Saddle River County Park

This parks spans through several Bergen County towns. My favorite sections are Paramus and Saddle Brooke. Least favorite is Ridgewood.
This place has lots of benches and gazebos for sitting. If you have a party of ten or more you need a permit to rent a gazebo out. About every section of the park has one.
This park has some sections that are kind of messy so please clean up after yourself. This includes dog crap as well. Nobody wants to step on that! The ducks and geese leave enough crap around but at least they just eat grass.
I also like that this park has plenty of bathrooms as well if you really need them.
Lot’s of wildlife around here such as various birds and deer. Coyote have even been spotted by a few Unilocalers though I have never seen them.
Must add if you are walking, the rollerbladers and bikers can be annoying. I always feel like they are going to crash into me! Keep some eyes behind you and keep your distance!
One last thing I should add is there are some sections with poison ivy relatively close to some main trails. I’m 75% sure what I took a picture of was poison ivy yet I’m damn well not stupid enough to find out for sure. Luckily there is a plant called mugwort nearby and it helps alleviate poison ivy rash. If my mugwort pic isn’t good for an Id Google image it. It is extremely common in the park and smells minty.
So come take a stroll and enjoy one of Bergen County’s most scenic spots.

Many fields, covered trails, portapoties, and its massive. Prob the best park besides Rockland lake.

Beautiful park!!! I enjoy the bike trail, which is perfect for biking, walking, running or rollerblading with great views along the way.

By far one of the most expansive and well-​maintained park systems around.
I fortunately live in close proximity to the park, and by far it is one of my favorites in Bergen County.
This park links up with Saddle Brook’s Saddle River County Park all the way to Ridgewood’s Wild Duck Pond. This is the perfect location for those who love to exercise by bike, running or simply walking. You could essentially spend your whole day here, but tends to fill up rather quickly during the Spring and Summer months.

When Yesterday with the family… My husband and I with our kids 5, b8, and 9 year old for a bike ride and we love it, we have so much fun

My favorite go to park in the area. Perfect for any season for a nice walk. It is true from the other reviewers that the bikers can nearly run over you, especially on the more narrow trails but most of them will warn you with their bells or verbally. A good workout is from the beginning in Rochelle Park to the otto pehle area and takes around 45 minutes. Lots of playgrounds for the kids and plenty of fields. My goal this spring/​summer is to walk the entire path from Rochelle Park– Paramus/​Duck pond area. Will need at least 3 hours!

I love this park. The Saddle Brook section seems to be in great shape but the Ridgewood path is pretty bad which is surprising when you consider tax dollars$$. First is the bridge that connects the Ridgewood part from the Glen Rock/​Fair Lawn part. There are loose boards coming up, exposed nails popping out, and the wood is all splintered (don’t want to put your hand on it). Also in the Ridgewood part there is litter everywhere along the water and in parts of the grassy sections that it looks like noone has ever maintained. I was suprised to see how dirty the water was, it looks like noone has picked up the trash and plastic in a long time. Also, the path in Ridgewood needs to be paved badly it’s all bumpy and uneven. Eroded. Difficult to ride. I was happy to see when the Ridgewood part was closed during the summer, I was hoping to see some things fixed but no… still there.

Overall we just love this long linear park which meanders along the river through the towns of Fairlawn, Glen Rock, Paramus, Ridgewood, Rochelle Park, and Saddle Brook. You can get the feeling your out in nature here {which is hard to do in this populated suburban area} and it’s very relaxing to bike, or walk the entire length of the park. It takes us 1 hour each way from end to end traveling the entire length of the park on our bikes going at a moderate pace, not speeding. This is the only high quality park that I know of that is conveniently close to the town of Rutherford and is big enough to get some decent exercise.
The only two negatives I can think of are that a small percentage of the other bicyclists riding the path DISREGARD other riders and walkers on the path AND SPEED WAY TO FAST ON IT. Those few individuals endanger people in general especially children, elderly, and pets. These reckless bicyclists {mostly men, —I’m just sayin’ } weave in and out and don’t slow down when they see people – HIGHLY SELFISH and what are they trying to prove.
My other pet peeve is that sometimes you have foot walkers who are CLUELESS that there are other people trying to use the path beside themselves, these OBLIVIOUS walkers will walk on the WRONG SIDE of the path and BLOCK bicyclist trying to pass them {the rule in the park for everyone when either walking or riding is to STAY TO THE RIGHT UNLESS PASSING! Sometimes a group of people will stretch across the entire path blocking it oblivious to any other people who are trying to pass, these walkers act like they own the path. When you ask them nicely to please move aside so that you can pass, they give you a dirty look, they should be the ones getting a DIRTY LOOK.

An excellent park to come to for runners and bikers alike with a long winding path through the terrain and wrapping around the lakes and rivers.
Very large with lots of events that happen there on the regular so plan accordingly as the parking lot is fairly small and isn’t always able to accommodate all the visitors for particular races and walks.

I like this park. It’s small, but nice. I also like the location — Saddle Brook is a pretty decent town. I come here every year for the ALS walk to support my friend who lost a loved one. They really put on a great charity event. The park is the perfect size for the event, but it’s getting bigger every year.

I have been coming to this park about 15 years to bike when I feel like do an hour or more of training on my bike.
Best park in nj to ride your bike for a long distance an not be bothered by cars.
Sandy Hook is my second favorite.
I have always enjoyed ride and training for charity bike rides. There are a few area where you can go full throttle safely. For the most part it is a leisurely place to ride you are bike for a short time or a couple of hours.
Really nice park to walk in or ride a bike. Great during this time when the weather is turning warmer. The pond in the middle of the park is really nice too.
The path brings you through 5 towns in Bergen county. There are even some historical structures you pass on the way. There are two ponds and and the saddle river all akin the way. Great place to unwind!

