Day Hike: West Essex Trail

Also check out our West Essex Trail & Abandoned Overbrook Insane Asylum Hike 

from December 2012 here

After Saturday's kayaking adventure through the freshwater Kearny Marsh, Steve and I were planning on enjoying a lazy, video-game and pizza-filled Sunday. Plans quickly changed when my father and I were sipping coffee Sunday morning and discussing all the neat trails in Northern NJ. He was interested in going hiking for the first time in a long time.

It doesn't take much for me to want to grab our gear and head out, and so we all went to the West Essex Trail- our first time all hiking together, and our first time hiking this particular trail. We parked in Verona by the highschool and began what we estimated to be about a 6 mile trek through easy-moderate terrain. What an awesome hike! I hadn't looked into this trail previously so didn't know what to expect.

Realizing we have Fig Newtons in our teeth

Crisis averted.

It started off easy, and pretty much in the backyards of local residents. It was so easy at first that I left my Gandalf-inspired walking stick behind to keep my hands warm in my pockets (this turned out to be a big mistake). 

"Youuuu shalll not paaaasssss"

After crossing 3 streets and a footbridge we came to a crossroads: continue straight on what looked to be more of the same easy, flat, leaf-covered path, or venture upwards to our right, to the treed and rocky hills of the unknown.

We of course choose the unknown. We hiked past a stream and the remains of a small campfire to a very suitable Lunch Rock where we ate sandwiches and chips (not our usual hiking fare, but Dad was in charge of lunch, so potato chips were a given).

We went farther into the woods and saw TWO deer! One was pretty close, and the other was way off in the distance, but still- we saw deer. I'm not entirely sure what it is about coming upon a deer in the woods that makes us so awestruck and giddy, but it really is a special sighting.

See?!?!?!

We hiked along, being careful on the wet rocks and root-ridden path, and decided to turn around once we came up to the Ridge Road crossing. On our way back, Dad was deemed TrailMaster and so Steve and I stopped paying attention to where we were going and just enjoyed the scenery. After about 5 minutes I realized that we hadn't passed a trail marker in awhile. "Yeah," Dad said, "I haven't seen one of those in a looong time. I'm running on instinct!"

The TrailMaster, relieved of his duties

After almost 10 minutes of face-palming and retracing our steps, we made it back to the yellow trail and  trekked the long walk back to the high school. What was so "easy" in the beginning was a lot more difficult after hours of hiking. Once I sat down in the car I wasn't so sure I'd be able to get out once home.

Lesson Learned: Always pay attention to your surroundings! If it had been later in the day and we didn't account for time spent being disoriented, we could have very easily been lost in the darkening hours. Without a flashlight (Lesson Learned #2) we could have been up a creek, pun intended. We should have learned not to put Dad in charge after learning from a family corn maze experience a month ago (this story involves my father leaving the group and walking around the corn maze alone, with no flashlight on, finally escaping the maze an hour and a half after we did. This is where I get it from)

Victorious and dapper at Lunch Rock

On our way home we stopped by the Eagle Rock Reservation, standing at the 9/11 memorial and looking out over The City. Then we somehow got lost in Newark and what felt like 15 hours later, made it home in one piece.

Here are some more photos from our West Essex Trail hike:

"This is an adventure! Anyone can just take 280." 

-My father, still running on instinct as we are 

trapped/lost in Newark