Ryker Lake

Ryker Lake, Sparta Mountain WMA (12/26/2011)

This is hike #9 ("Ryker Lake Circle") in the chapter "Starter Hikes" of the book Hiking the Jersey Highlands, but instead of circling the lake clockwise, we hiked it counterclockwise. We did this for a reason. Back on Independence Day of 2007 we attempted this hike but could not, despite backtracking over and over, find the path that connects the trail on the western bank to the trail on the eastern bank. So we ended up doing an out-and-back to the Edison Bog and back. Today we decided to do it in the opposite direction to see if we could find the connecting trail coming from the east. And this time it was much easier to find, but once the short stretch of woods road got to the swamp, the path disappeared into the water, making it impossible to continue. So we headed south just a bit and bushwhacked west through the swamp, stepping on little mounds of vegetation and rocks (some spaced quite a bit apart) before making it to the other side.

This is an unusually rugged area, something I didn't remember it being four years ago. It is an WMA, so the main uses here are hunting and fishing. So although the trail on the western bank is blazed, it's pretty much unmaintained, with lots of blow-downs from years worth of storms. The trail on the eastern bank, however, is the nicely blazed and maintained Highlands Trail.

Total distance hiked today was 2.7 miles in some very rugged terrain, and with an interesting swamp crossing, in just under 2 hours.

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