Get the free Morris County Fall Bucket List
60+ of the best things to do across Morris County this fall. Apple picking, corn mazes, hayrides, fall festivals, haunted attractions and cider donuts. Straight to your inbox, free.
Morris County has more genuinely good hiking than its reputation suggests. There are balanced glacial boulders the size of a bus, a hawk watch with a view of the Manhattan skyline, iron mine shafts you can see from the trail, a hemlock gorge that feels nothing like New Jersey, and roughly 70 miles of connected regional trail running across five counties.
Here are the hikes worth your Saturday, with addresses, parking, what you actually see when you get there, and the dog rules, which vary a lot more than people expect.
Pyramid Mountain and Tripod Rock, Montville
472 Boonton Avenue, Montville Township. If you do one hike in Morris County, do this one.
The payoff is Tripod Rock, an enormous glacial erratic balanced on three smaller stones, left behind by the Wisconsin Glacier. Photos do not prepare you for the scale. The same trail network holds Bear Rock, one of the largest boulders in New Jersey, and Whale Head Rock, plus two panoramic viewpoints and a look over the Taylortown Reservoir. On a clear day you can see the Manhattan skyline.
The New York-New Jersey Trail Conference maps a roughly four mile loop and rates it easy to moderate. The park itself covers more than 1,600 acres with over 19 miles of trail, so you can make it much longer. High point is 934 feet.
There is a visitor center, open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed Mondays and Tuesdays in July and August. Trails are sunrise to sunset. No fee. Dogs on a leash of six feet maximum. No bikes, no rock climbing, no fishing, and everyone must stay on blazed trails.
Across Boonton Avenue, Turkey Mountain is part of the same protected area and is harder and far quieter. The county names five recommended routes across the whole area: Falls, Glacial Erratic, Reservoir, Tripod Rock and Valhalla Views.
One correction worth making because it confuses people constantly: there is no Turtle Back Rock here. That is in South Mountain Reservation in Essex County. Morris County’s famous rock is Tripod Rock.
Tourne County Park, Boonton Township and Denville
McCaffrey Lane and Old Boonton Road, Denville. The park straddles the Boonton Township and Denville line, which is why you see it listed both ways.
Twelve miles of trail over 550 acres, and the summit trail climbs to 897 feet with a panorama that includes the New York City skyline on a clear day. The other reason to come is the Emily K. Hammond Wildflower Trail, which carries roughly 250 species of native plants and wildflowers and is the best walk in the county in late April and May.
Sunrise to sunset, no fee, ample parking at the main entrance. Groups of 25 or more need a reservation.
Mahlon Dickerson Reservation, Jefferson Township
955 Weldon Road, Jefferson Township. At more than 3,590 acres this is the largest park in the county system, with 27 miles of multi-use trail.
The destination is Headley Overlook, one of the highest points in Morris County, looking south over Lake Hopatcong. Saffin Pond and Ryker Lake sit on the same network. The Trail Conference’s Highlands Trail reaches Headley Overlook partway through a 16 mile segment, so you can take a short version or a serious one.
It is also the only public campground in the Morris County park system, with RV sites on paved pads with hookups and tent sites with raised platforms and Adirondack shelters, running April through November.
Important: the trail network here was extensively re-blazed with Trail Conference volunteers. Older maps and older blaze colors are wrong. Get the current map from the Park Commission before you go.
Hacklebarney State Park, Chester Township
119 Hacklebarney Road, Long Valley. Yes, it is in Morris County, and it is worth saying plainly because most people assume otherwise.
Nine trails totaling about five miles, but that number undersells it. The Black River runs deep through a shaded hemlock ravine with cascades where Trout Brook and Rinehart Brook come in, and huge boulders throughout. The descents in and climbs out are steep, so it is harder than five miles sounds. Named trails include Hemlock Ravine, Black River, Trout Brook, Rinehart Brook, Cascading Falls, Boulder, Northern Explorer, Vistas and Wildlife Watch.
No entrance fee and no parking fee. Gate open sunrise to sunset. Dogs on a leash no longer than six feet.