This has been a favorite of mine for many years. Helped my husband & through walking heal after our surgeries. The landscape is so beautiful that you don’t realize how much you’ve walked.

Beautiful park I went today for my first time and loved it. The down fall no parking so I decided to park on the lawn and got a ticket by Thor biggest dush bag security that was no help for me other then that will go back!

Lovely park…
Great playground
always an ice cream truck
pretty lake
Long well groomed paths for walking, running, bicycling or rollerblading
Lots of benches around the lake to sit my fat ass on…
Need I say more?

As a recreational cyclist and not a spandex-​clad knight of the road I am always searching for trails to ride. In this aspect Saddle River Park is unique in Bergen County because it is home to a very good 6 mile paved trail.
There are two things that I like about this trail. First is the lack of road crossings. With the exception of a couple of places where the trail comes close to parking lots there isn’t a chance to be hit by a car. Esentially this trail gives you 6 miles of almost completely uninterrupted riding.
The second positive is the scenery. To my liking this is the nicest scenery I have seen among all trails I checked out so far. It’s not untamed wilderness but rather a well groomed park, which is what I personally prefer. The path runs along the river with numerous bridges and underpaths. A few waterfalls make popular stopping points. Large stretches of lawn and nice shaded alleys are along the way. Often you get to see deer and many bunny rabbits.
The pavement itself is in fairly good condition. Most of the bumps and holes seem to be along the first mile from Ridgewood, but further along it’s mostly smooth. However puddles form after rains, especially in the underpaths. Extra care is required going under bridges not only because of limited sight distance, but also because that’s where the path is damaged the most.
Now for the bad part, which is crowding. I do think that Bergen County is a very nice place to live and to raise family. However it is densely populated, and I think that the demand for recreational facilities far exceeds supply. Just getting to the park may be daunting because it requires driving on Route 17. On Saturdays this road is jam-​packed with shoppers heading to Garden State Plaza. The trail itself gets overcrowded: people walk in small crowds taking up the entire width or just idly stand around blocking the path.
Because of crowding I generally avoid Saddle River Park on weekends and when the weather is nice. One idea I had for avoiding crowds was to come on a Sunday evening. Unfortunately this plan didn’t work out because I ended up having to ride through swarms of small insects.
In order to ride the entire trail from beginning to end, arrive at the Wild Duck Pond area. Enter the following into the GPS: 1113 East Ridgewood Avenue, Ridgewood. Go into the entrance and make a full circle around the pond with the fountains. There will more parking lots as you drive around the pond, one close to the exit from the park. The trail head is right across that parking lot.
Other than crowds and a few places where pavement is destroyed, this trail is wonderful. In order for everyone to enjoy it as much as I am sure you would, please ride on your right side, and if you decide to stop — please get off the pavement.

Same review as Otto C. Pehle Park in Saddle Brook — they are all connected. Due to Hurricane Sandy there are a lot of fallen trees that have not been tended to yet but I do realize the pace of our county workers — I know a few of them personally.
The one thing that mystifies me are the large fees attached to do anything in these parks. I recently ran a 5k walk and was told I needed to provide an insurance statement pay a large fee to use the park walkways and provide them with a fee that would be returned to me should we not leave a mess.
It’s a «walk» — we walk through the park and leave. Why do I have to pay for all this? I think next time we’ll just show up — Will they tell me we can’t walk in groups of 5 — 10? There was a total of about 30 people participating. Our county tax dollars at work.

I grew up in Saddle Brook and spent a lot of time at this park throughout the years.
It probably could use a little more attention in areas where it floods and there are a lot of dead trees that have fallen over the last few years — but I still feel like it’s a great park. If you take the paths outside of the ponds, it’s not as crowded and there aren’t so many dogs and children to trip over.

Best running and biking trails! This park also has a play area for kids and sheltered picnic area with grills.
This Saddle River County Park is part of a park system connected by the bike path, which altogether is four parks and end to end the bike trail is six miles, with an unmarked extension for the last park. If your training for a marathon you can run this path easily. The path is paved and has mile markers.
There are bathrooms that are open during the warmer months. You can stash water and fuel along the trail ahead of a monster run.

This is an incredible system of parks, interconnected by a multi-​use, paved trail, which borders the saddle river. There are many «areas» which include picnic spots, fishing ponds, playgrounds, ballfields, tennis courts, pavillions and much more.
Even though some of the park system is sandwiched between Route 80 and the Garden State Parkway, it largely remains clean, quiet or even noise-​free, and beautiful. This is clearly a park which is very important to the community as a whole, and people generally clean up after themselves and their dogs, and the county and towns take excellent care of the paths and landscaping.
The only downside is if you get off the main trails, some of the «wilder» areas seem to be used for dumping. It is terrible that people would do this.. . but the paths are all meticulously maintained.

«Saddle River County Park is a 577-​acre linear park that meanders with the Saddle River and its tributary brooks. It consists of five park areas that are linked by a multi-​use path, including circular paths around some ponds.»
I have used this park system extensively for over thirty five years and witnessed many improvements and some detractions. There are actually a total of six areas that have different amenities and character: Rochelle Park Area, Otto C. Pelle Area (Saddle Brook), Dunkerhook Area (Paramus), Glen Rock Area, Fair Lawn Area (County Pitch), Wild Duck Pond Area (Ridgewood).
I have broken them down into the areas listed above and invite others to offer their reviews of this excellent park system, A link to the parks web site is included there you can view maps and get directions to all the parks.
Keep The Parks Clean And Your Dog On A Leash!
Check Out The Entire Park System By Clicking The Parks Link Below \/