Saturday, August 12, 2023

Long Pond Ironworks State Park, NJ - Jungle Habitat 2

ABOUT THE PARK: 
Jungle Habitat Trail Revitalization Project Begins - New York New Jersey Trail Conference

DIRECTIONS: 
GPS Coordinates 41.130102, -74.340938
Large, brand new parking lot.

TRAIL MAP: 
Because this is still a work in progress, might be a good idea to check for updated maps.  I hiked the trail around the parking lot shown as orange but it is currently blazed with old gray markers.


HIKE DISTANCE:  6.2 miles (The track shows 6.5 miles because there was a hiccup in the track recording that went back and forth in a straight line adding .3 miles.)

THE HIKE: 
I labeled this hike as "Jungle Habitat 2" because there are more trails I need to explore and it is the perfect place for me to hike a little over a week after chemo when I have started to get my energy back.  There are dirt and paved trails of various difficulty levels so it's easy to choose which ones work at any given time.  
We started straight beyond the yellow gate on the old road to the huge parking lot.
Just a small view of the very large parking lot.
We turned right then accessed the trail to the right before the full sun caught up with us in the wide open parking lot.  I am supposed to avoid being in full sunlight.
The gray trail that is shown in orange on the map.  It's one of those squiggly mountain bike trails that tend to annoy hikers but I did not mind.  It just felt good to be on a dirt trail.  I only tolerate the paved trail in my local park for my daily walks to build back up to hiking.  Give me dirt any day!
The trail squiggles around the entire parking lot.
An old animal enclosure (otters?) from Jungle Habitat days past.
Not until after circling the parking lot did I start to see orange markers.   This trail is shown as yellow on the map.
Touching on a yellow blazed trail before continuing on an unmarked trail.
A few partial views along the ridge.
Back on orange (yellow on the map).
Red all the way back to the parking lot.
Although the parking lot was quite busy when we finished we hardly ran into anyone until the end of the hike.