Hike #1072; Batsto to Bass River

Hike #1072; Batsto to Bass River

9/7/17 Batsto to Bass River with Amy Davis and Joe Tag

Our next hike would be another point to point, this time on a Thursday (again due to my weird work schedule). It would be a sort of landmark one for me, because I would finally finish the Batona Trail.
Like with so many other trails I’d been working on as a series, Batona is one of those trails that I’d sort of let fall off the table for a very long time. It was now connected with every hike I’d ever done, but I just never bothered to finish it.

Back to Batona

Being a hiker from New Jersey, and now one of the most noteworthy hikers in New Jersey, it seems more and more ridiculous that I’d never hiked this entire trail. Truth be told, I’d wanted to do more interesting stuff and the sections I’d done of Batona when I first started it were nice, but I felt I would get burnt out on it pretty fast. The trail was only originally just over fifty miles, and a few reroutes have since added to it, but it was time to just finish the trail.
I’d felt like I should hold off for when more participants could come, because Batona Trail is a popular name and might bring us more people, but I still feel like I have better hikes to offer in the region to a larger group too. Rather than wait any longer, putting the hike out there for my next Thursday off felt like the right thing to do.

Hiking Batona in 2002

My old friend Rich Pace first introduced me to the Pine Barrens and Wharton State Forest. When I was a boy scout, he took the lead on a canoe trip down the Mullica River. With the weekly hikes, he suggested we do one on the Batona Trail back in 2002. It wasn’t connected with any other hike I’d done yet, but I knew I would work to get there (and did by way of Camden County and Atco area first). I really enjoyed the trail because it was something so different, but we did part of it on the Batona Trail part of it on the old Central Railroad of NJ. It really helped to break up monotony, and so with some of my hikes that followed, I did the same thing, either as a loop hike or point to point.

Batona Trail in Wharton State Forest

I’d done the Central Railroad of NJ bed as a loop with Batona earlier in the year, and then followed it with another loop for the north side in Brendan Byrne State Forest. I followed that with a section to Batsto Village, which put me to where I could complete the trail with the section from Batsto to Bass River State Forest in a single long hike.
We met at Bass River State Forest office in the morning, and picked up some maps.
The maps ended up being incorrect in some ways; the orange trail in Bass River State Forest, which I figured we’d use near the end, was shown in pink on the one map. Also, the Batona Trail had been rerouted at the southern end, but I didn’t know it yet.

Incorrect trail guide map

I asked about the discrepancy at the park office, and it was confirmed that the pink loop trail had been re-blazed in orange to alleviate confusion with the Batona Trail.

The accurate color map

The problem I have with this is that these incorrect maps should no longer be distributed. It’s worse than the fact that hard copies can still be picked up; these incorrect maps are still available online to the masses. In my opinion, that’s just unacceptable.

Eastern terminus map of the Batona Trail

We shuttled to the start point at Batsto Village to begin, which was where I’d left off the previous time. A spur trail connects Batona Trail with the village. We followed that from the lot directly back into the woods, which has a weird paved loop path, and soon reached the trail. We turned right to follow it generally to the east.

Fire site

The trail started out as a foot path, but at times it followed old sand roads that made it very very pleasant and easy. There were also a lot of mileage markers on the trees. Mostly each mile had one, but there were some missing here and there. The time seemed to go by pretty quick as soon as we were on the path. We crossed one vehicle accessible road soon after we got onto Batona Trail, but then there was a while with a long expanse of just woods.
The next road we came to that stands out in my mind was the Washington Turnpike.

Washington Turnpike at Bulltown Road

Across the road from where we emerged was a large section of somewhat recently burnt woods. The blackened soil below, with the lush, light green new vegetation was obvious. Washington Turnpike was a paved road where we emerged, but soon Bulltown Road turned off to the right and Washington Turnpike continued as a wide sand road straight ahead. The trail turned right on Washington Turnpike, but only for a few moments before cutting back into the woods to the right. There was an information sign on the road, so we went over to check it out since it wasn’t too far.

Washington Turnpike

The information on the board was about “fuel breaks”, or fire breaks, where sections of woods are separated by wide cuts so that the forest fire doesn’t as easily spread. It seemed that the Washington Turnpike had been widened rather recently.
For some reason, I did feel temptation to walk this crazy road, but it wouldn’t be on this occasion. We returned to the trail the short distance back and headed into the woods parallel with Bulltown Road (which is the name of some settlement ot the south of the trail, where there was reportedly another glass production industry like in forests we’d walked to the north). It wasn’t long after that we crossed Bulltown Road as well.

The trail weaved through more woods with occasional wetlands here and there. We switched from a foot path section to a long woods road, but I’m not sure which one exactly it was. There are so many out there, reportedly 1,500 miles of roads and trails in Wharton State Forest alone.
At one particular road, we continued walking and then no pink Batona Trail blazes could be found. While Batona Trail does use proper turn blazes, they are not always where they should be, and we ended up missing one particular turn from a woods road to foot path.

