Hike #842; Westville to Grenloch/Turnersville

Hike #842; Westville to Grenloch/Turnersville

4/12/15 Wheelabrator Wildlife Refuge to Grenloch/Turnersville with Serious Sean Dougherty, Jack Lowry, Lyz Hagenbuch, Ric Giantisco, Rob Creamer, Michele Flackalacka, Omri Afir, Susie Duncan, Ken ?, Bruce Creamer, and Flip Flop Duncan.

The group at Da Vinci's Pizza place

Our next hike would be a point to point between Westville NJ and Grenloch Lake just north of Turnersville. This one was of many hikes I'd organized that would fill in the missing gaps of the NJ Perimeter we'd yet to finish hiking, but also include lots of other interesting things in the area that I'd tacked on in order to make it a full hike.

When we had hiked the section from Camden south to National Park NJ and Red Bank Battlefield Park, we noticed along the way the existence of Wheelabrator Wildlife Refuge. When we passed, it was getting too late and we'd not have enough time to do that. I said at that moment that we'd have to do another hike there to cover that piece. Now that we're getting close to finished with the entire series, and with warmer weather coming and not wanting to be in urban areas for it, it was time to post it.

We met in the morning at Grenlock Lake Park. When I arrived, only Michelle and newcomer Ken. Lyz had told me the night before that her and Ric as well as Omri would be there, they just ran a little late. I pretty much knew Serious Sean would be there. At first I felt like not many people would show up.

NJ Perimeter completed so far

The perimeter hikes have been some of the most interesting experiences of my life. The places I've seen are places I'll probably never return to, nor would most anyone, but true to the spirit of the hikes, the sum of their parts have made them all worth it. Unfortunately, some of these hikes have really turned off a lot of my friends who would otherwise be coming with me if I posted something else. People tend to go for the "greatest hits" hikes, places like Delaware Water Gap, High Point, Pyramid Mountain, names they recognize. In that way, I'm sort of doomed not to have as many participants. It's a shame, because some of them have been among the most fun and diverse we've ever done, like the Camden North section. Others, like the Bivalve area trip, would be something that would greatly appeal to even the normal outdoor groups like AMC.

I'd had another extremely stressful week and really needed to get out and calm down. Work hasn't gotten any better for me. I actually dread going in. Hikes are one of the few distractions that get me through the craziness.

We headed to our starting point where Jack and Susie were waiting there for us. I had originally planned on parking outside of the Wheelabrator Wildlife Refuge, but when they were already there, we opted to go to that point. It was a good thing we did, because the distance within that preserve ended up being much more than I'd anticipated it would be. The section in Wheelabrator alone was supposed to be only about two miles according to maps, but somehow we squeezed 4.5 miles out of it. With a side trip for lunch, we ended up covering a total of 18.3 miles, which was about three miles further than I'd anticipated, mostly because of Wheelabrator.

After meeting at the end point, we shuttled to Wheelabrator where Jack and Susie were both waiting for us. We started off our hike by following the trail on a mowed section past a little nature building. We checked out the inside before moving on. The trail went from the open meadow into some woods and broke off in two sections. We took to the left first.

The path led us along the perimeter of the Wheelabrator fence line. The company is a waste disposal place that maintains the refuge around it's sides. It was interesting to me that they had this trail immediately along the edge of it's chain link fences. It's also commendable that there's nothing going on that they need to hide from public too. They had little foot bridges and such to go over trenches. The path came out at an access road. From here, the official trail turns right. We followed the road further on and reached a path to the left. It wasn't marked, so we followed it out to more fence line, then had to return to the road by way of what looked like a gas line. Areas into the woods to the north were too wet really to walk. We continued on along the woods road. When we reached a section with water to the right, we went down off the road and decided to keep more to that side for a bit.

We eventually came to a spot where there was a sign reading "Tie Off Point Trail". I had been reading the history of the area the night before, and didn't think we'd see that much out on the peninsula that went off into the cove there, but it ended up being very interesting.

View from the former pier area, Wheelabrator Wildlife Refuge

In all of the aerial photographs, it looked like it was pretty inaccessible, but this time the tide was pretty low and so we were able to walk all the way to the end of it. We started out walking on the stones that are usually submerged heading to the north along the Delaware.

Old planks...part of the old Washington Park pier?

While walking out there, I spotted some planking off into the water. This planking was all stuck together and was quite old. It looked like standard wood sizes, not the cut crap that's shorter we have today. I wondered if any of this could be part of the old Washington Park pier.

