The highest spot in New Jersey isn’t a mountain peak with a dramatic summit scramble. It’s a 220-foot granite obelisk sticking straight up out of the woods in the state’s far northwest corner, and you can drive right up to its parking lot. High Point Monument sits at 1,803 feet above sea level in Sussex County, marking the tallest natural elevation in the state, and on a clear day you can climb its 291 interior steps to see three states at once.
If you’ve lived in New Jersey your whole life and never made the drive up Route 23 to Montague, you’re missing one of the strangest little quirks of the state’s geography: the place where New Jersey runs out of “up” is topped by a monument that looks like someone airlifted a piece of Washington, D.C. into the Kittatinny Mountains.
What Exactly Is High Point Monument?
High Point is the peak of the Kittatinny Mountain ridge, sitting on the border of Wantage and Montague Townships. Located in the portion of the state known as the Skylands, it is the highest elevation in the state, with a peak elevation of 1,803 feet. The closest city is Port Jervis, New York, and three states – New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania – can be seen from the summit.
Perched right at that summit is the monument itself. The granite-clad obelisk rises 220 feet above the highest point in New Jersey, measuring 34 feet square at its base and 20 feet square where the apex begins. It’s often compared to the Washington Monument, and that’s not a coincidence of style — it’s built as a classic four-sided obelisk in the same architectural family as memorials like Bunker Hill’s Breed’s Hill monument in Massachusetts, according to a granite obelisk “similar to one at Bunker Hill,” as one New Jersey State Library account puts it.
Who Built It, and Why?
The whole park exists because of one wealthy family’s generosity. High Point State Park was a gift to the people of New Jersey from Colonel Anthony and Susie Dryden Kuser, who donated their 10,000-acre mountaintop estate in 1923 for the creation of a new park so that everyone could enjoy the scenic and recreational opportunities found at the highest elevation in New Jersey.
Four years after that first gift, the Kusers went further. In a letter to Governor Harry Moore in November 1927, Anthony Kuser wrote that he and his wife wished to offer the construction of a monument at High Point in tribute to all citizens of the state who had served or would serve in any war in the land, sea, or air forces of the country. Construction began in the summer of 1928, and the obelisk was finished and formally handed over two years later. The Monument was officially dedicated on June 21, 1930, at an elaborate ceremony with nearly 2,000 people in attendance, with State Senator Dryden Kuser formally presenting the Monument to the State on behalf of his parents.
The dedication itself has a nice literary footnote. The inscription — “This monument is erected by Colonel and Mrs. Anthony R. Kuser to the Glory and Honor and Eternal Memory of New Jersey’s Heroes by land and sea and air in all wars of our country” — was penned by Albert Payson Terhune, the author and a founding member of the High Point Park Commission. Terhune is better known today for his dog stories, so it’s a little surprising to find his words cast in bronze on top of a mountain. In 2019, the park’s name got a small but meaningful update: High Point State Park was renamed High Point State Park and New Jersey Veterans’ Memorial, to ensure that all visitors were aware of the significance of the Veterans’ Memorial.
Even the park’s landscaping has a pedigree worth mentioning. The pleasant landscaping was designed by the Olmsted Brothers of Boston, a prominent landscape architectural firm run by the sons of Central Park designer Frederick Law Olmsted.
Can You Actually Climb Inside It?
Yes, and this is the part most people don’t expect. The monument isn’t just a solid stone spike — two bronze doors open into an octagonal chamber 21 feet high with a vaulted ceiling and flagstone floor, and a narrow circular staircase rises up out of the chamber into the hollow core of the shaft, with a steel staircase wrapping around the interior walls continuing to the top. Funny enough, that staircase almost wasn’t meant for tourists at all: the stairs were installed because the designers thought the tower might be used for fire observations, but they never intended the interior to be open to the public. It ended up open to the public anyway, and climbing it is the whole point of the visit.
Getting to the top means climbing the monument’s 291 steps for an even better vantage point, a 360-degree view stretching to the Catskills, the Poconos, and the Wallkill River Valley. It’s not a casual stroll. Expect a tight, winding climb the whole way, and know that the interior isn’t open year-round.
The current hours run seasonally: the monument interior, with the option to climb the 291 steps to the top, is open Wednesday through Sunday from Memorial Day Weekend to Labor Day, and weekends and holidays from Labor Day to Columbus Day, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. That schedule bends around staffing and weather, so if you’re driving a couple hours to get there, it’s worth checking the state park’s page before you go. Even if the doors are locked when you arrive, the view from ground level at the summit is worth the trip on its own, and at night the monument still puts on a show: the shaft of the Monument is illuminated, as it first was in 1930, and can be seen from up to 40 miles away.
How Do You Get to High Point Monument?
You have options depending on how much of a workout you want. The laziest route is simply driving to the top — the park road leads directly to a summit parking lot, so you can see the views without breaking a sweat. If you’d rather earn it, one of the most popular routes is the Monument Trail via the Appalachian Trail, following the white-blazed AT until you reach the junction with the red and green-blazed Monument Trail, then continuing on to the monument.
Distances vary by trailhead. Depending on where you start, you’re looking at a 1.5-mile out-and-back from Lake Marcia Beach, a 1-mile route from the Monument Trail/Interpretive Center lot, or the longer 2.8-mile Monument Trail hike with about 515 feet of elevation gain. None of it is technical hiking — just uphill enough that you’ll feel it.
Yes, the Appalachian Trail runs right through here too, so if you’ve ever wanted to say you’ve stood on a stretch of the 2,000-plus-mile trail without committing to a thru-hike, this is an easy way to do it.
Beyond the Monument: What Else Is at High Point State Park
The monument gets the postcard shots, but the park around it is worth slowing down for. High Point has two lakes that serve different purposes — Lake Marcia is the swimming lake, a 20-acre spring-fed lake with a lifeguarded beach, bathhouse, and food concession in season, while Sawmill Lake is the camping and fishing lake, better suited to boating and casting a line.
Plant nerds have a reason to visit too. Some parts of the park are very special for plant lovers — the Dryden Kuser Natural Area has rare plants you’d usually find in much colder or warmer places, including the endangered three-toothed cinquefoil. It’s an odd little detail that a boreal plant refuge and a war memorial obelisk share the same mountaintop, but that’s High Point for you — a place where the geography, the history, and the biology all just happen to pile up at the same 1,803 feet.
Is It Worth the Drive?
If you’re picturing a dramatic rock scramble to reach New Jersey’s highest point, recalibrate. This is a state where the “summit” has a paved road, a snack stand nearby, and a monument you can walk into. But that’s exactly what makes it worth seeing — where else can you casually stand at a state’s literal high point, climb almost 300 stairs inside a war memorial, and look into two other states, all before lunch?
Bring good shoes for the stairs, check the seasonal hours ahead of time, and give yourself an extra hour to wander down to the lake or pick up the Appalachian Trail. New Jersey’s highest point isn’t flashy, but it’s one of those spots that quietly earns its reputation the moment you’re standing at the top looking out.
NOTE TO THE ADVENTURER: This guide is meant to spark curiosity for what lies beyond the horizon — not to serve as a guarantee. Roads fall into disrepair, buildings are torn down and rebuilt, and properties change hands; 'tis your responsibility to do your own research before setting out. Always heed local and regional law, and always respect ground that isn't your own. Take every entry here as a suggestion, not a decree. This guide's contents were gathered with the aid of artificial intelligence, and like any scout, it will from time to time lead you astray. You assume all risk in following its counsel, and neither this blog nor its author is liable for any loss, injury, or misfortune that results.
