Lake Sonoma

Lake Sonoma, Norvin Green State Forest (7/12/2008)

This hike uses the brand new Lake Sonoma trail in Norvin Green state forest, just completed this month by John Moran and his NYNJTC trail crew. A description of it can be found here on LocalHikes.

It's a beautiful trail which traverses two back hills of West Brook Mountain, passes Lake Sonoma, and then ascends to a viewpoint on Overlook Rock. The last couple of hundred yards up to Overlook Rock, while marked with blazes and also red ribbons, requires a bit of bushwacking. We made it to the top, where a small cairn was placed on the ridge, but didn't get to see the good views. According to John, the last 0.2 miles is blazed (and we did see some up ahead) though the path hasn't yet been cleared. Since we were wearing shorts we decided to turn back instead of heading through the blueberry bushes.

We parked at the trailhead on Burnt Meadow Road (best approached from the north). Instead of doing the out-and-back, we turned it into a lollipop: after passing Lake Sonoma on our return, we took the woods road that runs along the east side of the lake, making a right at its T-intersection with another woods road that led back to our car. Both of these woods roads are clearly seen near Lake Sonoma on the NJNYTC North Jersey Trails map #115.

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