Name: Walk: Highlands to Sandy Hook to Fort Hancock and Back!
Start: 2026-04-18T10:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-04-18T15:30:00-04:00
Location: Henry Hudson Trail / Popamora PointShore Drive, Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 07716

Walk: Highlands to Sandy Hook to Fort Hancock and Back!

Sixteen miles to walk just before Summer arrives. Head over the Sandy Hook bridge and stroll along the trail out to Fort Hancock.
About this Event

Start/Finish: Popamora point parking lot in Highlands.

Distance: 16 miles

Optional endpoints: If you choose to shorten this walk you can simply turn around to get back to the start.

Terrain: Pavement, trails and the bridge over the river is a hill.

Transit: No trains, but there is a ferry from NYC a mile or so from our meeting point.

Bathrooms: Indoor bathrooms at the start and port-o-johns along the way.

Food: Bring your lunch and drinks, or you can buy something at Fort Hancock.

Parking: Plenty of free parking.

Difficulty: Average pace about 3-3.5 MPH, mostly flat.

Category: nature, history, seashore, scenic.

Coordinator: Cory Storch

Highlights: Fort Hancock, Captains House Museum, Mule Barn Restaurant, and the oldest operating lighthouse in the US. Also South Dune Trails unique old growth Holly Forest

Partners:

The East Coast Greenway Alliance is a non-profit organization developing a public multi-use 3,000 mile trail from Canada to Key West through New Jersey and New York. Donations and memberships help make this dream trail a reality.

Circuit Trails is 800 miles of interconnected trails in Greater Philadelphia in the making, already one of America's largest trail networks. Once connected, the Circuit Trails will be one of the nation's premier urban trail networks and it will provide multiple benefits to neighborhoods, communities and the region as a whole.

The 9/11 National Memorial Trail is a network of over 1,300 miles of trails connecting New York City, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, in tribute to the heroes who perished on September 11, 2001, and the heroes who, in response, answered the call for their country.

The FreeWalkers are again offering the Cross-Jersey Walking Challenge, with a goal of walking the 100 miles of the East Coast Greenway across the entire state at any time during the year. This walk is part of the ECG trail from Trenton to New York City.