Hike #808; Jake's Landing to East Point

Hike #808; Jake's Landing to East Point

11/26/14 Jake's Landing to East Point with Gregg Hudis, Lyz Hagenbuch, Ric Giantisco, Jen Berndt, Mike Heaney, Serious Sean Dougherty, and Caroline Jacobs.

The group at East Point

Our next hike would be the next in the series to hike the entire perimeter of NJ. We fill in gaps more and more with this series as time goes by, but it always seems like there's more to do. As soon as I finish one section, I make some discovery which can add up to another entire hike. There is always some sort of extra side thing to explore, and again in this case that meant adding extra miles. Fortunately, the next hike should not have nearly as much a problem as there were less places for addition things.

Jersey Perimeter completed so far

For this hike, we would return to connect further to the north from Jake's Landing. We had not been to this location since November of the previous year. We worked our way north from Cape May and just never kept going with the series headed north. We instead switched in December to working our way south from Camden. During the cold weather months, we made our way all the way south to just below Fort Elsinborg and Salem.

This year, my plan is to begin where we had left off at Jake's Landing and work our way north through December. In January, I'll do two perimeter hikes per month, also working north from Camden. These two areas are very different from one another and in somewhat different parts of the state, so it shouldn't be too much overkill on one sort of hike.

We met in the morning at our end point, East Point, at the historic East Point Lighthouse, second oldest lighthouse in the state of NJ. Only seven of us started the hike off, and Jen joined later. From here, we shuttled in two cars to the beginning point at Jake's Landing. It wasn't too far a drive. The road out to the landing is quite long. When we'd walked it last it had gotten dark, so we missed a lot of the view.

We started walking up Jake's Landing Road from the end, where we left off. There were expansive estuary views around the Dennis Creek area. The land is all part of Dennis Creek Wildlife Management Area, state land. We followed the road north and passed the Ludlam Cemetery, where four Ludlams are buried. The newest of burials there was 1823. We didn't go far on Jake's Landing Road before turning left on an old fire line trail. The trail led us straight through woods heading north. This was a nice, lush green section. We followed it until it took us out on Old State Fire Trail. This woods road connects Jake's Landing Road to the east and leaves the state land to the west. We turned left to follow this, as it was the closest route we could use to the waterfront.

The woods road took us across the Robbins Branch, a small creek, and left the state land in an area with very nice Autumn foliage. Ric commented how he had thought the foliage would all be done for in this area because where he and Lyz had been recently to the north was pretty much free of leaves. This was quite nice. The woods road went by a house after a gate and a few blow downs, and headed back toward Rt 47/Delsea Drive. There was another farm lane going to the left, and no signs saying not to trespass. There was one metal sign that read "Authorized Vehicles Only", so we walked on in along the fields and fence.

Old State Fire Trail

The road seemed to peter out at another field, where there was an old blue truck with "Dr. Dave" written on the door. I first thought to follow the field, but two guys were walking through it on the other side, sort of parallel with and toward us. I didn't want to cause a problem, so I figured it'd be best to try to find another route around. Aerial images seemed to show another woods road parallel with the farm fields just to the south, so I went into the woods looking for it. I came across a giant white pile. I couldn't tell what they were at first. When we walked up to it, it was a giant pile of conch shells. Farmers in southern NJ use these for limestone fertilizer in their fields. It just looked rather out of place. I took a rather large shell from the pile.

We decided when the two guys were moving off behind more trees and a pile of dirt that we'd make our way along the fields to the west anyway. We followed them to the end, then cut into the woods to the old farm lane route. It was clear enough to walk, but growing over with Atlantic White Cedar and other trees. We continued on it until we got to a mowed area off of Sutton Lane. We turned right on this pleasant little road around a sharp bend and out toward Delsea Drive again.

When we reached the main road, we turned right over a long causeway that took us over Wilsons Run, and a large estuary. We passed a farm, then went over another causeway across East Creek. On the other side, there was more of Dennis Creek Wildlife Management Area. I was thinking we'd likely have to do a long road walk from this point, unless there was a way to get out onto the Stipson Island section to the south. When we were nearly done crossing the estuary, there was a grassy roadway onto a causeway to the left, complete with the state WMA signs.

I was excited to see that we could actually get through. I waited for everyone to catch up, and we moved on along the old road to cross a tributary to East Creek.

