Scouting a hike in Ramapo

I corralled two friends into going out to Ramapo Valley Reservation on Saturday to scout a hike I'm leading in April. The sense we had was that the hike I had planned was too ambitious for the day, especially given that the hike has a late start - the only bus leaves the city at 10:15 a.m., but we needed to test that out.



Our first finding was that it really was a very pretty hike. Beyond the waterfall, MacMillan Reservoir is quite nice, as was Glasmere Pond.



We went up to Potake Pond, the state line, and Shepherd Lake - all very nice, but at that point we were in full agreement that the hike was indeed too long. We wouldn't make it back to the bus on time - there are two, but the second one is so long after dark that we wouldn't want to be stumbling around in the woods at that point.



Our hike was about 18 miles and 2,000 feet of elevation gain.

This area (Ramapo Reservation, Ringwood State Park - all on NY/NJ Trail Conference map 115) is poorly served by buses. The 197 bus runs frequently but its stops are several miles from the park. If you don't have a car and don't want to do a massive mileage day, there are parts that are hard to reach.