Castle Point Trail Family Hike

Last Saturday we headed out to the Ramapo Mountain State Forest in Northern Jersey to check out the Castle Point Trail. I saw it on this list of top 10 family-friendly hikes in New Jersey and New York. It is described as a 3.2 mile loop that includes a walk along Ramapo Lake, a climb to an abandoned mansion, and a view of the Wanaque Reservoir and surrounding mountains. 

We got to the trailhead before noon and headed out. We followed the trail according to the description on this website. I suggest putting it in your phone or printing the trail description out as there are lots of turns and different colored markers to follow.

In the beginning we were in the trees for quite a bit.

Until we reached Ramapo Lake. The lake is huge!

We hiked a long side it for a while until we found a nice spot to each lunch, right by the lake.

From our lunch spot, we saw a little shack of some sort by the water, so I checked it out. It's a cute little structure made all of rock. Nothing much inside but some wood debris from the roof falling apart and some garbage.

We continued on, back into the forest.

Then we started climbing up a bit. We got to a high point and could even see the NYC skyline.

The kiddos enjoyed climbing up this rock just before we reached the ruins of an old mansion.

Seeing the ruins of this old mansion was my favorite part. The mansion, known as Foxcroft or the Van Slyke Castle, was built around 1910.

The property even had a pool!

The mansion is pretty cool. This is what it looked like back in the day. If you want to read more about he mansion's history check it out here.

We moved on and came across this tower. It is actually a cistern that supplied water to the mansion.

We continued on to one last high point with a view of the Wanaque Reservoir and the Wyanokie Mountains.

In all, it was a great hike! I enjoyed the variety of this hike. Hiking and seeing the lake, some cool high points with nice views, and coming across the mansion ruins and the tower made the hike real interesting! Definitely recommend it!

Ever seen any old ruins?