Stipson Island doesn't appear to really be an island. It's just a peninsula with a narrow connection to the north. We followed the road over the creek bridge and made our way into an area with some sort of clover fields. There were narrow swaths heading off to the right of all clover. I decided I'd look for four leaf clovers real quick. To my surprise, Caroline found one quite quickly. I found two right after that and we moved on. I commented that Stephen Argentina once ate a four leaf clover I'd given him, and so Serious Sean ate the one Caroline gave him!

Just ahead, along another field we found an abandoned hunter's blind. We followed along the edges of the fields looking for a woods road that might take us further into the WMA lands. There was nothing. When we got close to the corner of the fields, I decided we'd bushwhack and headed through woods as close as we could to the wetlands without getting into the mud. We continued south on Stipson Island here. Eventually, we reached a woods road. We turned left to follow it, which was the direction we'd wanted to go.

After a bit, we reached a weird old metal sign reading "Danger Do Not Trespass on the Railroad". There was no railroad near by, and there had never been a railroad to Stipson Island. This must have been taken and just put there. I thought it was weird. A path went to the left from the road, so we followed it for a bit. That path just abruptly ended out there, so we turned back and headed along the road we'd been on further. After a little bit, we came to some sort of post made of concrete or something. This looked strange too, since it seemed obvious that these roads were seldom if ever used by anyone. Next, we came upon a sign that read "Critter Crossing". Someone must have come back here regularly at one time.

We continued along down the road, and came upon the weirdest thing yet.

Weird statue on Stipson Island

Off to the left, there was a pile of blocks upon which was a statue of a weird man laying on his back, his head turned to his right. His feet and hands each had only three digits. It had vines growing over it, which we had to move out of the way. The area was already odd enough, but this felt like we had been wandering through an Amazonian Rainforest to some old Incan ruin. We continued down the road from here, and a building came into view. I figured we'd best not wander to that, and we turned back around to the statue. From here, we bushwhacked to the west directly to Stipson Island Road. We turned left from here to follow the road south. This was bonus mileage stuff that took us out to West Creek. We helped a Praying Mantis cross the road on the way south.

I had found a box turtle's shell, and was doing silly things with it. Sean video taped me showing how I could melt a candle on it and perform voodoo, wear it as a shoulder pad, use it as a Pope hat, or put it on my face to impersonate Bane from Batman saying "Mr. Wayne..." and other ridicules things.

Just before reaching the south end of the road, there was a trail off to the right. Just onto it there was an historic marker that talked about Salt Hay Farming. I had no idea they actually harvested stuff off of these estuaries. Quite interesting. The trail split in two. The main paved path went left while a crushed stone one atop a similar berm over the estuaries went right. We followed that first. It let to a nice viewing area, but ended at signs that read not to trespass. The berm continued on, but it just ends a short distance beyond. We returned to the paved one, and that led to a floating viewing platform.

West Creek from Stipson Island

We had to head back out to the road the way we came, then head down the road a little bit more to get to view the West Creek. There was a Coastal Heritage Trail sign (Not even a real trail, just a sort of driving route for people to follow), and a smaller sign that read "Point Of Interest". It didn't even say what the name of the creek was! We took in the view and then headed back to the north on Stipson Island Road. From here, there were more bits of Dennis Creek WMA on the left, so we twice left the road and headed through fields. The first time was really tough to walk through, and then we had to bully through phragmites and a tree line to get to another open field. There was no where to go except for back to Stipson Island Road both times, but at least we tried. We followed the road back north to Delsea Drive again.

On the road walk sections, we somehow got into talking about Super Mario Brothers. I think it came up somehow in a discussion about television. I'm often at a loss when it comes to TV stuff since I've been without TV since 2008 (we have a TV, and can watch DVDs from the library, but no cable or anything). I think it came up while talking about Star Trek. Whenever I injured myself I'd end up watching TV, and Star Trek was one of those chance things that I got into. Video games were the same. When I broke my ankle in 1991, and had to take physical therapy for a year, I engulfed myself with video games. And so, Caroline, Serious Sean, and I ended up talking about them a lot. Sean and I have a lot of things in common in terms of music, hiking, and such, so I shouldn't be surprised that we'd both be closet past Mario fanatics as well. Sean even remembered the official names of very obscured bad guys from the Game Boy Super Mario Land (like the mushroom guys were called Chibibo..who remembers that??). Sean would keep humming or whatever the music from the games and seeing if I could remember what levels they were from.

