Walk the dam at the north end of the lake on a cool September morning and you'll pass a wooden sign, a handful of dog walkers, and a stretch of exposed black rock the trail guides call Basalt Beach. Ask three of those dog walkers what the preserve is named and you'll likely get three different answers. That's not a knock on anyone's attention span. It's what happens when a borough renames a public space and the paperwork moves faster than the map data.
On October 11, 2025, Franklin Lakes held a ceremony to rename its 120-acre nature preserve, formerly known simply as the Franklin Lakes Nature Preserve, after G. Thomas Donch, the mayor who oversaw the borough's 2006 purchase of the 75-acre lake and surrounding land from the utility that had used it as the Haledon Reservoir. The rename is a small act of civic memory: Donch was the sitting mayor when the town decided a working reservoir was worth turning into public land, and the ceremony marked that decision by putting his name on the gate.
Nearly a year later, almost nothing else about the place has caught up to that decision.
Where the Old Name Still Lives
Open the borough's own website and you'll find the preserve's page titled "G. Thomas Donch Nature Preserve (formerly called Franklin Lakes Nature Preserve)," a header that's been carrying both names since the switch. Scroll to the directions and the borough tells you plainly: for older GPS units, use the address 1196 High Mountain Rd, North Haledon, NJ, because the new address (1 Russ Schroeder Way) hasn't propagated through every mapping service yet. The New York-New Jersey Trail Conference's free trail map, the one most hikers actually print out or save to their phones before a walk, still leads with "formerly known as the Franklin Lakes Nature Preserve" in its own description. Tripadvisor's listing runs the same way. So does the New Jersey Audubon venue page for programs held on-site.
None of this is an oversight so much as a lag. Renaming a park is a resolution and a ceremony. Getting every GPS provider, review platform, and printed trail map to update in step is a slower, uncoordinated process that depends on nobody in particular. For residents, the practical effect is that the preserve now has two correct names running in parallel, and which one you hear probably depends on how recently the person talking to you checked the borough's site versus their phone's default map app.
The Trails Actually Changing This Year
While the naming catches up to itself, the trail network connected to the preserve keeps moving forward on its own schedule. The preserve's 2.3 miles of internal trail link to a larger system at High Mountain Park Preserve in neighboring Wayne, a 1,200-acre property jointly owned by the Nature Conservancy, Wayne Township, and the State of New Jersey. The borough's current trail count puts that connected network at 11.2 miles.
This year brought real additions to that larger system, not just a name change. The Nature Conservancy announced three new mountain bike-friendly trails at High Mountain Park Preserve, named Turtle, Butterfly, and Bear, with an opening planned for the end of summer 2026. Unlike the existing hiking trails, these were slated to be marked with decals rather than painted blazes, a small design choice meant to keep bike traffic visually distinct from foot traffic on shared ground. A new segment has also been added to the Clove Trail, blazed in orange, forming a loop that begins at Scioto Drive in Franklin Lakes itself, giving residents on that side of town a fresh entry point into the larger preserve system without needing to drive to the Wayne trailheads first. New trail map signage has gone up at the University Drive, Reservoir Drive, and Indian Trail Drive access points to help visitors find their way through the additions.
So the preserve's most visible update this year isn't administrative. It's physical: new mileage, new access points, new signage that has nothing to do with whose name is on the entrance gate.
The Loop Worth Walking This Fall
For a straightforward fall walk that doesn't require driving to Wayne, the preserve's own Shoreline Loop and Island Bridges Trail cover the ground well. Start at the main parking area off High Mountain Road, climb the road to the dam, and pick up the white-blazed Preserve Shoreline Loop where it starts at a triple blaze on the fence. Crossing the dam gives you a clear view across the lake to the Lower Pond on the opposite side, and the narrow path that follows along the fence line offers a string of benches for anyone who wants to sit with the view rather than keep moving.
About a third of the way around, a break in the fence marks the start of the blue-blazed Island Bridges Trail, which cuts across a dike system and two floating pontoon bridges built in October 2013 to finally connect what had been two separate dike sections. This half-mile stretch is where Basalt Beach sits, a wide outcrop of exposed volcanic rock left over from the same Watchung Mountains activity that shaped much of this part of Bergen County. The full loop runs close to two miles and stays flat and fully walkable the whole way, dogs welcome on leash, no swimming or wading permitted at any point along the shoreline.
Boating is allowed from April 1 through November 15, hand-carried only, no motors, no trailers, which puts this fall inside the last stretch of the season for anyone who wants to get a kayak on the water before the launch closes for the winter.
Same Day, Different Names
The kind of Friday that pairs a preserve walk with something afterward has a built-in stop a few minutes away. The Old Stone Music and Coffee House operates out of the historic stone sanctuary at Franklin Lakes United Methodist Church on Pulis Avenue, hosting live, mostly local musicians on the first Friday of each month, a rhythm the church has kept going since October 2017. It's a small room, a cover charge that includes unlimited coffee and a plate of something homemade, and no expectation that you dress for it.
A short drive over the town line, Abma's Farm in Wyckoff opened its own fall season on September 26 with a hayride out to the pumpkin patch, seasonal beer, grilled hot dogs, cider donuts, and live music, the kind of afternoon that turns naturally into an early dinner if you time the walk right. None of this requires knowing which name the preserve currently goes by. The lake doesn't care what the sign says, and neither does the dam, the dike, or the basalt.
The borough's own website carries both names side by side and lists the North Haledon address for older GPS units, a practical courtesy for anyone whose phone still knows the preserve by its earlier name. Third-party maps and listings update on their own schedules, and the trail network keeps growing in the meantime.
If you're heading out this fall, bring the old address as a backup, and don't be surprised if the trail map calls it one thing while the sign at the entrance calls it another. Both are right. The place just changed its name faster than anything else did.
If you know Franklin Lakes well enough to have an opinion on which name should stick, or you're weighing the same question about any other patch of ground in Bergen County, Max Stokes has spent a career paying attention to exactly this kind of local detail. Let's Connect.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
