Tower Trail to Sunrise Mountain

Sunrise Mountain is the highest accessible summit in Stokes State Forest at 1,653 feet, reached via a 4.8-mile out-and-back that follows a section of the Appalachian Trail along the Kittatinny Ridge crest in New Jersey's Sussex County. The mountain's summit is crowned by a magnificent 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps stone pavilion with an open-sided shelter and fireplace, one of the most picturesque structures on the entire 2,190-mile AT. The pavilion commands panoramic views east across the Kittatinny Valley to the Highlands, north toward High Point State Park's distinctive monument on the horizon, and west across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania's Pocono Plateau. The approach trail gains elevation gradually through second-growth oak and hickory forest before reaching the ridge crest, where the AT corridor provides open walking above the valley. The summit is a world-class hawk watching site during September and October migration, when sharp-shinned hawks, Cooper's hawks, broad-winged hawks, and peregrine falcons ride thermal updrafts along the ridge in concentrations numbering in the thousands on optimal migration days. The Kittatinny Ridgetop forms a geographic funnel that concentrates southbound migrants to a narrow corridor, making Sunrise Mountain one of the ten most productive hawk count sites in eastern North America according to the Hawk Migration Association.