Washington Valley Park (Somerville, NJ) 7 miles

Ok, so this is a weird one. I read somewhere online that this trail made it into the top 10 most scenic trails in the US. So after such praise, gotta try it, right? WRONG! This was the most confusing, agonizing trip ever.

First of all, getting there from NYC is tough - expect at least a 1.5-hour trip + multiple tolls.

Second, where the hell is the TRAIL? I tried to follow directions from this website (http://www.trimbleoutdoors.com/) to no avail. We found the "parking lot" mentioned in it, which had a huge NO PARKING sign next to it, but we never located the "entrance" to the trail, because it just was not there. We ended up parking in the Newmans Lane parking lot that looked like an entrance to the trail and it kind of was, except that the trail was more of a hiking trail or a super advanced mountain biking trail that stretched for 1 mile only. Then we looked for the entrance to the other side of the park that we never found. It was soooooo frustrating! Several times we would spot something that looked like a trail alng the Gilbride Road just to discover that 1000 feet into the woods it became un-ridable.

For a while we refused to give up and attempted to ride down Miller Lane. We did discover a paved trail there but our excitement was NOT warranted, b/c the paved trail was like 500 feet long. Then we spotted an unpaved trail and followed it down the hill expecting to reach the Buttermilk Falls judging by the map, but what we found was a dam full of teenagers and another unridable trail. That was when we gave up...

Anyway, a total waste of a day: there were no signs anywhere, parking was hard and we did not find any paths worth riding. Not surprisingly, I give this trail a D grade. Venture at your own risk!