Mahlon Dickerson Reservation

If you are located in NJ area and are advanced rider, this is a park you need to visit. Lots of options for biking and hiking

Be prepared that you can reserve a place, pay for it, but when you arrive no one will be expecting you. And for your own money you will be kicked out of the park calling you bums and liars, no one will deal with the situation until you call the police.

We booked an RV site through our phone for two nights. Their part time worker did not send us a confirmation on the mail and did not leave anything that would help us find our place.

In the morning their employee started kicking us out and did not listen to any of our explanations and proof that we had a reservation. It was only after the police came to investigate that he started to do something.
It turned out that their part time employee just did nothing for us. And the employee (old man) did not listen to us and did not understand the situation, called us liars. All he had to do was call their part time employee and resolve the issue, but he didn't.

This is such a service, for our money we ran in the morning to collect our RV that after two hours of conversations with the employee and the police to return to our reserved and paid place.

Website says bike trails. I called the number for Mahlon Dickerson on google asking about bike trails whether paved or dirt where to enter. The woman told me look online at Morris County parks. Couldn't find the answers we were looking for so we just went there with our bikes .
Pulled up at first to campside office asked that guy who told us maybe go a mile to lot near pond and maybe people bike there. Dont understand why it's so hard to get answers!! We went to that area started biking and it was dirt path as we got deeper in a bit more rocky. However it turned horrible fast with big huge boulders and we had to walk our bikes uphill. It was the worst experience ever. Mark your trails whether or not they are bike trails .

WOW! What an amazing place to mountain bike! These 2-3 trails have to be the most technical and challenging trails in NJ! Anyone I bring here absolutely falls in love with the trails! The lake is breathtaking and sometimes I sit in peace just looking over it! What a place!!!

(This review is only for the hiking aspect.)

*Do not forget to bring/put on bug spray if you're going hiking. There are so. many. bugs.

Granted, the bugs are mostly flies and other flying insects, but they honestly made the hike really uncomfortable. I'm not even sure if bug spray would've made a huge difference. Maybe if you purchase those bug spray wipes and very cautiously apply to your face (avoiding eyes, lips, mouth and washing hands after applying).

The bugs pretty much followed/clung to us for the whole trip. There was constant buzzing in my ear. I'm not sure if it was because we had applied sunscreen, but there were very few areas where we wouldn't be constantly swatting around us. I think we expected some insects being that there are swamp areas, but even when not near any water or swampy areas, insects were a big nuisance.

These trails seem to be less frequented and less popular than other places, so expect walking into lots of spiderwebs as well.

The hike itself is farily flat with some gradual steepness here and there. We loosely followed the "Pine Swamp Trail" that is listed on All Trails (app was very helpful during the hike), which is roughly 7 miles. It took us 3 hours at a relaxed pace. If you hike frequently, most trails are casual.

The overlook was kind of underwhelming, as trees pretty much covered any chance of a vista. There was one small window of a view of distant mountains. But besides that, not much. Perhaps the overlook would be better in the winter.

I would definitely recommend planning the hike and deciding which trails to go on ahead of time. There are blazes and lots of different colored trails, but not much signage or maps once on the trail. The only signage we saw while on the trail was for Headley's Overlook. As I'm looking at the map now after the hike, I realized that we didn't hike close to "The Highest Point in Morris County" that's written on the digital map on the morrisparks.net website. We were at one point debating whether to continue on White or to go on Orange (we were coming from the east), and there were no signs about this highest point. We had assumed the highest point was Headley's Overlook.

One of the plusses about hiking here was that most of the trails are shaded, so hiking during 80-degree-plus whether was very comfortable. There are also porta potties at some stops where there were parking lots.