Upper Ridge Road Trail in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

Length:  2.1 miles, one way
Time:  1 hour
Difficulty: Easy to moderate

As the name implies, the Upper Ridge Road Trail in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area is an old road that has been closed to traffic to accommodate hikers and horseback riders. Its northern trailhead is on Jagar Road / PA 646, and its southern trailhead is at a parking lot .75 mile up the vehicle-accessible section of Upper Ridge Road (off of Tuttles Corner / Dingmans Road / PA 560). Be advised that the trail map provided by the National Park Service in the Guide to the Gap, a tabloid-size publication with maps of all the trails within the park, is completely wrong. It shows a .4-mile northwest to southeast segment at the southern end of the trail that no longer exists. It is extremely important to know this, otherwise you may end up parking in the wrong spot. (Note: the PARKING symbol at the southern end of the Upper Ridge Road Trail on the map below is not on the government-issued map. I added it.)

Upper Ridge Road Trail map (click to enlarge)

If you plan on starting a hike at the southern end of the Upper Ridge Road Trail, the government-issued map makes it look as if you must turn off of Ridge Road onto the dirt Van Ness Road and park at the gate, then walk up the road a short distance to access the .4-mile segment of the Upper Ridge Road Trail that heads in a northwest direction. However, there are a number of problems with this scenario. First off, there is no gate partway up Van Ness Road. The road just ends at the park boundary, and there is no more Van Ness Road. Maybe there was at one time, but now it is completely overgrown. That means there is no walking up Van Ness Road to get to the .4-mile segment, which, according to the map, is where the Upper Ridge Road Trail begins. And as you now know, there is no .4-mile segment either. So if you have two vehicles, and you park one at the end of Van Ness Road and then drive to Jagar Road and start your hike from there, you can’t get back to your car at the end of the hike, short of bushwhacking your way through the forest. I learned all this the hard way. Luckily I had my assistant with me.

When we got to where the turn onto the .4-mile segment should have been—it’s on all hiking apps as well—it wasn’t there. My assistant had to traipse through the forest with a GPS to find our car and then pick me up at the parking lot on Upper Ridge Road—because that’s what assistants are paid to do. Let me tell you, she was covered with ticks. I mean COVERED! So don’t make that mistake. In fact, do yourself one better and don’t even bother hiking the trail. There is no reason to do so unless you are just trying to hike every trail within Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area so you can write about it. I don’t even know if it makes sense as a horse trail since it’s only 2.1 miles long (barely 4 miles round trip). Seems like a lot of effort for a short ride.

With that said, now on to the trail review…

The trailhead on Jagar Road is easy to get to and has a huge grass parking area to accommodate those with horse trailers. The trail starts just to the left of the parking lot.

Parking lot on Jagar Road for the Upper Ridge Road Trail in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

Jagar Road trailhead for the Upper Ridge Road Trail in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

The southern trailhead for the Upper Ridge Road Trail is at a parking lot a quarter mile south of Kittatinny Camp Lake, the small lake shown on the map. In fact, vehicles can drive on Upper Ridge Road at the southern end all the way to the lake and launch a boat (the road is gated beyond the lake). I didn’t even know about the lake when I did the hike. For that matter, I didn’t even know about the parking lot. I just decided to drive up the dirt road to see what was there. The road is in such poor condition that when I got to the parking lot I didn’t want to go farther, and I have a 4-Wheel Drive truck. There are potholes that an entire car can fit in. So you might be asking yourself, if I found the parking lot near the lake, why did I end up parking at Van Ness Road.

My plan was to start at Jagar Road and hike the entire trail to Van Ness Road on the .4-mile segment. I actually went to Van Ness Road first. While I wrote earlier that there is no more Van Ness Road, I wrote that in hindsight. My assistant never found any sign of it when walking through the forest despite it being on the GPS map. What I saw at the time was a narrow footpath that I walked up for maybe 50 feet. It looked very overgrown and appeared to peter out not too much farther ahead, which is why I decided to check out Upper Ridge Road.

The problem with the Upper Ridge Road parking lot is that I didn’t know how far it was from the .4-mile segment. As I mentioned earlier, the only PARKING symbol on the National Park Service map is the one on Jagar Road. So when I found the parking lot, for all I knew, I had a mile walk to the .4-mile segment. I didn’t know I was just a quarter mile away. On the other hand, by looking at the map, I had a good idea of how far the walk was from the gate on Van Ness Road, and I was banking on the fact that the footpath cleared up beyond the section I saw, so I turned around and ended up parking there thinking that would be the easiest place to end the hike.

Potholes and mud on the vehicle-accessible portion of Upper Ridge Road in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

Parking lot at the southern end of the Upper Ridge Road Trail in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

There’s not much to say about the actual Upper Ridge Road Trail other than it’s an old road that is nearly straight all the way to the end. It is now mainly earthen with grass growing on it, but there are still some sections where the asphalt remains.

Typical terrain on the Upper Ridge Road Trail in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

Starting from Jagar Road, the general lay of the land is that you walk about a half mile on level terrain before coming to what I assume is the ridge that put RIDGE in the road name. The trail proceeds up and over the ridge, a 150 foot climb in elevation. The uphill climb is a half mile, and then it’s downhill nearly all the way to the end. Aside from one very short-but-steep section on the downhill side of the ridge, the hike is somewhere between easy and moderate in difficulty, perhaps a two out of five on a difficulty scale. It’s basically a long, gradual ascent followed by a long, gradual descent.

Typical terrain on the Upper Ridge Road Trail in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

Steep hill on the Upper Ridge Road Trail in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

The downhill section ends about 1.6 mile from the start of the hike, with a crossing of Kittatinny Creek being at the very bottom. A short uphill walk from the creek is Kittatinny Camp Lake. A side trail leads to the shore. As mentioned earlier, there is a gate blocking the road beyond the lake, but you can drive all the way to this point for the purpose of launching a boat. Parking, however, should be done at the parking lot a quarter mile to the south, not at the lake since parked vehicles may interfere with others who want to launch a boat.

Kittatinny Camp Lake in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

According to one of my hiking apps, the turn onto the .4-mile segment of trail is less than a tenth of a mile south of the lake, but as you now know, it’s not there. After contemplating what to do, my assistant just took off through the bushes. I turned around and headed back to the lake thinking that perhaps Van Ness Road was the side trail down to the lake. I didn’t walk down it when I first passed the lake, but this time I did. Nope. It just ends at the water where you can launch a boat.

As you also now know, the parking lot on Upper Ridge Road is a quarter mile from the lake, so if that’s where you parked, just keep on walking. The trail is uphill from the lake to the parking lot, but it’s not any steeper than what has come before. If you don’t have a ride at the end, there’s no reason to walk beyond the lake. I suggest you check it out, then start the trek back to Jagar Road.

Back to the Top