Woods road section

We made our way to the intersection with the side trail, which leads to the south to Buttonwood Hill Camp Site, one of the few places possible to camp on the Batona Trail for backpackers.
We continued from here across the Bulltown Road again, and then took to a nice section of lush woods and wetlands to cross the Bull Creek. This was a really pretty area, but it was hot out and I was hoping to be able to go for a dip somewhere. This was just a mucky creek bottom with no deep spots, so we’d have to wait for something better ahead.

Bull Creek

We made our way through more woods through high and dry sections, and passed a scenic vernal pool at a low area. The trail started coming close to Rt 563 after not too long, and we could hear the sound of the cars, which was odd after the woodland expanse. The trail sort of paralleled the road for a bit before finally turning to reach it.
The trail in this section was blazed in pink, but they were using more oddly shaped metal markers that they’d hammered all the way into the trees. I can just imagine the park employees putting these things in, because so few of them actually know how to properly mark a trail.

Evans Bridge

The trail came out to Rt 563 and followed it to the left. It was hot out on the road, so I couldn’t wait to get to some water. Just to the north of this point, Batona Trail crosses the Wading River on Evans Bridge. There is a pedestrian bridge beside the road bridge which allows for the Batona Trail to cross without the traffic ordeal. We crossed, and the trail immediately turned to the right on the other side, next to a nice deep pool in the Wading River. There was parking, some kiosks, and a concrete memorial to someone at the point.

Wading River

The hike so far was incredibly relaxing, which I needed. The surface was sand or pine needles, and none of the sand surface was difficult like walking on a loose beach.
I could have layed in the water at the Wading River for hours, but we did have a long way to go, and likely another spot to take a dip I figured.
We moved on from here across the parking area and through a narrowed wooden opening with railings intended to keep ATVs out. The trail passed through a section of woods with very oddly growing stunted pines.

Weird pines

They were growing up right and straight, but the needles were growing directly off of the trunk in a weird fashion I’d not seen very much before.
The Pine Barrens are mostly dominated by Pitch Pine, but there are also Loblolly Pond, Pond Pine, and Shortleaf Pine. I’m not sure which of these grow these needles. Maybe all of them.
Many of the trees are dwarfed because of their inability to grow tall from frequent forest fires. It could have something to do with that I suppose.
The trail continued to the north from this area, and we soon picked up a nice man made berm, which we turned to the right on. I figure this must have been some sort of an old cranberry bog or something similar.
There was a beautiful little pond to the north of us along this stretch. We crossed little bridges over the outlets to this body of water, which have been dammed over since being purged by beavers. The trail went through a wet lowland and then soon out to cross over Route 679, the Chatsworth Road. This we crossed directly.

Pond along the trail

Not long after we were back into the woods, a side trail led to the right toward Harrisville Pond, a large lake on the Oswego River. We continued ahead to the north and emerged on another old road route heading to the east.

Wetland view

The road led to a settlement that was (and is I suppose) known as Martha.
Martha was another old iron town. In the earlier iron making days, before more higher grade iron was found in northern New Jersey, bog iron was harvested from the swamps. And so, it was at this site that Isaac Potts built Martha Furnace in 1793, and named it after his wife, which was customary of the day (we have passed several such ones in PA on past hikes).
In the town’s heyday, there were as many as fifty homes, a saw mill, grist mill, a school, store, and more. However, like the other bog mining towns, it declined after the turn of the century.

Historic map showing Martha

While the town disappeared slowly over time, at least the road across the Oswego River was accessible some time in modern history, because as we approached the seven ton weight limit was still affixed to it’s post, and not all that badly faded.

Approaching Martha Bridge

The Martha Furnace is also known to still exist in some ruined form. It reportedly was found and documented to a great extent by the state of New Jersey, and then covered over with dirt and a chain link fence to protect it until more in depth archaeological work could be done.

Martha Bridge

The bridge was in alright enough shape to cross, but judging by the underside, it will not be possible to cross it in the near future if not repaired. I foresee this as being a huge deal for the state, and it will sever the Batona Trail for a good distance if not taken care of.

Martha Bridge

The river wasn’t super deep, but it did give us another good opportunity to get in the water and cool off again. I didn’t know if we’d get another chance, so we had a nice break.

Gnome home?

Once we felt refreshed, we were on our way over the bridge and slightly up hill on the other side. We passed a very oddly hollowed out dead tree to the right of the trail, and joined some more pleasant woods roads.
It wasn’t all that long after Marthat Bridge that we passed a routed wooden sign reading “Bass River”. This was where the trail left Wharton State Forest and entered Bass River State Forest. From here, it was really a pretty straightforward section of trail following old sand roads. It made it probably the easiest part of the entire trail that I’d been on.

Eastern Hognose Snake

One of the coolest things we saw in this trip was an Eastern Hognose Snake. Off to the right of the trail, it was slithering along, quite close to a pine cone (which was great for size comparison). This one had pretty brown, tan, and black pattern on it, and weaved around cautiously while we watched.

