Location: Walpack Township, NJ

Travel time: 2.5 hours driving round trip

Monuments & Locations Visited: Buttermilk Falls trail | Walpack, NJ

Eats & Libations: N/A

Description: Back in October we decided that we needed to continue hiking some of the popular New Jersey hiking trails while it was still warm enough to do so. We looked up some interesting spots and came across Buttermilk Falls, which at 85 feet tall, is in fact the tallest waterfall in NJ.

You can’t drive directly to the falls so you have to park about a mile away and walk to it but it’s a smooth mostly flat hike. Once you get there you can see the falls and to the left are some man made steps to climb up to the top. We took in the sights and some photos of the area and started the climb up the stairs. This was probably the only tough part of the hike but mostly because the stairs are so steep going up. At the top they built a little wood observation deck so you can get a good picture of the views and a good look to the bottom of the falls. Once up top, the trails continue for more of a challenging hike.

After hiking for a while we came down and decided to check out the small, and I mean SMALL, town of Walpack, NJ. I believe I read the population is of about 10-15 people and you can tell that by driving down their ‘main street’. The street is about half a mile long and has about 8 buildings, all seemingly built in the late 1800s, that looked uninhabitable. It was really interesting to see such a small piece of NJ history that is pretty well preserved. Upon further research, we read that in the 1950’s, the government had planned to put a dam in called Tocks Island Dam. The dam project, had it been completed, would have put the town under a 37 mile. Luckily the plans fell through in the 70’s and the neighboring areas, including Walpack, were preserved. Really interesting stuff.