Buttermilk Falls and Rattlesnake Mountain (NJ)

I wanted to try running at a new place this afternoon.  I've been meaning to explore more of the trails at the Delaware Water Gap, particularly on the New Jersey side.  I headed to the heart of that area to run Buttermilk Falls and Rattlesnake Mountain.

It was quite the adventure just getting there.  I took a bunch of backroads through the park.  Then, the final road to the falls was a dirt road.  It was washed out in spots, but my little car survived.

It was super hot and humid again, especially in the afternoon.  I went without a shirt.  I'm glad I did that, but I did brush up against a lot of bushes.  I was certainly concerned about ticks.

Buttermilk Falls is great for anyone that doesn't like to hike.  The falls are directly across from the parking lot.  They are very tall.  Basically, you don't have to go anywhere to see them.  I was kind of disappointed to not have to work for a view.  However, I quickly got over that.

There is a trail along the falls of course.  In the beginning, it is super steep and often uses steps.  There wasn't much I could do, but hike.  A few young people were coming down as I was heading up.  I stopped for several photos along the falls. 

I was on my way.  The trail crossed over the creek on a foot bridge.  It was less steep now, but still too steep for me.  I had to mostly hike for awhile.  It was a nice route, but very challenging.  Mostly just steep, but the occasional rocks or roots were there as well.

It was so hot and muggy.  More frustrating was that I kept running through spiderwebs and also was attacked by a lot of bugs whenever I hiked.

After about a mile, I came to Woods Road.  The blue trail continued on up the mountain toward the Appalachian Trail.  Most of the ascending was done, but it was still plenty steep at this point.  I slogged along.

I was very careful in rocky parts.  I was worried that I might see a rattlesnake.  After all, I was heading up Rattlesnake Mountain.  I was thrilled when I finally arrived at the AT, at about 1.65 miles.

The AT was still a combination of running and hiking.  It was narrow singletrack that was often very rocky and also a bit overgrown.  I could run most of it, but it would take a lot of energy and was beat from all of the warm weather hiking up.

I passed a couple young guys hiking the opposite way on the trail.  I came to a few rocky outcrops, but none with the view I was anticipating.  It was quite frustrating. 

At one point, I came behind an older guy who was hiking.  He moved over for me during one of my rare running moments.  A lot of this was downhill, which was frustrating because it would be uphill on the way back.  I sputtered along.

There was a bridge over a creek in the mountain.  That was interesting.  This section was pretty.  I was getting close to turning around.  I had gone out farther than I wanted to.  However, I hate to get close to a view and turn around.  I battled on.

Finally, just before 3.5 miles, I came to Rattlesnake Mountain.  It had an awesome view to the west.  It was about 180 degrees.  I was a little disappointed, as I thought this was a 360 degree view.  Still, it was nice.  Equally as important, I saw no rattlesnakes.

I turned around and headed back.  I was way behind schedule.  I cruised along, running most of the way now.  I heard thunder in the distance.  I crossed paths with the older guy again.  I felt bad when he went off into the woods to move over and nearly fell.

Shortly after seeing the guy, I came to the bridge over the creek.  I knew somewhere in this area was an unmarked and unmaintained trail that supposedly led to the Woods Road.  I found what I hoped was it and headed back.  I didn't want to go through the narrow AT singletrack.

I hit a lot more spiderwebs and came to a swampy area.  I was careful to watch for bears, but luckily, I never found any.  I wasn't 100% sure if I was on the right trail, but this one seemed to be going in the right direction.  It started to switchback down the mountain too.

The trail then opened up into a pretty wide road.  I guess this was the Woods Road.  I was quite impressed with how much easier this route was.  I was running almost the entire time. 

I was frustrated when I went to drink from my bottle around mile 5.  I had no more water.  My heavy phone made me think I had water remaining.  Some of the road had a gradual uphill that I ended up hiking parts of.

I was thrilled to get to the blue blazed Buttermilk Falls Trail much sooner than I anticipated.  It wasn't even 5.5 miles yet.  I began running downhill.

I was able to run the majority of this mile or so descent.  This was quite steep at times and fun and technical running.  This would probably be a good place to practice if I get into the Escarpment Trail Run.  At times, I wasn't even thinking about running.  That is rare.

I did hike the steps at the bottom.  This was just too steep to run down.  I got to the base of the falls.  I was sweating a lot.  I walked over to the falls and cooled my head of there.  That was the nice thing about running by a waterfall.  I need to do that more often.

Tomorrow, I'm not sure what I'm doing.  I'd like to run or bike, but we might actually get some rain.  That would be nice, but might cause me to do nothing.  I've been busy working on putting together the things for the Ten Hours of Trexler anyway.

6.37 miles - 1:44:21 (16:23 pace) 1432 feet of elevation gain