Two honest notes. The state describes the park as having limited accessibility for people with disabilities, and a new restroom facility is in final design with portable units on site in the meantime. Also, published acreage conflicts: the state says 465 acres, Chester Township says 890. The likely reconciliation is that 465 is the designated natural area inside a larger park.
Schooley’s Mountain County Park, Long Valley
91 East Springtown Road, Washington Township. This is the gorge hike, and the best kept secret on this list.
From the main lot you descend past Lake George, and just beyond the dam a triple blue blaze marks the start of the Falling Waters Trail, which drops into the rocky gorge of Electric Brook past a series of cascades, with historic structures along the way. The Trail Conference rates the loop easy but warns it is quite rocky in places, which is fair. Call it roughly three miles; the published figures conflict even between two fields on the same page.
Sunrise to sunset, ample parking, no fee. The park covers 823 acres.
Mount Hope Historical County Park, Rockaway Township
75 Teabo Road, Wharton. The best “I had no idea this was here” hike in the county.
Close to five miles of trail sit directly over three old magnetite iron ore mines: Teabo, Allen and Richard. You can see the shafts, passages and collapsed slopes right off the trail. The 1868 Mount Hope Miners’ Church stands within the park. The main trail system runs 2.7 miles and the named SRED Trail is 1.5 miles.
The county explicitly requires everyone to stay on blazed trails here, and it is not a formality. These are real mine subsidences. Sunrise to sunset, no fee, dogs on a six foot leash.
Wildcat Ridge Wildlife Management Area, Rockaway Township
Parking is a white gravel lot at the end of Upper Hibernia Road, reached from Route 80 exit 37, north on Green Pond Road for about 6.3 miles, then 2.7 miles up Upper Hibernia Road as it turns to dirt.
The draw is the Wildcat Ridge Hawk Watch, an official Hawk Migration Association of North America site counted by volunteers from August 15 to November 15 and again February 15 to May 15. It is a 20 to 25 minute walk up the orange trail, or 15 to 20 minutes by the road. The state’s own description: on a clear day the New York City skyline is visible from this overlook high on the edge of the ridge.
The site also holds the Hibernia Mine, New Jersey’s largest known bat hibernaculum, with a viewing platform at the gated mine entrance. The mine itself is sealed. Do not treat it as somewhere to explore.
Two things to know. The ridgetop viewing platform was destroyed by vandals and has not been replaced, so any guide promising one is out of date. The view is still there. And this is an active wildlife management area in a deer and turkey hunting zone, so wear blaze orange in season and check current dates at NJ Fish and Wildlife.
Splitrock Reservoir and Farny State Park, Rockaway Township
420 Split Rock Road, Rockaway. A remote, undeveloped reservoir with a rocky shoreline. It is the closest thing Morris County has to an Adirondack feel, and it does not look like New Jersey.
The Four Birds Trail runs through here and continues into Wildcat Ridge. The commonly hiked segment is a roughly 6 mile out and back from the boat launch with a reservoir viewpoint at about the three mile mark. Gate open sunrise to sunset, no entrance fee, dogs on a six foot leash.
Note that several trails in Farny and the neighboring watershed were re-blazed, and a section of the Four Birds Trail was rerouted to bypass a dam at Timberbrook Pond. Carry a current map.
Silas Condict County Park, Kinnelon
100 Kinnelon Road, Kinnelon. Ten miles of trail across 1,513 acres, built around a seven acre lake ringed with weeping cherry trees, with several overlooks.
The backstory is the hook. The Casino, the stone building in the park, was built during Prohibition as a private club for bootleggers and beer barons. It is now a rentable indoor room. Sunrise to sunset, no fee for hiking.
Jonathan’s Woods, Denville
Old Beach Glen Road, Denville. 560 acres of ridges, brooks and wetlands with multiple marked trails. The recommended route is the Birder’s Loop.
