continued on to the next parking area. |
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| Road walking. |
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| Delaware Water Gap views from Hissim Road. |
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| At the stop sign, left on Lake Just-It Road. |
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| Crossing that same power cut as before. |
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| After the power cut watch for the end of the guardrail because the blazes are not visible going in this direction. |
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| Make a hard right to switchback down from the road. The trail continues as a road walk on Lake Just-It Road but we'll be back for that after this loop. |
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| A very pretty mossy area with a swamp to the right. And what is that over there off to the left a little bit ahead? |
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| Could it be? |
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| Yes indeed, I scored yet another balloon for my collection. I would think someone is planting them for me to find but even I did not know I was doing this hike until the evening before. |
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| At this intersection we continued right on light blue. Dark blue (yellow on the park map) leaves to the left and that will be our return route. |
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| Climbing up to some more winter views. |
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| Mountain Lake barely visible down below to the left. |
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| Descending to the lake. |
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| The trail ends at Mountain Lake Road, turn left then keep left at the fork at the Mountain Lake sign. |
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| Road walk towards the lake. |
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| Mountain Lake |
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| Just past this spring house (?)... |
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| The formerly yellow, now dark blue Mountain Lake Trail leaves the road to the left just before ... |
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| ... a parking area up head at the bend. |
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| The Mountain Lake Trail follows along Jenny Jump Brook. |
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| At the end, keep right on the light blue trail to retrace back to ... |
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| ... Lake Just-It Road. |
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| Turn left at this road ... |
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| ... then left at the fork ... |
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| Ducks in Just-It Lake |
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| ... back to the parking lot. |
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| Relaxing after a hard day of hiking. |
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| Out cold after a hard day of hiking. (Would have put a clean muddy paw towel down had I known she would use it as a pillow!) |
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| I should post a balloon update on occasion so you can better appreciate just how many helium balloons are in the woods. I started the collection on November 15, 2015. Since then, 10 hikes, 8 balloons. |
