Hiking Wildcat Ridge and the Farny Highlands.
8.7 Miles. Basic north Jersey trail, less rocky though. Nice challenging trail, not a lot to look at while hiking, but passed a bat cave, an old cemetery, and a hawk watch and turned around at a reservoir.
For detailed hike directions and photos visit our main Best Hikes in NJ – Four Birds Trail page.
Parking: Exit 37 from Route 80 to Green Pond Rd (513), right onto Lower Hibernia Road. Small lot is on left as you turn in, no facilities. There are two gas stations as you get onto 513, the one on the left has bathrooms (and a mountain dew vending machine) and the one on the right appeared closed.
Route: Not far from the lot is a split, take the right up to check out the bat cave then you can backtrack or cut thru to pick up the WHITE trail. (there is also a woods road which is less interesting and more direct).
The cemetery is on the right, not right on the trail and we missed it on the way there – saw it on the way back while on the woods road. WHITE follows around and crosses the road then heads southeast.
A junction with yellow would take you to Graffiti Rock but we headed northeast, still on white, to the Hawkwatch area. Several people were counting the hawk migration there, did not see too many though.
Continued on WHITE, eventually making it to Split Rock Reservoir. Walked .5 miles over the bridge to the boat launch area where there was a composting toilet.
The reservoir is a nice spot to have a break/snack. Went back to WHITE and followed to RED to Beaver Pond, which was not very scenic. Continued RED and ended up at a parking lot. Supposedly there are bathrooms, we did not look for them.
Took the YELLOW connector trail which was barely visible and very very hard to follow, overgrown and was nearly bushwhacking. Ended up at another parking lot and opted for the woods road because it was becoming a long day.
Saw the cemetery on the way back, old, overgrown and creepy, graves in the 1800’s. Trails are confusing at spots, we ended up back on WHITE instead of one of the roads.