This area was believe it or not once the resort capital of the world. A man by the name of William Thompson had constructed a pier with amusements, rides, hotels, and more. He even had a second "Ellis Island" for processing immigrants. Thompson, the "Duke of Gloucester" was responsible for most of the economic development in the area, and Gloucester City once had more bars than anywhere in the state, which he apparently ran. The park also boasted the world's tallest Ferris Wheel.

Former pier site

According to the old photos, the pier must have sat atop a lot of this land mass that we were now walking out across the water. There were some fantastic views of the Walt Whitman Bridge and across toward Philadelphia area. We could see one of the stadiums and several other structures out there.

Historic Washington Park views

The amusement park that once occupied the site was opened on Memorial Day 1895. The difference between the site now and then is unthinkable almost. We continued walking, and had to step up and down over sections that were higher than others. The area might have always been a land base with wood on top, or perhaps only sections of land were placed with water allowed to flow underneath. I noticed more blocks and such, but there was no more noticeable wood left from any amusent parks and such. We made our way all the way out to the end, on the way climbing over tree branches in order to get through. Obviously not many venture out as far as we had onto the former pier site, and even fewer know that it ever existed. The refuge had a lot of interpretive signs, but they were all ecology and birding, no history.

Pier now

Pier then

At the end, we could see there was a turn in the land masses, though some of it was under water. The tide was going out strong, and we could see the water passing through the water body between the next exposed land and where we stood. We couldn't see through it so there was no way of telling if it was deep or not. I decided to test it, and waded in. The water didn't come much above the knees at all. It was quite a strong current going out, but nothing too dangerous. I was worried most about Rob's dog Bruce, because he might go in and get swept down, but this was not the case. It was not nearly that strong, and so we played fetch with him in the water.

I got through to the first island and continued on a bit more. I waded across another wet spot, then turned back to the south. There was an island in the middle of the area that I would not be able to reach. Lyz and Ric were the only ones to follow me out to the end of the sand bars within the cove, and Lyz attempted to walk further out, but could see that it got very deep. We opted to go back at this point.

Roller coaster on the pier historic view

Certainly some of the amusements were out on piers judging from the historic photographs, including the roller coaster, but some of them must have been back on the shore in part of the refuge we were walking through.

100 foot tall ferris wheel at Washington Park, tallest in the world

It was curious that there were really no foundations or anything out in the land surrounding us. We took a nice break out on the peninsula, enjoying the mild weather and taking in the view. There was a large Sycamore tree on the corner, which Ric was checking out because it's his favorite tree. It was growing in a weird shape, so I had a closer look. It turns out the tree had once fallen down toward the river side, and new leaders grew off of the fallen tree vertically. From the original stump area, a new full size tree was growing, but also new the former crown of the tree were new roots and another entire new full grown tree. This is among the most interesting trees of that variety I've ever seen.

We made our way back out along the pier site from here to continue exploring Wheelabrator Wildlife Refuge.

Sycamore tree fallen, re rooted, and growing!

The dirt road continued on close to the waterfront now heading west. We followed it all the way out to a chain link fence of a tank farm where we had to turn back. There were a couple of viewing platforms along the way that were pretty nice. It was good and relaxing to be on the woods road for a while. We followed it back the way we came, then went back around the fence at the Wheelabrator place to where the trail broke off to the left. We tried going blow the trail for a bit to stay closer to the shore, but it got a bit wet. We used the other trail we'd seen earlier on to continue, but it petered out and seemed to disappear. We found out there was looked like it might have been a homeless person's home, probably abandoned for the winter. The woods didn't have a lot of undergrowth, so we could easily follow the perimeter of it out along the water. On this section there were some concrete bases of things. I didn't think of it at the time, but it must have had something to do with this old amusement park. We even found an old well that had been filled in.

We exited the refuge through the woods on a path to the railroad tracks, and followed the spur out. There was apparently once a trolley station here.

Washington Park trolley station

We were now finished with the NJ Perimeter segment of this hike. The rest of it would be other stuff that I thought would be interesting to explore in the area. We cut across the road and went along a ball field heading sort of northeast. When we reached the railroad tracks, we got up along side of them and followed them north. Rob opted to go and follow the parallel road. I spotted and old shelter to the right as we continued.

We reached the bridge over Big Timber Creek, the river that feeds into the cove we had been on where Washington Park existed, and crossed on an abandoned segment of it. It was once double tracked but only one is used today.