The oddity here is the Hog Pen, a Revolutionary War era rock enclosure sitting in the woods. Leashed pets welcome, biking allowed on unpaved trails, horseback riding permitted. Sunrise to sunset, no fee.
Black River, the Cooper Gristmill and Kay Environmental Center, Chester Township
Trailhead behind the Cooper Gristmill at 66 Route 24, Chester Township, with the other end at the Elizabeth D. Kay Environmental Center, 200 Pottersville Road.
A hemlock gorge along the Black River with historic ruins, reached on the Patriots’ Path Blue Spur, inside a preserved complex of more than 1,600 acres. The Gristmill itself is the only restored water powered mill in New Jersey, built in 1826 and on both the State and National Registers.
Hiking the trails is free. A Gristmill tour is $5 per person, open Friday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., April through October. The Kay Center grounds are open 8 a.m. to sunset daily. Dogs on a six foot leash on trails, none inside buildings.
Lewis Morris County Park and Jockey Hollow, Morris Township
Lewis Morris, 270 Mendham Road, Morris Township. Twenty five miles of trail across 2,213 acres, built around Sunrise Lake with its seasonal beach club, a 30 foot water slide and an inflatable obstacle course. There is also a 0.4 acre dog park with separate large and small dog areas; dogs need a visible license tag from your home municipality.
The loops tie directly into Jockey Hollow at Morristown National Historical Park, visitor center at 586 Tempe Wick Road. This is the rare hike where the payoff is historical rather than scenic: the Grand Parade ground and reconstructed soldier huts from the brutal 1779 to 1780 winter encampment, plus the Wick House.
Everything at Morristown National Historical Park is free, grounds and facilities both. Grounds are sunrise to sunset daily, buildings Thursday through Monday 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Dogs on a six foot leash at all times, none inside buildings, never left unattended.
The Great Swamp, Chatham Township and Harding
The Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge is in Morris County, despite a Basking Ridge mailing address that misleads almost everyone. It covers roughly 8,000 acres and exists because local citizens raised a million dollars in 1959 to buy the land and stop a jetport.
The Wildlife Observation Center at 220 Long Hill Road has roughly a mile and a half of boardwalk and trail out over standing water, with three wildlife blinds and restrooms. The Helen C. Fenske Visitor Center at 32 Pleasant Plains Road is the staffed one, open Tuesdays and Thursdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Around 8.5 miles of wilderness trail run off Pleasant Plains Road and Long Hill Road, foot travel only, and they are genuinely muddy.
The dog rule here is the one people get wrong. Pets are not allowed on the hiking trails and not allowed on the boardwalks. Leashed pets are permitted only along Pleasant Plains Road and in parking areas. Service dogs are welcome throughout. Camping, fishing, boating and rollerblading are all prohibited.
Separately, the county runs the Great Swamp Outdoor Education Center at 247 Southern Boulevard, Chatham Township, with two miles of flat trails and boardwalk, a bird blind and a model Lenape wigwam. Trails sunrise to sunset, building 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. No pets at outdoor education centers.
Patriots’ Path, and what it actually is
People talk about Patriots’ Path as if it were a single footpath. It is not. It is a regional network of more than 70 miles linking federal, state, county and municipal parks, following the corridors of the Whippany River, the Black River and the South Branch of the Raritan, with 27 published trailheads. It runs from East Hanover all the way to Allamuchy Mountain State Park, crossing Morris, Essex, Hunterdon, Sussex and Warren counties.
Surfaces vary a lot: about two miles of paved path, plus crushed stone, gravel, narrow soil, grass, rock and old cinder railroad beds. The county recommends boots with ankle support and water resistance, which is good advice.
Leashed dogs are welcome along portions of it, except within horticultural sites. And the single most useful winter fact about the whole county system: snow and ice are not removed from the trail system, for environmental reasons. It is not plowed.
Flat, paved and stroller friendly
Not every walk needs boots. Ranked best to worst for wheels:
Traction Line Recreation Trail, Morristown to Madison, 2.7 miles fully paved and flat, running alongside the NJ Transit line with a 10 station Fit-Trail. The catch is real: there is no public parking at the trailheads.
