My first hike on the Cannonball Trail

The yellow route marks our trek. We started and ended in Pompton Lakes, Barbara Drive.

The trip included some nice scenic views. I have wanted to find and explore this trail for years, and now have finally done it!
I cannot explain the elation I felt when I was crossing the bridge over Route 287, I had seen that bridge a thousand times
before and always wondered how to get to that trail! Now I know! It was nice walking along the lake, we had a very
hot, humid day, but it wasn’t too bad when we started out. We veered a little from the correct path twice, but our route
back was much better than our route up to Skyline Drive. Next time we’ll know better and be able to traverse the trail
more accurately. One of the turns we made on purpose and we won’t do that next time as it took us away from the lake view
on the way out, then we stuck to the lake too long, because one turn is not marked well in the direction we headed on the trail, but
we won’t miss that turn next time! That miss took us way out of our intended route, but we saw some cool stuff on the way, I
found a large feather, possibly a turkey feather, (photo below), we saw more of the lake that way, and a few very cool private
homes out in the middle of no-where, one perched on a nice bluff with a beautiful view of the lake, now that’s livin’!

We met lots of friendly people along the way, hikers, fishers, joggers, mountain bikers and a few ATV riders. Once we know this segment
of the trail even better, we’ll want to find more of the trail and see if we can take it all the way to the Ramapo Reservation.
We also will likely head out and take a side trail and hit a place called Castle Point, just because it sounds cool, an old abandoned Mansion
on a hill just off the Cannonball Trail. I was hoping to hit either the Radio tower or Castle Point, we did pass the radio tower, but
because of the same missed turn that took us off course on our way up, we also missed the Castle Point trail, but we now know where
that is as well, so next time we can hit that if we want. Lots of trails intersect along the way, so there’s tons more to explore, I am very
pleased with our first trek out and look forward to many more adventures to come in this beautiful Ramapo Mountain and Lake region.

Some Links for more info on the Cannonball Trail:

http://www.geocities.com/pchslc/cannonball_road.html
http://www.users.nac.net/axtell/Cannonball.htm

Some factoids from the GPS:

We headed out from the car at approximately 10:15 am

We started at an altitude of approximately 220 feet.

We ascended to approximately 880 feet by 12:45
(Skyline Drive on the map)

We returned to the car at approximately 2:41 pm.

Our fastest speed was about 3.2 mph
(on the way back and descending.)

We tended to move mostly around 1.5 to 2 mph, depending on the terrain.

Many thanks to my friend Mike for providing the GPS data and accompanying me on this
adventure, we had a blast and I know I cannot wait to go again!

Thanks Mike, you rock!

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