Surprise Lake Loop is a 4.4 mile heavily trafficked loop trail located near West Milford, New Jersey that features a lake and is rated as moderate. The trail is primarily used for hiking, nature trips, and bird watching and is accessible year-round. Dogs are also able to use this trail but must be kept on leash.
Great hike with some scramble and rocky areas and awesome views of Greenwood Lake.
Awesome trail, lots of fun scrambles, great views, well marked. Definitely recommend!
This was a fun moderate hike with pretty great views! Well-marked and good variety in terrain, with rock slabs, small river crossings, and scrambling sections. Like others have mentioned, I would recommend extending the loop a bit to see the NJ/NY divide, that was pretty neat. Parking wasn’t an issue on a weekend morning in January but there were a decent number of people on the trail. Measured 4.12 miles, 1,249 ft elevation gain, 1:50 moving time on my watch.
Such a fun hike! We did blue and stayed blue at the fork then it went yellow - yellow green - yellow and back to blue. Ignore the pink and lime if you’re doing the loop. Should have brought a head light as we started at 230ish but it was fine! Slippery in spots and was happy to have my trekking poles. Also easy to pass the entrance, but well marked trail! Will do it again
Initial climb was steep but then we went from blue to white to yellow and it wasn’t bad. There were a lot of scrambles and different terrain that made it a really fun hike! Plus gorgeous views. Note that it was a little slippery so be sure you have strong shoes.
This has to be the best marked trail I've ever hiked. Quite fun and full of character. I wonder what makes this a moderate and others hard, this is certainly borderline hard, but great! Slippery when wet