Along the road, we passed a fence area full of horses, one with one of those silly jackets on. It was far too warm for the horse to really need a jacket, and I made fun of it. Lyz started stomping her feet, and it seemed like the horse would stomp back at her, which was mildly amusing for a while.

When we reached Delsea, there was a garage on the corner that had a giant old military boat. We turned left along a grassy swath parallel with Delsea on property owned by The Nature Conservancy, part of Eldora Nature Preserve. It was nice for a bit to not have to walk on the road. We passed some sort of animal rescue place, then soon reached Eldora Nature Preserve parking lot where we met up with Jen.

I'm never very impressed with work ethic regarding The Nature Conservancy. They are a fantastic organization for purchasing and preserving important pieces of property, and for many of their projects, but when it comes to land management, they're among the worst. Most non profit owned properties tend to have deplorable maintenance I've found. They simply don't have the help or have issues with outreach and recruiting volunteers. In Warren County, I ended up doing a great deal of maintenance on the trails at White Lake where The Nature Conservancy was supposed to be managing the property. Their other preserves I am familiar with in NJ and PA have become overrun with invasive species, trails have disappeared due to lack of maintenance, and employees don't return phone calls.

The historic home in the front of the property had lovely pink wild flowers growing in the lawn, but over knee high grass was growing right up to the building. The parking lot was completely full of cars, but no one was at their open building in the back. I was out of water, so I went in to refill. There was one guy in there lounging in a chair. I asked him if he had any maps of the preserve, and he said there should be some out in the map box (When we went back out there, there were none, only pamphlets on donating to The Nature Conservancy). There was a map on a kiosk there, which I took a photo of, but they don't even have maps to any of their preserves on line, another big problem with the organization.

The faucet in the restroom was working strangely, and so it took forever to refill water bottles. While we were there, the guy told us he didn't know for sure, but that the preserve might be closed due to hunting, and that maybe we couldn't go in, but he didn't know the dates. I thought to myself how pathetic it was that someone working a visitor center doesn't know if the very park he is in is closed or not. I let him talk a little bit more, then pointed out that it was Sunday anyway, and none of this should matter. "Oh! Oh yeah! You're right! Haha" he said. I held back from dry heaving in his presence and left the building.

We headed into the preserve with the plan of just following the outer perimeter. There was a nice boardwalk section at the start. The trails we followed were yellow, then red, then blue, and back to red and yellow as I recall. They were marked with paint, and the east side of the preserve had horizontal inch by three inch marks, and the west side had more standard two by three inch blazes. None of them had turn blazes and they could be very tough to follow.

The trails took us through open meadow areas where it was mowed, then back into woods. As soon as we got away from mowed areas, the trail became more blocked. Branches grew completely covering the entrance to the woods from the fields. In other areas, there were large branches blown down over the trail which we had to climb over.

Eldora Nature Preserve trail blockages

We covered a substantial distance within the preserve. The northern most trail alone was about 2.4 miles long. The trails headed to the north side, then back to the south, and passed a side path that went out onto a lovely, long boardwalk over the West Creek. We stopped for a break at this nice viewing spot for a little while.

This was the nicest facility they had at Eldora Nature Preserve, and one of the newest. The property was once the home of a Dr. Worth, who put the land into preservation due to the rare moths and such that utilize it. Just like with The Nature Conservancy's preserve at Tannersville PA we had recently visited, I was surprised that almost no mention was given to the ecological character of the site including the Atlantic White Cedar, or about estuary plant life.

West Creek viewing area, Eldora

We headed out the boardwalk and looped back to where we had entered the preserve, then reached Delsea Drive again to follow it west. When we reached the highway bridge over West Creek, I could see masonry remnants along the water below. Perhaps this was the remnant of the predecessor to the current bridge. We continued on Delsea West, passed more woods and farms, and an historic house to the right that looked somewhat beat up, and crossed another small estuary area. I remember talking a lot about food on this stretch, and Jen and I told Caroline, the only newcomer for the day, about some of the Meetup.com group things.

I always try to stress to everyone that it's not just "meetup". Just as when I posted hikes through Appalachian Mountain Club, I didn't want people telling everyone "This is AMC", it's always been something more and something less. People in the group indeed come through my postings on meetup.com, and people come through my regular mailing list, but we're not representative of all of meetup. We're not as big as the meetup.com community altogether, but we are also more than just the meetup community with our status as a non profit, and functions beyond what is posted there.