Pompton Valley Rail Trail, 31 Jackson Avenue, Pompton Plains. 5.1 miles of paved and boardwalk on a former rail bed, opened in 2025. Parking is at Jackson Avenue only, not at most road access points. It runs through Pequannock in Morris County and Wayne in Passaic County.
Central Park of Morris County, 1 Governor Chris Christie Drive, Parsippany. Over 11 miles of paved and natural trail across 420 acres, and the county’s first fully accessible outdoor athletic facility, with an All-Access Playground designed for wheelchair users. There is also a five acre dog park.
Loantaka Brook Reservation, 468 South Street, Morris Township. Almost 10 miles of flat trail across 850 acres with three parking areas. Honest framing: it is a pleasant flat walk rather than a destination view, and it is the right answer for a stroller or a first hike.
Columbia Trail, Long Valley. 16.5 miles of flat stone dust through woods, fields and working farms. Good for a robust stroller, less so for a wheelchair. Note the spectacular gorge people associate with it, Ken Lockwood Gorge, is in Hunterdon County, not Morris.
Frelinghuysen Arboretum, 353 East Hanover Avenue, Morris Township. 124 acres, nearly 2,000 specimen trees across 28 gardens, multiple paved paths, accessible maps published, open 8 a.m. to sunset year round and free. No pets at arboreta.
Two more worth knowing
Hedden County Park, 124 Reservoir Avenue, Randolph, spans 420 acres across Randolph, Dover and Mine Hill, with the Indian Falls overlook, a fishing deck on Hedden Pond and two trout production streams. It has a paved recreation trail as well as dirt. Dogs on leash, sunrise to sunset, free.
Hugh Force Park, 18 West Central Avenue, Wharton, is only nine acres but it preserves a walkable stretch of the Morris Canal, which ran from 1831 to 1924. You can see the towpath, the retaining wall, the railbed, a lock and the lock tender’s house. It is the hub of the West Morris Greenway and the western extension of Patriots’ Path.
And in Boonton, the trail down through Grace Lord Park to Boonton Falls gives you a genuine waterfall in a gorge five minutes from a downtown Main Street, which is rare anywhere. Park near the Makey Funeral Home on West Main Street before the river bridge. Do not climb the rocks, which are slippery, and do not swim, because the currents are dangerous.
When to go
Spring. Late April into May for the wildflower trail at Tourne, and February 15 to May 15 for the spring hawk watch at Wildcat Ridge.
Mud season runs late February through April. The gorge trails at Hacklebarney and Schooley’s are rocky and stream adjacent and hold water longest. The flat surfaced options drain or never get muddy.
Fall is the best of it. Mid September through mid November for the staffed hawk watch, and October for the gorge hikes, where the hemlock stays dark green against the turning hardwoods.
Winter. Cross country skiing and snowshoeing are explicitly permitted at Mahlon Dickerson, Hedden, Silas Condict, Jonathan’s Woods, Old Troy, Schooley’s Mountain and the Columbia Trail. Just remember nothing gets plowed.
Three places that are not hikes
Worth saving you a drive. Mount Paul Memorial County Park, Minnisink Reservation and Waughaw Mountain are all Morris County Park Commission land, and all three are currently undeveloped with no trails and no public access. Waughaw Mountain has hiking and off road biking in its future plans, but not yet.
Also, a few trails routinely listed as Morris County are not. Norvin Green and the Wyanokie Highlands are in Passaic County. Terrace Pond is in Passaic County. Lord Stirling Park is in Somerset County. Voorhees State Park is in Hunterdon.
More of the outdoors around the county
See our guides to waterfalls in Morris County, the best lakes in Morris County and where to see fall foliage. For everything else, start with our guide to all 39 Morris County towns.
Featured image: Highlands Trail and Ogden Mine Railroad Trail, Mahlon Dickerson Reservation by Zeete, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Enjoying our Morris County coverage?
Add us as a preferred source and our stories show up higher in your Google results.
Add as a preferred source
