We've hiked in Ringwood several times in the past, and nearly every time we visit this beautiful park we hike at least some portion of Mount Defiance. This is because the
mountain runs north to south through the entire park, with nice views mostly west. Today we decided to hit some of the vistas that we hadn't visited since 2006. So we parked
in Parking Lot Pc, at the northern end of a beautiful tree-lined road (which you can see in the first photo) either Skylands Road or Honeysuckle Lane (it's not clear on the
maps).
We took a woods road east to the Crossover trail which we took north to the Halifax. We climbed to the ridge of Defiance on this trail and then continued north along the ride on the Ringwood-Ramapo trail. At a powerline cut we headed east a hundred yards and made a right on the blue-blazed Skylands Trail. I don't remember this trail being there any of the previous times we visited. It seems new, with its shiny new wands and painted blue triangle blazes. And it winds and winds and meanders and then winds more. In other words, it seems to have been created by JORBA for mountain biking. When you're on foot it's very easy to get confused as to which way to go, because you can see blazes from several twists of the trail no matter where you're standing. We took this south back to the Halifax, turning right on that trail and then going south on the Ringwood-Ramapo, and alternating with some woods roads, to the vista over the Wanaque Reservoir from "Warm Puppy Rock". We then headed north on the Crossover back to lot Pc. Spring is in the air, tomorrow being the first official day. Total distance hiked today was 5.3 miles in nearly 3.5 hours.
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Beautiful tree-lined entrance road |
"The Farm Relics Field" |
Woods road |
North on Crossover |
Ruins on Crossover |
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Runoff from Swan Pond |
Pussy willows! |
Laura and Swan Pond |
Crossing rocks |
Bicyclists on Crossover |
Well |
Gorgeous pines |
Continuing north on Crossover |
Halifax trailhead |
Climbing Defiance |
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Wanaque Reservoir |
Skylands Manor from Defiance ridge |
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Zoom in of Skylands Manor |
View west |
Climbing on R-R |
Small pond on ridge |
Partial view west |
Side view of Ringwood Manor |
Poor dead vole |
Apparently Rutgers is studying this tree |
The winding Skylands Trail |
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Water break |
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Peek-a-boo |
Quartz |
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View west through firs |
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Wanaque Reservoir |
[Photo by Laura] |
Zoom of Wanaque Reservoir |
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Skyland Manor |
Powerline cut through hills |
Curious glacial erratic |
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Abandoned nest [photo by Laura] |
View NW |
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Limited view west |
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View of Wanaque Reservoir ... |
... from graffiti-ridden ... |
... "Warm Puppy Rock" |
Crossover trail |
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Dilapidated building |
Looking in |
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