Big Timber bridge

We continued across and followed the tracks to the north, then over another bridge across Rt 130. Along this section, there was a wooden plank road used by power companies to access their lines that followed the tracks. We continued on through Westville where Rob and Bruce re-joined us, and we continued out to the bridge over Little Timber Creek. There was another branch line that once broke off of the main line here. It was obviously another old railroad, but it interestingly had no mention of it in my railroad atlas book. We crossed the active bridge on the abandoned section, then turned right on a path that gained the other right of way. This would most certainly have been another branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The Camden and Amboy line, which we had been following, was later part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system, and the line to Grenloch Lake too was a Pennsylvania Branch, though originally other lines.

Little Timber Creek rail bridge site

We took a short break at the nice spot on the abutment before moving on along the rail bed. The right of way was now used by both sewer lines and overhead power lines. There was a path along all of it, from wide ATV path to gravel path. It was obviously used regularly. We took the right of way to Market Street where we passed the Gloucester City high school, and crossed to continue. The right of way wouldn't take us through very well when we reached Rt 130. I don't recall if we dashed across here, but we probably did. If not, we headed south again and then crossed at the Quality Inn. Either way, we turned left here to follow Crescent Blvd under Interstate 76 and were again stuck at the other side. There was not a good way through, and there were construction vehicles up the slope on the other side. I decided to go for it anyway. I went up, and then decided to sit in one of the vehicles briefly, then we crossed an exit and hurried along the edge of 76 up to Market Street. Lyz and Ric went with me that way, but when we got to Market Street the others were already going by on the road. We continued to Park Avenue and turned left, and Serious Sean continued ahead with Michelle I think to get drinks ahead.

The rest of us followed Park Ave over the power line that was the old rail line and turned right on it to reach the active tracks, formerly the branch to Grenloch Lake. We'd mostly follow this route all the way back. Somewhere in this area, Susie had to take off running back to her car to get to band practice! I couldn't believe she was going to try to make a run for it, but I'm sure she's inspired enough to have made it on time. We continued walknig the old Grenloch Branch.

The rail line was originally the Camden, Gloucester & Mt. Ephraim Railway, built as a 3 foot gauge railroad, opened from Kaighn's Point to Gloucester City (3.9 miles) in Feb 1874.

The 1.2 miles to Mt.Ephraim opened in May of 1876. Purchased by the Reading in Nov 1883 and Standard gauged the line in June 1885.

The tracks

The line was reorganized as Camden County Railroad in 1889. The section at the south of Glendora torn up in 1973 due to dwindling business and use of trucks rather than trains, and south of Bellmawr area was ripped up in 1984.

We continued to follow these tracks south to Mount Ephraim where we met back up with Serious Sean and Michelle. We decided to make this our lunch stop although we were originally going to shoot for later. We turned left on the main street and reached Da Vinci's Pizza for our lunch break, which worked out quite well.

We also went down the street further for drinks to continue on the hike with. We had a really nice lunch, and the people were really nice. We got a terrific corner booth thing, and Rob had someone in his family come and pick Bruce up so he wouldn't hurt his paws on the tracks ahead.

We walked the tracks to the south very easily. We crossed over Rt 295 on a bridge as well as the Little Timber Creek again. We then continued on to cross a north branch of the Big Timber Creek before reaching the end of the rail section where there was a spur into an industry.

End of the line near Runnemede

We tried to continue on and pass beneath the NJ Turnpike, but we couldn't get through. It was too well blocked with fencing on both sides. We looked around to see if there would be a way through, but nothing was looking promising so we went back across the creek and turned right across a meadow to reach Black Horse Pike beneath the Turnpike.

There was a sign along the road reading "Runnemede: The Best Two Miles in South Jersey". I don't know what was so special about it, but we hadn't really walked all of it. We headed up the road only a little bit and then turned right to head over to ball fields and the old railroad bed. To the south of the park, the rail bed was now a paved trail to be connected with Blackwood Rail Trail to the south. it paralleled the roads closely, and I had thought it would go all the way through, but it sort of ended at a parking lot. Everyone went to go around it, but I decided to try to follow it on through.

The rail bed in

I just kept heading through the lot, which became a Toyota dealership lot. Everyone else was out on the road except for Ric who followed me through. I didn't know for sure if I'd get through the other side, but figured I'd try it. Apparently the others tried to follow me too, but some guy from the dealership told them that there was no way through and that I'd be coming back. Well, I didn't come back. When we got to the other side, we were able to slip through the fence to the left and come out. We continued ahead and all sat down for a nice break on a corner where I think some of the group used restrooms or something.

Guitar Randy playing Jack's guitar

While sitting there, a guy came up to us and asked to play Jack's carbon fiber guitar. We had of course been singing songs and such all morning, which is typical, having more fun than anyone would think we could have on a hike like this.

