Trail Review: Abram S Hewitt SF, Bearfort Ridge Loop, NJ

Last weekend my husband and I kicked off the hiking season with a great hike in Northern New Jersey. Who knew that Passaic County in NJ was so beautiful!? In the past couple of years Mr. B and I have become pretty avid hikers, and enjoy doing weekend long trips, and strenous hikes. This hike was a perfect way to kick off our season.

Now, even though hiking is a "keeping it young" activity, I have to admit that this hike reminded me a little of my age. I'm not old, but as I get OLDER I find that I'm not as confident of a hiker. I used to jump off rocks more and expect my knees to just catch me, but that's not really the case any more. I find myself being a lot more catious. This post however is not going to revolve around my complex with my age, it's about this awesome trail! I hope those of you who love to hike will really check out this great day hike!

The Abram S Hewitt SF, Beafort Ridge Loop is a trail I found online, and is approximately an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes outside of Manhattan. It's approximately 6.8 miles, and was supposed to take us around 3.5 hours to do, even though it took us more like 5 -6 hours. It's a loop trail with amazing views, lakes, streams, rock scrammbles, and is a ranked at a moderate level. We also came across some great camping spots that we're thinking of going back to some time this summer.

I thought this hike was just challenging enough for us and really had a lot to offer. Check out this view:



Our trail may have varied a bit from what others reviewed online, but we parked across the street from the Greenwood Lake Maria on Lakeside Road, just before the Welcome to New York Sign, and took the following route: blue - yellow - white - orange - yellow - blue. All of the trails were fairly well marked, however I found the orange trail was the least well marked of all the trails. Case in point we found this marker had fallen off it's tree and onto the ground:


Where yellow turns to white we came across Suprise Lake, which of course would have been a suprise had it not been pointed out in all of the reviews and named on the maps as such. It was however very pretty, and it was here that we discovered a very appealing camp site (alebit not for the month of April). From the lake we headed on the white trail to the summit of the mountain, up rock scrambles, towards that beautiful view pictured above. It was a gorgeous clear day and we could even see the Manhattan sky line way in the distance.



Overall, I would highly recommend this trail to anyone!! Here is where I originally found the information, http://www.localhikes.com/Hikes/Abram_s_Hewitt_SF_5602.asp.. Enjoy! SB