Waving Willie Trail



Waving Willie Trail, Allamuchy Mountain State Park (4/16/2017)

We haven't hiked in this park for nearly four years. Today we returned to do a trail named after a New Jerseyan named Willie. He used to sit on his plastic chair in front of his home on Route 206 in Byram Township and wave to the cars as they went by. Every car! Apparently he did this rain or shine, for decades, before finally passing away in late 2000 from a heart attack. He's a local legend, so of course a trail near his house would be named after him.

We used this JORBA map. Although the street names and parking areas for this trail are not indicated, look for the green-blazed trail in the NE corner of the map, west of Cranberry Lake. We parked at the southern terminus of the trail, in a pull-off big enough for 3-4 cars, on Cranberry Ledge Road. We headed west into the woods, immediately encountering a tricky creek crossing before eventually climbing and heading east all the way to the Sussex Branch rail trail at Route 206. Here we turned back. But instead of retracing the entire Waving Willie trail, we took a shortcut back to the southern leg. You can see it on the map just south of the 40 57' N line. This unmarked trail actually had a wooden bridge over the same creek that we initially encountered. They should move the bridge! It was a nice jaunt in the woods with many ups and downs, but nothing too strenuous.

Total distance hiked today was 5.8 miles in 3.5 hours.

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