Sunset Park – Montgomery Township, NJ

Sunset Park – Montgomery Township, Somerset County, NJ
Distance – 0.3 miles total
Type – Lollipop
Difficulty:  1 of 10

Website – Montgomery Friends of Open Space
Open – Sunrise to Sunset.

Terrain – Woodslands and meadow
Surface -Grass and dirt

Trailheads – 40°25’43.13″N, 74°41’56.85″W

Directions – 832 Belle Mead-Blawenburg Rd, Montgomery, NJ

Parking – Space for about 4 cars in a lot

Dog friendly? Yes, must be leashed
Stroller friendly? Possibly if has offroad wheels
Benches? Yes

Facilities?: None
Info:

Hunting season:

Markings –

Map –

Description –

Back the beginning of June, I had a job interview up in North Jersey.  It was more than an hours drive away for a 20 minute interview and it was a cloudy, wet day (so no lawn mowing getting done, not that it takes much of anything for me to find an excuse not to cut the lawn), so I brought my play clothes and sneakers in case I saw any good spots to stop on the way home.  Sunset Park was my third hike for the day, and the shortest!

So the thing about unplanned adventuring is that it was unplanned!  I only knew about this park from driving past it on the way up.  I knew I was due to get poured rain on, but the map said it was only about 1/4 of a mile total, so I decided to go for it.  You only live once!

The trailhead leaves from a small parking lot by the road and enters the woods.  The trail was a little grassy, but not too bad considering the insane amounts of rain we had last Spring.

Into the park!

Not terrible considering I think we lived in a jungle in Jersey for four months this year.

Now the other thing about unplanned adventures is that they are unplanned – I had no idea what this hike would be like.  What I was not expecting was… art?  Lots of it, as the town has turned this little walk into an art hike to go with the natural art of Mother Nature.  It was neat finding sculptures hidden around the turns in the trail, like a miniature Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton Township (which if you haven’t been to, you need to hop into your car and go RIGHT NOW.

Eventually, the trail split.  We opted for left, but it doesn’t matter, because the trail will loop back to this spot.

Soon after this split, the trail entered a meadow area with bird houses.  I wasn’t lucky enough to spot any birds, but I heard them playing in the rain!  The trail looped around, left the meadow and rejoined the “stick” part of this lollipop trail.

Meadow!

A fine, big tree.

Definitely hunters here in season… or art?

Nearby: Lots of small trails in town, but the biggest hike nearby was our second hike of the day – Sourland Mountain Preserve!