[Journal entry for July 23, 2014; Board Mountain, North Jersey District Water Supply]. I took Stonetown Road across the top of Monksville Dam, turned onto White Road and parked at the trailhead at the end. It took the HT Connector Trail (blazed with a blue square with a black center) east. The vegetation this time of year is lush, with green fern and grasses beneath a dense canopy of leaves. Many juvenile toads, a half inch to an inch in length, were hoping around the round. Patches of orange mushrooms were pushing up through the soil. I soon connected with the Highland Trail, blazed in blue, and took it south and east, across a little stream and up the flank of Board Mountain. While not particularly hot, the afternoon was extremely humid, so much so that I was drenched in sweat by the time I reached the summit of Board Mountain, a hill that overlooks Wanaque and Monksville Reservoirs, to the east. The wide grassy meadow at the summit offers a nice view of the reservoirs and of the tall concrete dam that separates them. Monksville is the smaller of the two reservoirs and also the highest in level; the dam is more than a hundred feet tall. Like Board Mountain, the other hills of the Jersey Highlands surrounding these reservoirs are rolling and wooded. Today, the view was a bit hazy.

I continued south along the Highland Trail, descending first into a valley and then climbing up Bear Mountain. I took several detours, poking around small grassy glades paved with ledges of gneiss, sporting the occasional Blueberry and Wineberry bush (with fruit now ripe) and punctuated with occasional solitary Red Cedar trees and glacial boulders. A few of these boulders were erratic; composed of distinctively purplish-red Schunemunk quartzite. Some of these glades offered views of the hills to the west. I soon reached the summit area, which has several grassy meadows separated by rocky ledges. The views southeast across Wanaque reservoir and south towards Windbeam Mountain are particularly good.

Rather than to retrace my route back to the car, I decided to try to make for Stonetown Road, which roughly parallels the trail a half mile of so to the west. So I continued south on the Highlands Trail. The trail down the south side of Bear Mountain is steep and offers some nice views of the reservoir. I connected with a woods road and took it west. It soon widened into Windbeam Road and connected to Stonetown Road. I walked this country road back to White Road. It passes the Windbeam Valley Winery and, later, a small pond surrounded in a beautifully-tended formal garden.

I had completely polished off my two liters of water by the time I reached my car. Overall, the hike took about two and a half hours.