Meadowood Park

Meadowood Park, Mendham, NJ (10/1/2011)

We weren't sure we'd get a hike in this weekend, being very limited on time and given the fact that rain was in the forecast for the morning. But when we woke up it was clear and the weather radar didn't show any rain for hours. So back to Mendham we headed for a quick little hike basically across the street (sort of) from the short hike we did last weekend. We headed for Meadowood Park, the site of the old Nature Lover's Club of Ralston, New Jersey in the 1930s (you can read a bit of the history in the caption for the second photo in the collection below). The land was aquired by Mendham in 1970 and has been open for mostly hiking since then. It has about two miles of trails, but the white loop has a fair amount of climbing, and is no walk in the woods. At one point it parallels the lovely Burnett Brook (the same brook we paralleled last week).

Using this map, we parked at the parking area 1.3 miles north of Route 24 in Mendham, which is good to know since there is no sign until you make the turn! We did the white loop in the clock-wise direction. Additionally we decided to explore the paved trail up to the open field, clearly the site of many of the old cabins, since we counted at least four fireplace chimneys still standing. We also headed west from the parking area up another paved road (only a tiny part of which is shown on the map). At the end was a parking area for, presumably, municipal trucks. Total distance hiked today was about 2.1 miles in 90 minutes.

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