Terrace Pond is a glacial pond on top of Bearfort Mountain, inside Wawayanda State Park, in West Milford, Passaic County, New Jersey. It sits at around 1,380 feet, it can only be reached on foot, and swimming in it is prohibited. That last point is the one worth knowing before you drive up: the pond is patrolled, rangers issue summonses, and at least five people have drowned here since 2010.
Where it is and how you get there
There is one practical trailhead, the P7 lot on Clinton Road.
- Address: 1575 Clinton Road, Hewitt, NJ 07421. Coordinates N41.14288, W74.40743.
- Route: Route 287 to exit 52, then Route 23 north towards Butler, then Clinton Road.
- The lot is across the road from the trailhead. Space is limited and it fills on summer weekends.
- No restrooms at the lot. The nearest are 15 to 20 minutes away along Route 23 in Butler.
The trails
Every route to the pond involves rock. There is no road, no shuttle and no short cut.
- Terrace Pond Circular: around 4.6 miles, the standard loop from Clinton Road.
- Terrace Pond West Loop: 4.7 miles, yellow-blazed, climbing across puddingstone ledges and past wetlands.
- Longer circuits run to about 5.2 miles depending on which connectors you take.
- Terrace Pond North Loop runs on the far side. A 2.5-acre parcel it crossed was bought from a private owner by the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference and partners, to be donated to the state and folded into the park.
Expect scrambling on bare rock, a floating walkway across the pond’s outlet, and a ladder on at least one route. Footing on the conglomerate is slick when wet.
The rock, and why it looks the way it does
Bearfort Mountain is built of Skunnemunk conglomerate, the puddingstone that gives the ridge its ledges and its purple-grey colour. The pond is glacial, held in a bowl on the ridge top rather than fed by a large stream. The shoreline is steep rock on most of its perimeter, and rhododendron closes in where it is not.
That geology is also the safety problem. There is no beach, no shallow shelf and no gradual way out of the water.
The rules
- Swimming is prohibited at Terrace Pond. The area is patrolled and violators are ticketed. State Park Police issue summonses.
- Across New Jersey State Parks, swimming is permitted only in designated areas when lifeguards are on duty. There is no lifeguarded area anywhere near this pond.
- The pond is day use. Access is on foot from the marked lots.
Officials give three reasons for the ban: there are no safe points of entry or exit, the water is far colder than people expect, and the site is remote enough that search and rescue takes a long time to arrive.
Safety: the record
At least five people have drowned in Terrace Pond since 2010.
The best-documented case is from 11 June 2017. Memfy Deleon, 20, of Paterson, became distressed while swimming at the pond on the Sunday evening. State Park Police responded, and a search involving West Milford Police, State Park Police and New Jersey State Police recovered his body at around 11 am on the Monday. The Bergen County medical examiner ruled the death an accidental drowning. A DEP official responded at the time that the public should swim only in lifeguarded areas.
The recovery timeline is the part worth reading twice. Help came the same evening, and the body was found the following morning. That is what remote means in practice on a ridge top reached by a 2.5-mile walk.
The season
- Spring: the conglomerate stays wet and the scrambles are slippery. Runoff is high.
- Summer: the lot fills early on weekends. This is also when enforcement is active.
- Autumn: the best conditions for the loops, with the ridge open and the rock dry.
- Winter: ice on bare rock makes the scrambling sections a different proposition. There is no maintained winter route.
What else is around
Wawayanda State Park runs to more than 30 square miles, and its main body north of Terrace Pond has a lake with a guarded swimming area in season, boat rental and campsites, which is where the park sends people who came to swim. Abram S. Hewitt State Forest adjoins the ridge to the north, with Surprise Lake and the Bearfort Ridge trails. Warwick and Greenwood Lake sit over the New York line.
We have a wider write-up of the spots across this state, and the rest of our New Jersey coverage sits on the state index. The full mainland list is on the Continental US index. One state north, we also covered a waterfall in the Catskills with a comparable record.