Hiking Passaic County’s Friendship Park!

Friendship Park

Welcome to Passaic County’s Friendship Park!

Friendship Park

The 45 acre park, located in Bloomingdale, NJ consists of deciduous wooded upland and wetlands.

Virtual Hike

Friendship Park 8.25.12 Hike

The 1.2 Orange Blazed Trail we are going to follow was blazed courtesy of the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference. The actual hike described below took place in August 2012, about two months prior to Hurricane Sandy. Some changes to the trail have taken place since that time. Ok, ready to start?

Orange Trail Trailhead

From the parking area head east to the Orange Blazed Trailhead near a wetland.

Turn left heading north on the trail. Immediately you will notice a large outcrop of rocks of precambrian origin. The rocks are known as “basement rocks” and were originally covered by soil and other rocks. Through the years due to natural activities such as past glacier action the rocks became exposed. Most of the rocks are thought to be comprised of ancient granite-gneiss.

Puddingstone

Pudding stone rocks, seen above, are common in the NJ Highlands and consist of well-rounded quartz and red sandstone cobbles in a fine-grained red ironstone matrix.

Dry Stream

After a few minutes, you will pass over a seasonal stream. Wait! Where’s the water? That’s a good question and I am glad you asked it. This stream is part of the wetlands that exist in Friendship park and only flows when the water table located below the surface gets too high such as in heavy downpours in spring.

Continuing on we come to the northern boundary of Friendship park which is seen here as a fence separating the park from an old abandoned golf course. Let’s stop and look around for a second. It seems we are not alone. There’s an American Robin & Eastern Gray Squirrel keeping watch over the forest.

American Robin

Eastern Gray Squirrel

Wait! What’s this? It’s an American Chestnut Sprout!

American Chestnut

The American Chestnut tree was an important member of the eastern forest found in the United States. A wide variety of wildlife fed on its chestnuts. American Chestnuts began to die off in 1904 due to imported Chestnut Blight from Asia. The blight, imported to the US via Asian chestnut trees, is a fungus dispersed by spores in the air, raindrops and animals. American Chestnut now survives only in the understory as shoots sprouting from old roots (which are not affected by the blight). The American Chestnut sprouts reach about twenty feet before the blight strikes. The roots then shoots up new sprouts and the process repeats itself. The American Chestnut Foundation is currently working to restore the once great American Chestnut back to its native range. Check out the book American Chestnut : The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree for more information. Click here!

Black Oak Coppice

Heading east now there is a slight climb where we see a large coppice Black Oak. The orange blazed trail now continues on top of a large rock ledge.

Rock Ledge

The trail now starts to descend as we turn right and head south. Be careful to follow the orange blazes here as there are other trails that are not blazed which meander through the forest. According to our trail map, it looks like we left the trail! Let’s head back and find the last blaze.

Back on the Trail!

Whew! Back on the trail! Let’s stop and listen to the sounds of the forest: Sounds like we are hearing a White Breasted Nuthatch & a Blue Jay. Let’s continue on our hike! Now we have arrived at the bottom of the descent.

Friendship Park Wetlands

Notice how the flora has changed. Before we came down here there was Chestnut Oak but now we see the ground is wet and tussock sedge and Musclewood have appeared.

Musclewood

Continuing south we see….what exactly is this we are looking at?

Makeshift Shelter

It appears to be a makeshift shelter of some kind.

Inside Makeshift Shelter

Turning right and heading north we are only a short distance from the trail’s end. But before we continue pause and check out those old growth White Oak Trees!

Massive Old Growth White Oaks

We have now come to the end of the orange trail and our exploration of Friendship Park.

Orange Trail End

Interested in checking out Friendship Park yourself? Check out below!

Directions (as taken from the NY NJ Trail Conference Website)

From I-287 north or south take Exit 53 (Bloomingdale) and turn left onto Hamburg Turnpike. Upon entering Bloomingdale, the name of the road changes to Main Street. In 1.3 miles (from Route 287), you will reach a fork in the road. Bear right (following the sign to West Milford), and in another 0.1 mile, turn right (uphill) onto Glenwild Avenue. Proceed for another 0.3 mile to the intersection of Woodward Avenue (on the left). Opposite this intersection, you will notice a dirt parking area bordered by stones on the right. Turn right and park here.