Manasquan Reservoir

Manasquan Reservoir
A quadrathlon occurring at the reservoir
Location	Monmouth County, New Jersey
Coordinates	40°10′44″N 74°12′26″W / 40.178775°N 74.207239°W / 40.178775; -74.207239Coordinates: 40°10′44″N 74°12′26″W / 40.178775°N 74.207239°W / 40.178775; -74.207239
Type	Reservoir
Primary inflows	Timber Swamp Brook
Primary outflows	Timber Swamp Brook
Basin countries	United States
Max. depth	40 ft (12 m)

The Manasquan Reservoir is a source of water for municipalities and utilities, as well as a 1,204-acre (4.87 km²) park, located in Howell Township, in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. The reservoir doubles as a park that is part of the Monmouth County Park System. The park has trails, a visitor's center, a nature/environmental center, a boat launching area and a several dikes for fishing, among its facilities. The park receives over a million visitors a year. It is reachable by car and there are five parking lots, including one for vehicles hauling trailers. The park's trails are open to walkers, runners, hikers, bicyclists and equestrians.

The park has 6.2 miles of trails rated at an easy-to-moderate physical challenge level in a 1204-acre area that includes the reservoir itself A 5.1-mile (8 km) multi-use perimeter trail surrounds the reservoir. The trail is signed with blue-colored metal posts and is marked with brown-colored wooden mileposts. It starts in the vicinity of the visitors parking area. The mile posts run in a clockwise direction as the viewer looks north, and start at the southern portion of the park. There are also a number of shorter trails, but these have no milepost markings. The shorter trails are also considerably narrower. The width of the perimeter trail fluctuates between 8 and 24 feet (7.3 m), whereas that of the side trails is usually no greater than 3 feet (0.91 m). Footbridges in the path are 6 feet (1.8 m) wide. The trail surface is mostly crushed gravel (quarry stone) and level.

A second trail, called the Cove Trail, features 1.1 miles (1.8 km) of nature that explores the woods in the southern section of the park. lakeshore near the environmental center. The trail starts off at mile 0.7 of the main Perimeter Trail and ends at the picnic area next to the environmental center. Binoculars are recommended for sightseeing of wildlife in this area. There are also three other shorter trails: the Wetlands Spur (0.2 mile long), the Environmental Center Bracken Trail (0.2 mile long) and the Bear Swamp Connector trails (0.5 mile long).

The perimeter trail runs in an westerly fashion, in the southern portion of the park and along Windeler Road, until it reaches a wetlands area where it takes a sharp northerly turn. Continuing north, it passes by the environmental center, located near milepost 1.3. Passing the environmental center, the trail continues parallel to the driveway that leads to the environmental center parking lot and makes its way Georgia Tavern Road, a county road that roughly serves as the western boundary of the Park. Here the trail starts to run in a northeasterly fashion parallel to the Georgia Tavern Road to lead to Chestnut Point where parking is available for nearby recreational fishing. The trail continues to run north to milepost 2 where it starts to run east towards milepost 3 and alongside Peskin Road and Southard Avenue. Past milepost 3 (and roughly around mile 3.3) the trail crosses the main utility service road of the Manasquan Water Supply System, after which it makes an abrupt southern turn to run alongside Manassa Road. It then becomes considerably narrower trail having a wide no greater than 8 feet in the area of milepost 4, but expands again to some 20 feet wide as it reaches its end at milepost 5 in the area of the visitors parking lot. Mileposts are marked to the mile.