ABOUT THE PARK:
Pequannock Watershed - City of Newark
Highlands Trail Guide - NYNJ Trail Conference
Bearfort Fire Tower - National Historic Lookout Register
PERMIT REQUIRED FOR HIKING IN THE PEQUANNOCK WATERSHED.
See THIS hike for permit details.
DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 41.106785, -74.434136
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| P4 Pullout Parking - room for about 4-5 cars. |
TRAIL MAP:
North Jersey Trails Map 116 - NYNJ Trail Conference
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PEAK BAGGING:
Bearfort Lookout - New Jersey 1K Club
HIKE DISTANCE: 8.75 miles
THE HIKE:
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| The Highlands Trail comes in from across Clinton Road joining in with the white-blazed Two Brooks Trail |
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| Broad-winged Hawk |
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| A rare find in the watershed ... |
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| ... a brand new footbridge. |
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| The end of the mountain laurel. See you next June. |
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| Second creek crossing on rock slabs. |
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| Right on yellow a little over a mile in. We would be returning from the left. |
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| Left on blue; yellow continues right to a parking lot. |
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| Ovenbird |
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| When blue ends, left on red/white. |
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| The red/white Tower Ridge Trail starts out as a woods road and later becomes a footpath. |
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| Hanks Pond barely visible through the trees. Views should be really nice when the leaves are down. |
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| A little bit of a view between the trees. |
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| There is Hanks Pond down below. |
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| Down in this depression blue joins in from the right ... |
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| ... then leaves to the left. It would shortcut back over to the Two Brooks Trail but we continued on to the fire tower. |
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| Coming up on the Bearfort Fire Tower. |
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| Although I could not see up that high I knew the fire tower was manned because I could hear the radio. |
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| Crossing directly in front of the fire tower, we picked up the Highlands Trail turning right. |
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| The Highlands Trail goes through a power cut where there are some views. |
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| A couple of sections descend very steeply. Because of rain the night before some of the steep rock slabs were as slippery as a sheet of ice so I had to sit and slide down. |
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| When the Highlands Trail crosses over a woods road, left on the woods road. |
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| A short distance in the blue/white marker of the Hanks West Trail. |
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| This remains a woods road... |
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| ... all the way to the end ... |
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| ... where we turned left on Stephens Road. Stephens Road goes uphill where almost at the top ... |
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| ... we turned left at the yellow gate. There are no blazes at first but this is what is shown as the yellow blazed trail on the map. |
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| The open gate confirmed that the fire tower was manned. |
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| A yellow blaze but there were also orange and purple blazes. |
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| The end of the woods road runs smack into the Highlands Trail where the fire tower is on the left. |
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| We turned right on the combined yellow/Highlands Trail. |
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| It was in this section that we encountered two hikers with a dog, the only ones seen during the entire hike. |
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| When yellow continues straight, right on the white Two Brooks Trail/Highlands Trail to retrace that section. |
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| There was no such sign when we came from the opposite direction. At least the water was low. |
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| This would be that difficult stream crossing. With low water the only difficulty was slimy rock slabs, wet from rain the night before. |
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| Coming back up on Clinton Road. |
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| I was surprised to see two other cars at the end of the hike. That's a lot for a watershed hike. All cars had watershed permits displayed so everyone was hiking there legally. |