Eastern Hognose

Of all of my years hiknig, this was only the third example of Eastern Hognose Snake I have ever seen. I remember when I spotted it, I told my former boss at Hunterdon Parks, Ed McCaffrey, and he mentioned that he’d not seen them either. I recall he helped me look up and identify it.
The snakes are more common in the Pine Barrens than where I’d seen them, along the Lehigh Canal in lower Lehigh Gorge PA, and on Lenape Ridge near Port Jervis NY. The other two I’d seen were grey with slight pattern on the head.
Eastern Hognose are known also as Spreading Adder and Bastard Rattlesnake. They’re pretty much considered harmless, but I always like to let people know they are in fact a venomous snake, just not dangerous to humans.

Probably Ives Branch

They have rear fangs, and the venom is used for digestion for amphibians and such. They will coil back and strike, but more in a head butt sort of way, and they flatten their heads out so that they look like a Python, which is admittedly rather menacing. There only other defense mechanism is letting out a stink like a Garter Snake does when it’s handled. We got some good photos of it and continued on along the trail through an area of lovely wetlands.
The lands might have been part of the stream known as the Ives Branch, but we would have also crossed Arnold Branch along this section too.

Batona Trail muck

In South Jersey, as well as parts of southern PA, we see tributaries often referred to as “Branch” rather than “River” or “Creek”. It’s a regional thing we see often in Maryland, where these streams are often named either “Branch” or “Falls”, even though not associated with a waterfall.
The trail in the areas of these water bodies could get quite mucky, and we had to try to get around them or get our feet wet. I tried to get around them a bit, but then opted to just walk through the middle when it got to be too much work.

Amy was taking a bit of time to get through the weeds, and I offered to carry her over one. She didn’t think I could do it, but it was no problem at first.
I carried her over one, but then the next pit was a problem. The opaque water did not reveal that it was only a couple of inches deep in the middle, but that ATV ruts along the left and right sides had rutted it out to over a foot deep in each spot! I tried to carry Amy over, and my shoe slipped from the narrow middle between the two under water ruts, and we both collapsed into the mud water. We were absolutely drenched, and my phone got totally submerged again.

Oh boy, reroute

Fortunately, Amy chose not to murder me and leave me to the vultures, and we continued on along the trail toward the Bass River park office.
My LG Optimus cell phone, the third I’ve worn through completely of this model since 2011, still continued to work for the remainder of the trip, but for the next week would malfunction and cause my camera on it to open on it’s own, which was very frustrating when trying to function it. Still, it’s better than what most people have with their cell phones. In fact, the previous two were lost, and would probably still be working today if I still had them (one was into a deep slope with leaves and probably buried, the other was somewhere I shouldn’t have been, so I did not pursue finding it any longer).

Batona Trail in Bass River

Next, we came upon a sign along the woods road section stating that the trail had been rerouted. It apparently used to just continue along the sand road, but now continued in a longer route to the east for a bit.
I wasn’t going to cut it short based on miles I saw on the map; we all continued on the new official trail route toward the end. The route led us through pleasant woods, and then over more wetland areas than the woods road would have taken us. The well constructed trail had a series of board walks and a couple of bridges on more berms that might have been more cranberry bogs of the past.

Board walk stuff

The section had a lot of character with these additions. When it was on the higher berms between the wetlands, it almost seemed like old railroad grades, because some were wider. I could not however find any history of any railroad serving this area we were in.
Bass River State Forest is actually the first of New Jersey’s state forests to be acquired, in 1905.
The forest was home to a Civilian Consrvation Corps camp for the entire duration of US CCC activity, from 1933 until 1942. The biggest accomplishment of their tenure at Bass River was the creation of Lake Absegami, which involved damming two streams. The lake is named for the local sect of the Lenni Lenape tribe.

Batona Trail bridges

We continued along with some more fine wetland views, and crossed a road known as Allen Road. The berms and such we followed apparently are connected to the up stream side of Pilgrim Lake, another forest lake just to the south of us.
We continued through woods and eventually came out on Coal Road, also known as French Coal Road. The trail turned right on the road to follow it to the south. This led us directly on to the southern terminus of the Batonal Trail at a parking area. There was a wooden mileage block affixed to a nearby tree that read that it was mile “0”.

Mile zero

It seems odd that they have the Batona Trail end at this point. There is plenty of land to extend it, and besides that, one might think they’d want to have it’s terminus be at a park office, or of not that the edge of a park so that it looks like they took the trail the farthest they could go.
Whatever the case, we had reached the southern/eastern end of the trail.

End of Batona

Just to the south of the parking area and “end”, there was another pink blaze and Batona Trail sign at the intersection of Coal Road and Dan Bridge Road. Regardless of which of these is the actual terminus, I had finished it.
We headed just barely south to reach Stage Road from here. then turned to the left.
We followed Stage Road for a bit, and crossed over the East Branch of the Bass River, which had some side trails to wildlife observation platforms. I did want to explore it more, but I also wanted to get done at this point. We could do more down in the area.
Once we were on the other side of the river, at the intersection with Greenbush Road, we cut onto the orange blazed CCC Trail. The section of this we followed was just barely into the woods, parallel with the south side of Stage Road. We followed it until it started turning south more, then bushwhacked out to the road. We then crossed the road and over to the power line, also known as “Dump Road”, which followed the Stage Road parallel to the north.
We continued on this back out ot the entrance road to the park.