My first hike on the Castlepoint Trail

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

This trail is a side trail off of the Cannonball Trail, so it was easy for us to find from my last 2 hikes.
The trip included some amazing scenic views. This was also the most difficult of the hikes so far.
Very steep inclines, quick altitude gains in short distances. But it was well worth it. We were rewarded
greatly for our efforts, we found a fantastic lunch spot along the way up with a nice lookout from the hillside
of the lake and surrounding valley areas. We then were treated to even more fantastic views once we climbed
to the level of the old mansion ruins. I can easily see why someone would pick this spot to build a home!
If I ever come into money, I'd love to make it a home again... The ruins themselves were very nice stone walls,
obviously this was a magnificent house, it's a shame it burnt down and that all that remains is the stone.
We walked around the area for a while, saw many breathtaking views and tried to capture some of them
on film, but they just don't do it justice, I'll have to get a better camera some day. I could have stayed up there
all day, but we moved on, there was a higher point a little ways back with the ruins of the water tower, then
we continued on the trail to its end point by Skyline Drive and merged back into the Cannonball Trail.
Our return hike from Skyline back to Pompton Lakes was smooth and quick, we had been very tired out
by the first half of the trip, and Mike ran out of his 2 liters of water by the time we hit Skyline Drive, so we
pretty much just kept moving. The coolest thing on the way back was literally almost running into a doe.
She was right along the trail, and neither of us saw here until we were almost on her and she finally bolted.
We snapped of a few pictures, but she was not standing still much, there was a storm brewing the whole trip
back so I think she was startled and heading for shelter from the oncoming storm.

We did not run into too many people on this hike, most people seem to always be around the Ramapo Lake area,
we did encounter a man sunning himself on a huge rock up by the mansion ruins, but he was sleepy and didn't
seem interested in socializing at all, so we let him be. We were able to navigate the trails much more accurately
then our first time out, we also feel we understand all the trail markers much better now. We knew 3 markers meant
and endpoint of a trail, but think we figured out the difference between 1 and 2 markers, 1 means just stay
headed in the direction you are, 2 means there is a turn, so watch for markers in a new direction.

More info on Castlepoint:
http://www.users.nac.net/axtell/History.htm
Oakland Castle

Some factoids from the GPS:

We headed out from the car at approximately 10:50 am.

We started at an altitude of approximately 224 feet.

We ascended to approximately 879 feet.

We returned to the car at approximately 3:30 pm.

I had a burst of energy at the end of our hike and took off at over 3 mph
as I descended from 287 on out to the soccer field, leaving Mike a few minutes
behind me and startled, since I'm no small guy...

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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