Randy started playing "Over the Hills and Far Away" by Led Zeppelin and some other stuff. He also did a little Pink Floyd. He saw that I was drinking some Peppermint Schnapps, and I gave him some of it. When we started moving on, he joined along with us! He was going on talking about giving people guitar lessons, and how we didn't have to worry because he was "packing"!

The rail bed, not yet developed as a trail through Glendora

The railroad bed continued to follow a grassy swath next to Main Street as we walked south. I figured Guitar Randy would leave us by this point, but there he was still walking with us. After crossing Front Street, the right of way became a narrow foot path onto a high fill. Somewhere there used to be a station in this area, but I don't recall seeing it. In fact, I don't recall seeing any stations at all on the entire trip, which is unfortunate if they're all gone.

Historic view of Glendora Station

 We were about to cross the North Branch of the Big Timber Creek, which was quite pretty from up above. Guitar Randy pointed out that there was a boat stuck down in the creek to the east of us that had been there "for about twenty years". The fill was very high and must have had some sort of culvert through it as we did not cross any trestle deck.

Big Timber Creek

Guitar Randy left us when we exited the woods. He asked for money before he left us, but I had no cash. He recommended that going ahead we should skirt the railroad bed through adjacent cemeteries, and that it was the best way through. He threw me a few blessings, and I thanked him for his company before we parted ways. The others had already gone ahead through a cemetery across Lower Landing Road, but I cut directly across.

Cut on the former Grenloch Branch

The railroad went on into a cut just ahead, which was wet in the middle. There was fortunately a path that went off to parallel it to the left. At first there was the cemetery to the right, but then there was one on the left that Randy had told us about. We opted not to follow that and instead stay on the nice path that was at the top of the cut.

The rail bed came out of the deeper cut, and continued as a mowed grassy path to the south after crossing Maple and Oak Avenues.

Grenloch Branch historic view near Blackwood

The rail bed soon passed between east and west portions of Atlantic Avenue in what is now a large swath of grass and a few trees. It was a nice section to walk, and probably countless people have no clue a railroad ever was there.

Former Grenloch Branch near Blackwood

In this stretch, Sean borrowed Jack's guitar and the singing continued. I can't recall all the songs we went over during the day, but I particularly remember Paul McCartney's "Jet". The trail started up again when we reached Brown Avenue. The paved pathway took us underneath Rt 42.

Caboose on Blackwood Rail Trail

As we came to Blackwood, there was an old caboose parked along the right side of the trail. This was a nice little site to see along the way. I recall taking a bit of a break here. The trail crossed a couple other small tributaries, Bulls Run, followed by Farrows Run on the south side of Blackwood. I don't recall seeing any sign of the old train station here either.

Historic view of Blackwood Station

The trail became more suburban and had some little sections of woods on it from this point. There was at one point some sort of concrete standing things in the woods to the right, but I've no clue what it was. The entire paved trail section went by very quickly to it's end at Linden Street, just before Grenloch Lake where it ends. This was also the end of the railroad altogether. It was apparently never a through line, even to Turnersville just to the south.

We turned right onto Central Avenue to cross the outlet to Grenloch Lake. Several cars were parked around and a lot of people were fishing. There were houses immediately on the lake on the other side, and no trail access at all. We had to head up hill a bit and make a left turn onto Eastview Avenue. Soon, on the left was a small ball field park we were able to turn left into, and then head down to the shore of the lake, and the trails leading to the end.

Grenloch Lake

There was a pier out onto the water I checked out. We then walked the trails off to the right. I got some strange looks as I walked out in my dark brown blazer with blue butterfly collar seventies shirt. The path along the lake was very nice up ahead, with a rather steep slope off to the right. It was nice to see topography that's different like that, because usually south Jersey is all so flat and can be boring.

We made our way to the access road area which led us back to the lot we were parked in. There was a sign there with tons of rules including saying  not to allow dogs to bark excessively. The signs seemed overly rigid for a place that is considered a "dog park".

The group with Leonardo DiCarpio

Before heading out, Serious Sean had acquired a cardboard cut out of Leonardo DiCaprio which he recently carried with him for an entire hike in the Shawangunk Mountains. The pictures from that hike are hilarious, so he pulled it out for an encore showing at the end.

Another bit of the NJ Perimeter was now done, we saw another entire old railroad corridor, and met interesting people along the way. I was very happy with how this one turned out. Even though the groups have been smaller on these perimeter trips, they've been fantastic experiences with great memories. It's been really hard for me to get through the days lately, but the positive aspects of my life have been enough to keep me going. I've stuck to this mission of completing the perimeter, and I will very soon.

This has nothing to do with anything here