Jockey Hollow || Morristown, NJ || New Jersey Travel

If you are looking for a nice place for a hike or walk, Jockey Hollow is a great option in northern New Jersey.  It is a National Historical Park located in Morrisville, NJ and is about a 10 minute drive south of the town center.  There is ample parking at six different locations; we went on a Saturday morning in early September and had no problem finding parking near the Visitor Center.  There are public bathrooms located by the Visitor Center and at the New York Brigade Comfort Station.  

At the park, there are numerous well-marked trails that you can take, as well as the paved road that you can walk or bike on.  All of the trails that we took were nicely marked and easy to follow.  We took two different loops: the yellow trail and the blue trail.  You can see our overall path highlighted on the map below. 

Our 5.23 mile path in Jockey Hollow. 

The yellow trail made a loop along the inside perimeter of the park.  It was a typical trail in the woods - dirt and roots, slightly narrow.  You could take a similar loop by following the paved road if you preferred an easier trail.  Along the way, we stopped at Wick Farm and the Soldier Huts.  Wick Farm has a well-kept garden that allows visitors to walk through.  Wick Farm Garden is a recreation of what a Revolutionary era garden might have looked like, with labels on most of the plants in the garden.  The Soldier Huts are a recreation of the log bunk houses that soldiers from the Continental Army slept in during the “Hard Winter” of 1779-1780. 

The Soldiers' Huts were replicas of ones that were used during the Revolutionary War.

We ended the yellow trail portion of our hike at the New York Brigade Comfort Station where they have restrooms and a water bottle filler.  However, if you wanted to make a full loop you could continue following the yellow trail until you reached your starting point.  Instead of finishing the yellow trail loop, we started the blue trail from the New York Brigade Comfort Station.  The blue trail has a couple of options- we took the New York Brigade trail to the Outer Loop trail to the Old Camp Road trail.  

You can see the skyline of NYC in the horizon. 

There was a beautiful lookout spot in the middle of the blue loop.  If you look closely at the picture above, you can see the New York City skyline in the distance.  It was a bit hazy on the day that we hiked, but on a clear day I’d imagine you would have a great view of the city.  

We ended the blue trail back at our parking lot, with a total distance of 5.23 miles, which we completed in about 2 hours. The overall hike was easy to moderate, with a few uphill areas and a few places where the trail was narrow and rocky.  I was happy to be wearing my hiking boots, but this hike could have been done in sneakers as well.  

A portion of the beautiful yellow trail.

Afterwards we drove to Morristown for lunch at Revolution, Gastropub and stopped at Beenie’s Ice Cream.