Wyanokie High Point

Norvin Green State Forest
Wyanokie High Point

Distance: 3.92 miles
Durration: 2 hours, 30 minutes (with a lunch break at high point)
Elevation Min: 436ft
Elevation Max: 1026ft
Elevation Gain: 590ft (1330ft cumulative)

Maps: New York-New Jersey Trail Conference Map #115, and there's closer maps (but with no elevation contours) at http://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/parks/norvin.html.
Parking: Parking at the closed Weis Ecology Center. The center itself is closed but all trails are open. 150 Snake Den Rd, Ringwood, NJ 07456

Weather: Sunny, 80°F

It had finally stopped raining after days and days of nonstop precipitation, and whenever it wasn't raining the humidity was just plain soupy which was too brutal to go hiking in. During the week I work until noon so morning hikes are out of the question, so today was the perfect opportunity! I had done the hike to Wyanokie High Point before as an out-and-back with a few friends on the Hewitt-Butler trail, so I wanted to expand the hike to Carris Hill and Yoo-Hoo Point, but we ultimately had to turn around and just do the Wyanokie loop.

From the Weis Ecology center parking lot, the green trail begins right over the gate onto a gravel road and that follows to the High Lands Natural Pool, and the green trail continues left (where there are also outhouses if nature calls! The trail follows along the stream that feeds the natural pool, and spits out at a Kiosk where the green trail leaves and the blue Hewitt-Butler trail and yellow trail continue upwards. 

Past the gates on the gravel road...

 Leading to the Highlands Natural Pool! It's actually a really cool thing. It's kind of like a rectangular man-made lake, but a pool

 I have no idea what the L stood for, I think the W stood for Weis, but we were paying attention to the green markers.

 Whatever these trails are they haven't been on any maps in the past two years.

A fancy bridge crossing the creek that feeds the Natural Pool

And the kiosk! The first time I hiked this trail we followed blue to the high point and back, but this time we followed the blue/yellow until yellow broke off and we followed yellow.

Past the kiosk, the blue Hewitt-Butler trail and the yellow trail follow together until the yellow trail breaks off left which we followed. The yellow trail was calm and featureless slowly descending what we just climbed (and some more). We followed the yellow trail until an intersection that managed to thoroughly confuse us (I blame the map). What we should have done was turn right onto the red/teal (Highlands) trail, but we continued onto the yellow/red/Highlands trail for a while, until we started to follow an unmarked trail which led us to a very wet spot that we didn't want to cross since we weren't sure if we were on the trail we wanted to be on (we weren't). After some backtracking we got on the red/teal (Highlands) trail in the direction of Hi-Point (as per the sign) and then got off on the white trail on the left. 

The yellow/blue trail starts ascending immediately after the kiosk, but some spots are nicely laid out!

 The gateway arch in the middle of West Milford!

 This was a cool 15 feet of trail. It looks like it was carefully landscaped for when there's a lot of water.

 So this is where we went wrong. We thought there would be a clear white trail before we got to the red trail, so we followed yellow some more...

 And then this happened so we turned around.

This sign is also a reason why we didn't go this way- we knew we didn't want to go to high point just yet, but his led to the white trail.

 Which was hard to miss!

We followed the white trail for probably only 1/8th of it's length when we heard something- it was a bear scratching itself on a tree in front of us! It saw us the second we saw it, and we instantly froze. We both had a basic knowledge about bear safety, but we both didn't feel comfortably enough with what we knew to continue on the trail, so we turned around and backtracked to the red trail to the high point. This easily chopped our anticipated hike in half, but we figured it would be for the better to not tempt fate. After the hike we stopped back at the kiosk where there was a bear safety brochure that we read and took note in case this ever happened again. That being said, what a gorgeous animal!

Cody the bear! We wanted to get of his space so we got a fair distance away before I took a photo (I have a 30x zoom on my camera).

And back to the red trail. We were originally planning on taking the white trail all the way to its terminus and then turning right onto the yellow Carris Hill trail and follow that until the blue/teal (Highlands) trail, but instead we cut off a few miles and went right up which was brutally steep.

From there the red/teal trail goes right up to Wyanokie High Point. It's a very steep climb so we had to stop a couple times on the way up. We found our energy back when we started to see partial views of the Wanaque Reservoir which led right up to high point! The trail got tight and overgrown towards the very top, but that was very short lived. The top was gorgeous just as I had remembered it from last summer, but with some new graffiti that was pretty easy to pretend didn't exist. We spent about a half hour up there eating a snack and taking in the views. 

These nifty steps were all over the park. There were an incredible amount of blow downs after Sandy so they cut these into it!

 Some partial views on the way up!

This is where the trail got a little too close for comfort. Thankfully I had lunch on my mind to get me through no problem.

Saw this beauty at the top!

The gorgeous 360 degree views from Wyanokie High Point. The Wanaque Reservoir is the main feature in my opinion, but there are other mountains all around and on a clear day, NYC is visible (which is faintly pictured)!

Some of the new graffiti- we couldn't figure out the context behind this.

Classic "photo of our stuff at the top" photo!

The trail quickly falls down the rock into a very nice and easy trail that follows flat for a while giving more partial views until the trails begins to descend the mountain. The high point can get pretty crowded on summer weekends (I was surprised there was only one other couple when we got there), so what I've done in the past is get lunch at one of the smaller views for added privacy. After high point the trail divides to the red/teal (Highlands) trail, and then the blue Hewitt-Butler trail. We followed the blue trail back to the kiosk, and then back to the green trail to the car.

Turning around we saw this pointing to the trail to the top.

 From here we hopped onto the blue Hewitt-Butler trail back down the mountain to the kiosk.

Some views along the HB trail. It's one of my favorite trails in NJ!

 We saw these beasts from the second to last viewpoint!

 The last overlook is my second favorite (next to high point). Great spot for lunch!

 Tight squeeze before the big descent!

We saw these goofy things from the trail.

The hike itself was great! I just wish we got to do the whole thing. We could have followed the HB trail to Carris Hill then back, but I'm not the biggest fan of backtracking. I really want to go back and reattempt the original hike sometime (with now proper bare knowledge too!). 

Hike Summary:

     - Green trail out of the parking lot.

     - Green trail to kiosk that marks the start of the yellow/blue Hewitt-Butler trail

     - Follow yellow/blue until yellow turns left. Follow yellow.

     - Follow yellow and turn left onto red/teal (Highlands) trail towards high point. 

     - Climb steeply to the overlook, enjoy!

     - Follow red/teal down the rock, turn right onto blue Hewitt-Butler trail.

     - Follow blue trail down to kiosk, get on green trail back to car.

Additional info: This brochure is close to what was on the kiosk about bear safety. http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/pdf/bear/bearfacts_safetytips.pdf

Photography note: I've always had troubles getting good photos on trails in the woods, so I've been playing with now the white balance. It makes them easier to edit but they are very warm photos. Always experimenting and learning.