The latest big thing in the world of "meetup" is that a guy who used to be a leader through the NYNJPA Hiking Group (through which I used to be an approved leader) was recently booted out. His name no longer appears within the group at all, and the owner of the group sent an e mail stating that all hikes would be canceled. There were some pretty eccentric characters, not always in a good way, on there, and so I can't say I'm surprised. At about the same time, an old friend through AMC was removed from their leadership list, which was sort of saddening because I felt he had filled the niche for long hikes that I had left vacant with my departure from that organization. All of this mess going on in other groups makes me happy I've built a strong following independent of all of them. I try to be as accommodating as I can while still maintaining a comfortable level of control over where we go and what we'll do.

Ric walks the plank

We passed Moore's Beach Road on the way; this might be the subject of another little piece of the NJ perimeter for a future hike I've planned, but not until Summer. We turned left onto Glade Road, a slightly smaller road, which led us out and across an area of wide estuary once again. This took us over a tributary known as Riggin Ditch. There were phragmites growing up through the thick pavement near the edges, which I found amazing. I had no idea these plants could fight through such thick stuff.

I found plank thing going off into the estuary to the left; it was just narrow planks, one wide, heading off beyond where I could see. I walked out onto it and said "I can waste some time here!" because a lot of the group had to catch up. I followed the planks, which often drooped into the soupy wetlands. They had some sort of low but vertical pier things holding them up at the end of each plank. I got going a bit faster, and nearly slipped off when they became covered in mud. I got going too quickly and almost went off the end too, as the planks all ended. It looked like they used to continue, as there was a place for them devoid of vegetation stretching further out. I took a few photos and headed back. Lyz passed me on the way back and went out to the end herself. When Ric caught up, he too hurried out to the end of it to check it out and almost did the same as me, going off the far end.

On the other end of the causeway on Glade Road we reached the village of Heislerville. It sprung up in the 1800s as predominantly an Oystering community, with some farmers raising berries and such. In the late 1800s, after the arrival of the railroad a mile north of the town, it became a bit more of a stopover resort community. A hotel used to stand at East Point nearby until it burned in 1900.

Heislerville House

Ric and I were walking and talking when we noticed an interesting gothic revival looking house with outlandish Halloween decorations. They even had heads strung from the utility lines. The place hadn't been painted or varnished in obviously a long time. I joked that they hadn't treated the wood for a couple of years specifically for this occasion.

Heislerville House

It turns out that this home used to be a store in the rear section, and may have served as a stage coach stop or hotel. The home dates back to the mid to late 1800s. We continued through Heislerville past the Thompson's Beach Road. The next hike in the NJ Perimeter series would be from Thomsons Beach to Port Norris area, overlapping this hike by only a short distance on Glade Road. We continued on as the road changed names to East Point Road and turned sharp to the left. A side road of sand base went straight ahead, into Heislerville Wildlife Management Area. This would be the route of the next hike in this area.

We continued on East Point Road heading southwest. As we headed down the road, we almost walked right by an interesting abandoned house on the right side. It was obscured completely by dense vines except for the front door.

Hidden vine house; Heislerville WMA

I went in first and found that the inside was still sturdy enough to walk around in. There was a couch and a brick fireplace, and a spiral wooden stairway going up to the left of it. I headed for that first. The stairs were sturdy, and the second story had thick vines growing in through the windows. There was a low door to the back that led into an A frame section, like a storage area. It had an interesting table lamp inside it that I thought to take, but it'd have been tough to get back. Another stairwell went down from this side, but the stairs were completely missing.

Another set of spiral wooden stairs went up to a third or attic level.

Vines growing through the stairwell.

In order to get up them, I had to push thick vines out of the way. No one had tried to get to this third level in quite some time. I was a little nervous of what animal I might find afraid and aggressive up there. Fortunately there were none. Sean was getting all sorts of great video inside the place as we wandered every room.

We went back down the stairs and checked out the rear lower levels. The back room had a floor that had almost deteriorated. Another door led out to yet another single story room that was now completely collapsed. Lyz found a newspaper that was dated 1984, possibly the time of abandonment. We headed back from here out of the house. I noticed that there was a strange stuffed animal left in the tree in front of the place.

