Hike in Pequannock
Pequannock Watershed
Nearby City: Newfoundland
Length: 8 total miles
Trail Type: Point-to-Point
Elev. Gain: 400 feet
Skill Level: Moderately strenuous
Duration: 6 hours

Originally, all the trails in the watershed were blazed in white, but with the adoption of trail maintenance by the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, they were color coded. Markings are standard: Three blazes indicates the beginning or the end of a trails, two blazes indicates a turn, and one blaze is simply the route of the trail. This hike takes you on a grand tour of some of the more scenic and interesting features of the watershed. Through it is long, the walking is not difficult, and much of it is along the shores of ponds and reservoirs. You will traverse some deep hemlock forests typical of this area, and there are a few overlooks as well as the Bearfort fire tower from which you can survey the area. Part of the hike is on the Bearfort Mountain ridge, with its pink to purple sandstones and conglomerates. This ridge, composed of relatively young sedimentary rock, is a geological anomaly-it occurs in the midst of the much older Precambrian highlands formation. Apparently, Bearfort Mountain is the remains of the sand and silt deposits of a long, narrow inland sea or sound that penetrated the older highlands. Notice the distinct change of bedrock as you hike from Bearfort Mountain to Buckabear Pond, the latter being entirely in the highlands with its typical gray Precambrian gneiss, a granite rock.