Elk's Preserve & Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed
What a difference a month makes! Last month we hiked in well over a foot of snow in the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed. The going was slow and totally enervating. Today, a mere five weeks later, the ground was completely clear and spring was bursting out all over!

Once again we used this map, but this time we parked on Moores Mill-Mount Rose Road and hiked a sort-of lollipop, working in the beautiful 1.2-mile loop in Elks Preserve, a parcel of land administered by Friends of Hopewell Valley Open Space. We first headed north on the blue-blazed Watershed trail until we got to its northern end at Hopewell Pennington Road. At this point we turned back and retraced out steps to the T-intersection and then headed west, eventually entering the very pretty Elks Preserve and hiking the Elks Trail in a counter-clockwise direction. We then headed SW along an unmarked woods road which eventually winded back east through Skunk Cabbage Hollow before returning to the Watershed trail right near the parking lot.

Total distance hiked today was almost 5 miles in just over 3 hours.

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