Vines crawling up the abandoned house

After walking out, I looked more closely at the vines that crawled up the building's facade. They didn't simply run along it, they slipped in between each little bit of siding, and hugged the very corner of the building in an amazing way. They weren't Poison Ivy, or the usual grape vines that we see growing all over everything. These appeared to be the normal English Ivy, also known as Branching Ivy or Sweetheart Ivy, Latin name Hedera helix, it covered probably ninety percent of the entire building. I would assume that the former land owners must have had it growing in their beds, and upon their departure it was allowed to simply grow rampant. Most people who drive by probably never even notice it is standing there. There is also a giant lovely sycamore tree growing in front.

Ric says trees are A-OK!

We continued on down East Point Road as the forested section gave way to open estuaries for the last time on the hike. When we reached the fork in the road, we kept to the left out to the beach area and where all the homes are. We could see the historic East Point Light House off to the right through the phragmites from here, which was where we were parked.

East Point Lighthouse

The East Point Lighthouse is the second oldest lighthouse in the state of NJ. It was erected in 1832 at the mouth of the Maurice River to assist with navigation. Originally called the Maurice River Lighhouse, it was renamed East Point Lighthouse by mariners as not to confuse with the newer range lights located closer to the settlement of Maurice River. This lighthouse is in danger of destruction because it is so close to the shore and the Army Corps of Engineers can't figure out a way of making it's preservation sustainable. One of the solutions is to move the entire structure to higher ground. The structure was already nearly lost in the 1970s when fire badly damaged it.

Historic view, East Point Lighthouse

We reached the open water, and the sun was beginning to go down over the lower Delaware/Delaware Bay. We could see the land on the state of Delaware on the other side a bit, but in some spots it was not visible at all, even though it was such a clear day. It was very rocky where we reached the water. I thought to maybe follow along the settlement to the east and come back along the beach, but the road had "residents only" signs on it, and along the beach there was a fence and barricade saying to keep out. It wasn't very far we'd be able to go even if it was open. We instead headed down over rocks near a home, then along the beach. There were weird squiggly looking things that had washed up on the shore all through this area, and tufts of grassy stuff everywhere.

There was evidence that there used to be docks in this area, and there were probably other structures, but nothing remains. Maybe this was where the hotel used to be. There were some old bits of concrete and such located along the shore here. Historic records show that it was on a mound known as Donnelly Island.

Historic view, East Point Hotel.

We must have crossed somewhere at least near, if not through where the hotel stood. We continued on along the beach, and stepped inland as brushy stuff was too close to the water. There was a family there running around and taking photos as we continued. The opening in the weeds along the upper beach led us on through to the parking area where we'd met. There was a wooden board walk heading to the front of the light house, which some of us checked out.

East Point Lighthouse

The lighthouse was a beautiful brick structure within good view of the shore. An information kiosk showed photos of it after the fire which nearly destroyed it and during the renovations. We walked around the outside of it and then headed back to the parking area where there was an older fellow talked to some of the group about places to eat.

Someone asked if there was anything to eat anywhere near here. He paused for a minute with a blank look, then said "Nope". He paused for a short time more and looked like he was thinking again.

"The girl up at the gas station up there at Maurice River makes a pretty good sandwich" he said. I had to hold back from laughing, both because he was serious and because I could imagine my friends making fun of me for my gas station heat lamp sandwich fixes. Everyone seemed to get out their cell phones about this time and look for eateries (except the older fellow who might have a rotary phone at home, weather permitting). Everyone agreed on a diner not far from where we were parked at Jake's Landing, and we were off.

Sunset at East Point

All of us had a nice dinner at the diner, which also felt a little redneck-ish. I hadn't had dinner the night before after my big hike around Spruce Run, so I was starving. I'd had a Reeces Fast Break at breakfast time, and remained hungry all day. Ric fortunately saved me by giving me a Clif Bar in Heislerville.

After scaling off the entire route, we had covered 19.8 miles. The extra stuff we'd done added a substantial amount more to the trip.

Again, this was not one of those trips that I expected very much of. I don't think I ever expect very much of the NJ perimeter hikes down along the bay, but once again this one delivered with some very interesting stuff that made it all worth it. The road walk sections were filled with nice in depth conversations that made them just blow by, and interesting, unexpected things kept coming up that never let us get too bored.

These southern perimeter hikes remain some of the lowest attended of all I post, but honestly, I don't think people realize what they're missing. Every one of them have been something special.