The trails at Tamarack Hollow Preserve are relatively new and I’d read about their creation a few years ago.
Since there are only a little over 2 miles of marked trails here, we’d just never gotten around to checking them out.
For detailed hike directions visit our main Tamarack Hollow Preserve page.
Miles: 2.2
Route: WHITE (Tamarack) – BLUE (Fresh Ponds) – WHITE (Tamarack) to just before its end at the power line cut – ORANGE (Hidden Holly) – WHITE (Tamarack)
While out-and-about this weekend we managed to get in a short hike on the Green Trail at Cheesequake S.P. on Saturday, and another brief hike in at Tamarack Hollow Preserve in East Brunswick on Sunday.
There are three blazed trails: Fresh Ponds Spur (.3), Hidden Holly (.6), and Tamarack (1.0). There are some other unmarked trails we did not check out.
By traveling the perimeter and doing an out-and-back on Fresh Ponds we were able to get a 2.2 mile hike in.
For the most part, the easy trails are mostly wide, flat, and likely old existing trails that have now been blazed.
Hidden Holly was more of a forest trail that possibly was created for the Preserve.
Fresh Ponds Spur is an out-and-back that leads to Fresh Pond Road:
The trails were mostly well blazed with a few unclear spots: Along Tamarack (WHITE) in an area of several downed and cut-up trees and multiple Private Property signs in view of a house, it is unclear which trail to take – curve to the right to continue on Tamarack (WHITE).
Later along Tamarack there is no ORANGE blaze for the turn we took onto Hidden Holly – if you end up at the power line, you missed it and just need to backtrack a bit to spot it.
Though certainly not something to drive far to get too, this was an easy local leg-stretcher of a hike that seemed to have a decent amount of birds, including at least one hawk that kept flying nearby.