Photos From Our Day Trip to Hacklebarney Park, New Jersey

August 29, 2008 | Barry Wise | News
2 Comments

Since we’re so close to the holiday weekend we figured we’d kick it off a bit early, and yesterday we took the long slow drive out of Morristown, down old NJ Route 24 through Mendham, Chester and Long Valley out to Hacklebarney State Park. If you’re from New Jersey, or ar least North Jersey, and haven’t been there, it’s worth the trip. I think it’s better than any park in Morristown, with the possible exception of the lake at the Morris County park, Lewis Morris. Jockey Hollow is just the same landscape of trail after trail which gets pretty boring after a while. You can hike or bike along Patriot’s Path right in Morristown, and that is great for exercise, but it’s nothing like the scenic views of the Black River in Hacklebarney or the waterfall there.

Seamus panting after running into the park and up the hiking trails

As soon as we parked the car Seamus leaped out and went crazy sniffing everything, darting all over the place.

For those of you who don’t know him, Seamus is my 100 lb. white Labrador, who also happens to be the marketing mascot for ITCN NJ Web Design. He’s also available for any other advertising or commercial jobs, or photo opportunities, as long as you don’t mind a hundred pound white lab with no sense of propriety, self control, or discipline.

He belted down the path, right past the big staircase – there’s about 200 stone steps which lead down to the Black River as soon as you enter the park. (here’s a picture of the steps) We traveled down to the waterfall area, and made it a bit farther up the hiking trails before heading back to the picnic area for lunch.

Seamus in front a big old tree which everyone had carved their names into

It was a nice outing and great fun for Seamus, who proved to be undaunted by anything the wilderness could throw at him — spiders, mosquitoes, and the occasional suspicious-looking branch which startled him. He even negotiated his first wooden plank bridge, straddling and balancing across the 2 boards they set up across the river as a makeshift bridge.

Fran and Seamus in front of the NJ Black River, just upstream from the waterfall

Fran, however, proved she didn’t share his excitement for the outdoors, since she started complaining about the bug bites on her feet just 45 minutes into the trip. Perhaps if she had worn proper hiking sneakers and socks instead of flip flops she wouldn’t have made such an attractive target for the little ankle-biters.

I would like to say that this is the first in a long series of blog articles about state parks around Morris County and New Jersey, but we just don’t have the time to wander around parks being pulled after Seamus all day. Instead I’ll be back to blogging about SEO and Web Design after the holiday … have a good Labor Day Weekend!

Now go out and bombard the interweb with my self-whoring social links:

Tags: itcn, new jersey, nj, photos, seamus, summer

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Comments

2 Responses to “Photos From Our Day Trip to Hacklebarney Park, New Jersey”

Ricky Lynn on September 18th, 2008 2:33 pm
Seamus is gorgeous! Sounds like a wonderful trip you folks had. We just adopted a Goldendoodle poodle/goldenretriever) mix. We don’t know how we ever lived without her, animals are such sweet joys. Thanks so much for sharing!
Computer Repair Guy on August 13th, 2010 3:43 pm
Seamus is photogenic! He seemed to have enjoyed your trip.