Todd Trail to MacEvoy Trail

The Todd Trail to MacEvoy Trail loop explores the lesser-visited western sector of Ramapo Mountain State Forest, passing through the most historically significant terrain in the park where 19th-century iron mining left behind stone ruins, collapsed mine shafts, and spoil heaps now softened by 150 years of forest regrowth. The 4.8-mile loop begins on the Todd Trail from the western trailhead off Island Road, climbing through open oak-hickory forest interrupted by exposed gneiss outcrops before reaching the first iron mine ruins at approximately the 1.2-mile mark. The Ramapo Mountains were extensively mined for magnetite iron ore from the late 18th century through the Civil War era, and several distinct mine sites along this route show characteristic trenches, waste rock piles, and stone foundations from ore-processing structures. The MacEvoy Trail portion of the loop traverses the ridge above Ramapo Lake through quieter forest away from the lake shoreline crowds. Historical interpretive panels installed by the New Jersey State Park Service in 2018 explain the ore extraction and smelting processes that made the Ramapos an important industrial center before Pennsylvania coal-iron technology displaced the charcoal iron industry after 1870. Return to the trailhead completes the loop through second-growth forest where tulip poplar, once logged for charcoal production, has regenerated to impressive size in the intervening century and a half.