Itinerary

Springwater Fieldtrip O

Dallas Abbott and Bill Menke, December 1, 2018

11 AM Leave Tappan New York.

11:30 AM, BP Service Station, 144 Route 17, Mahwah New Jersey, stop to purchase gasoline.

12:10 PM, Spring 1 (Site 101), Bubbling Springs Park, 1428 Macopin Road, West Milford New Jersey, on east side of road, 500 meters south of the Vreeland Road intersection,. Visit springs: (A) in sand, immediately west of swim pond; (B) along hillside, against hill, immediately east of swim pond; and (C) immediately north of swim pond, by a shed-shaped spring house on the east side of an outflow pond. We also followed the outflow stream to a second pond, immediately south of Vreeland Road.

1:15 PM, Park in hiker’s lot for the Highlands Preserve (formerly San Cap Park), on north side of Warwick Turnpike, Hewitt New Jersey , 50 meters west of the Union Valley Road intersection. The Highlands Preserve is adjacent to Abram S. Hewitt State Forest.

1:20 PM, Spring 2 (Site 102), Highlands Preserve Spring, the largest of several seeps, on a flat shelf east of a steep hillside and draining into a cattail marsh. The marsh drains northward into Cooley Brook.

1:45 PM. We examined a small waterfall on a stream that drains off of the hillside and flows eastward, just north of marsh. The rocks are a purple quartzite with sub-vertical strata. We followed an unmarked woods road uphill to where it joined the Quail Trail (actually a woods road, blazed in orange) and the followed the Quail Trail further uphill.

2:00 PM, Spring 3 (Site 103), Bearfort Mountain Spring, along the Quail Trail, about 100 hundred meters before reaching a stream crossing (the same stream as makes the waterfall). The spring flows from the gravel bed of the woods road.

2:15 PM, we hiked the Quail Trail another 500 meters past the stream crossing and then turned about. We followed the Quail Trail to its trailhead, near where Warwick Turnpike crosses Green Brook, about 300 meters west of the parking lot. We then walked Warwick Turnpike back to our car.

3:30 PM, arrive Tappan New York.