Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge

Inside Wallkill River Refuge, Sussex NJ

Dutch settlers called this valley the Drowned Lands, because every spring the river spread out until the bottomland looked like a lake. Farmers spent most of a century trying to drain it, and their fight with the mill owners got its own name: the Muskrat and Beaver Wars, finally settled in 1871. Congress established Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge in 1990, and the Wallkill River Refuge, Sussex NJ, now protects more than 6,000 acres across Sussex County and Orange County, New York. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages it for grassland and forest birds, migrating waterfowl and wintering raptors, which is why it reads differently than a state park. Wildlife comes first here, and we visit around it.

Trails Worth Knowing

Liberty Loop and Hidden Ponds

Liberty Loop is the one most people drive north for. It is a 2.5-mile loop around managed wetland units on a former sod farm, flat the whole way, and co-aligned with the Appalachian Trail for about a mile. Ducks, geese, herons and shorebirds work the impoundments spring through fall, and hawks and owls take over in winter. Hidden Ponds, a loop of under a mile that opened in 2022, connects off Liberty Loop or from the Lake Wallkill Road entrance.

Dagmar Dale, Wood Duck and Winding Waters

The Dagmar Dale Nature Trail starts at the headquarters on County Route 565 and runs down through grassland and hardwoods toward the river. The Wood Duck Nature Trail sits just off Route 23 on an abandoned railroad bed, 1.6 miles long and wheelchair accessible for the first 0.6 mile. Winding Waters adds 2.1 miles along the water, though it closes in September, November and December for the New York deer season.

Water, Dogs and What to Bring

Owens Station Crossing, at 136 Owens Station Road, is the easiest place to get on the water: an accessible dock for kayaks, canoes and fishing, a picnic pavilion, a restroom and pollinator gardens. Bassett’s Bridge has a large lot and a boardwalk to the water’s edge. Dogs are welcome on Liberty Loop only, leashed, using the Oil City Road or Owens Station Road lots. Trails run sunrise to sunset year round, the refuge is carry in and carry out, and bug spray in summer is not optional. Prescribed burns run from late winter into early fall, so a trail can close for a day with little warning. Make a morning of it: Sussex Borough is ten minutes south, and there are more Sussex County parks and trails within a short drive.