The 6th Annual Jack O'Lantern Trail is on Saturday, October 24, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at Brightwood Park, 117 Prospect Street. It costs $20, you have to register ahead, and families arrive in 30-minute slots. Families walk the woods past jack-o'-lanterns, hunt for hidden Halloween decorations, decorate bags at the picnic tables, then collect candy at "Trunk & Treat" stops along the trail.
The path your kids will follow in costume runs through a woodland that was choked with invasive vines, and in places used as a dumping ground, until a group of neighbors started cutting it back about six years ago. That history explains why the event looks the way it does, down to its unusually specific rules.
The Rules, and Why They Read Like a Trail Notice
The Town of Westfield's registration page for the Jack O' Lantern Trail lays out the conditions. Most of them have more to do with the woods than with Halloween:
- No walk-ins. You must register ahead, spots go first come, first served, and no-shows are treated as a donation.
- No strollers on the trails, and no dogs.
- Children must come with an adult age 21 or older.
- Costumes are welcome, with limits. Full face masks are out, and so is draping clothing "that can catch on objects in the woods."
- The rain date is Sunday, October 25.
Registration has one quirk. Add only one adult to the cart, check out, and then list every other attendee and their age at the end. If you register the whole family as separate line items, you'll likely end up redoing it.
The stroller and costume rules make sense once you know the ground. According to Friends of Brightwood Park, the park has 1.4 miles of trail. That includes a half-mile pond loop surfaced in stone dust and a dirt "two bridges trail" of roughly a mile that runs out to Fanwood Avenue. The Town describes the park as 44 acres on Prospect Street, with a pond and dam, picnic areas and nature trails. This is a real woodland path with roots and branches, which is a different thing from a paved park walkway.
To find the entrance, head to the north end of Prospect Street, go past Franklin School, and look for it on the left. Neither the Town nor the Friends has posted event-specific parking instructions, so a staggered arrival time is the best advance planning available.
What Those Woods Looked Like Before the Pumpkins
The Friends of Brightwood Park formed in late 2019 and early 2020. On its own website, the group calls the park's condition back then "quite dire." Japanese knotweed "taller than your head" blocked the view of the pond from the parking lot. Wisteria was climbing many of the largest canopy trees and had already killed many of them. Deer and other animals were passing over the invasive plants and eating the young native ones, so the forest wasn't renewing itself.
The group's volunteer spotlight on John Linderman, known as JPL and one of its founders, adds a detail many newer neighbors may not know. For years the park had been used as an unauthorized dump, and early members came together partly to haul the junk out. Linderman, who arrived at Bell Labs in New Jersey in 1973, then took a hand saw to hundreds of wisteria vines. In the Friends of Brightwood Park volunteer spotlight, he says, "Brightwood is a little corner of nature right here in my neighborhood. I'm happy to contribute to preserving it and sharing it with others."
The work since then is easiest to follow as a sequence:
| When | What happened at Brightwood |
|---|---|
| Late 2019 / early 2020 | Friends of Brightwood Park forms, starts pulling invasives and clearing debris |
| 2024 | 256 seedlings planted east of the pond, half a ton of debris removed, drainage and erosion work on the pond-loop trail |
| 2023 through 2026 | 128 American hollies and pitch pines planted across four reforestation areas |
| Last winter | Volunteers bury Mockernut Hickory nuts under existing beech trees for a Rutgers germination study |
| April 1, 2026 | Wednesday invasive-removal team restarts for the season |
| October 4, 2026 | Adopt-a-Tree Day, sponsored by the Westfield Tree Preservation Commission, the Department of Public Works and the Friends |
The clear view of the pond from the parking lot, which the Jack O'Lantern families will see on the way in, is one of the first things the volunteers won back. The Friends list restoring it among the early results of clearing the knotweed.
What's Growing Along the Route Now
The restoration is ongoing. The trees going in now are chosen to survive the specific pressures in these woods.
The hollies and pitch pines are evergreens. The Friends say they give birds berries in winter and cover all year, and deer don't like eating them, so they don't need wire cages. Both qualities matter in a park where deer eating the young native plants was part of the original problem.
The hickory project is more experimental. Jean Epiphan, an Agriculture and Natural Resources Agent at Rutgers, started and leads a germination study of Mockernut Hickory with the Friends. The method imitates squirrels: bury nuts in many spots, then compare which spots germinate best. Volunteers put the nuts under existing beech trees on purpose, to get ahead of the canopy loss expected from beech leaf disease. The study is still underway, and the Friends haven't published germination results.
A new problem appeared this year too. The Friends report finding Japanese hop in the park, which Phil Round, who leads the invasive-species team, calls "a really nasty new invasive." Volunteer Sarah Schaefer looked into it and found that it is native to East Asia and was brought to the United States in the 1800s as a fast-growing ornamental for arbors and walls.
The most charming evidence that the replanting works is a single tree. Two young volunteers went back to visit the tree they planted last year and named "Treekachu." According to the Friends, it now stands 60 inches tall. This year's Adopt-a-Tree Day took place on October 4, less than three weeks before the Jack O'Lantern Trail, with the same three sponsors listed in the timeline above.
A Weekend Plan Built Around the Trail
October 24 and 25 are busy in Westfield, and the trail's rain date overlaps another family event. The Town lists Cops & Goblins at Mindowaskin Park for Sunday, October 25, from noon to 2 p.m., followed by a Halloween parade at 2 p.m. If rain pushes the trail to Sunday, families with tickets to both may need to plan the afternoon carefully. The trail falls during AddamsFest, the town's October-long series, and is listed among its partner events.
For the afternoon itself:
- Book a slot early. Space is limited and goes first come, first served.
- Dress for a trail. Choose a costume that doesn't drag or snag, keep faces uncovered, and wear shoes that can handle dirt.
- Leave the stroller and the dog at home. Neither is allowed on the trails.
- Allow time for the picnic tables. Bag decorating happens there before Trunk & Treat.
After the Pumpkins Come Down
The trail runs for one afternoon, while the volunteer work continues all year. Phil Round's invasive-species team meets in the Prospect Street parking lot at 9 a.m. on most Wednesdays, weather permitting, and works for a few hours. The Friends also want help with tree planting and trail maintenance, the children's nature programs, and a marketing committee. Its newest group is for birders, since the group says dozens of bird species live in the park. General membership is free and comes with a quarterly newsletter, and the group says it now has more than 1,000 members.
The event's $20 fee goes through the Town's registration system, and the Friends also accept donations directly on their website.
Places like Brightwood are a big part of why I love this town. If you walked the Jack O'Lantern Trail and want to know which streets put you closest to the Prospect Street entrance, or you're curious how Westfield's quieter corners compare, I'm happy to talk it through. Kristen Lichtenthal is always glad to hear from neighbors. Start the conversation.
