Hike #900; Marlton to Decemberween in Berlin
12/5/15 Marlton to Berlin with Jason Itell, Megan Reid, Jas Kumpikevicius, Amanda Murphy, Jennifer Berndt, James Quinn, Sarah Jones, Kralc Leahcim (Lerch), Christian Alexander, Dan Asnis, Stephen Argentina, Serious Sean Dougherty, Lyz Hagenbuch, Ric Giantisco, Michele Valerio, Diane Reider, Michael Courel, and Tom ?.
It just happened to work out that our 900th group hike would again fall on the date of the annual Decemberween Celebration.
It’s pretty amazing that over the past few years, each hundredth hike has coincided with something really cool that I didn’t have to plan something else. With the end of the Jersey Perimeter series still fresh, and more big stuff in the near future, planning another thing in between was not really high on my “to do” list.
Hike #100 I had intentionally made a repeat of Hike #1. Hike #200 was just another old rail bed in Warren County and really the only one that wasn’t anything too special. Hike #300 went to Musikfest with a party at my brother’s house the night before. Hike #400 started similarly with a party at my brother Tea Biscuit’s house, and we hiked directly from there. Hike #500 coincided with the grand opening of the Taylor Steelworkers’ Historic Greenway that I worked on with UFHA. Hike #600 coincided with Decemberween out of Berlin another year. Hike #700 was filmed by Steve Rogers of the television show Driving Jersey, and #800 coincided with the annual Common Sense for Animals Hike.
I didn’t feel like posting a night hike the week coming into this anyway, but even if I did I would probably have held back and done trail work instead just so this would work out to be #900.
We met at Carol Creamer and Rob Creamer’s house in Berlin, then shuttled with the fewest possible cars to our start point, at the Evesham Township Municipal Building on Tuckerton Road out of Marlton.
We had the best showing ever for one of the Decemberween associated hikes. In the past, when I would arrange a hike to go along with it the day after, hardly anyone would go because they were too hung over. I opted to do this one on Saturday and have it end at the party to deal with that. It seemed to work better.
I encouraged people to come in costume for this one, and I decided to go with the purple priest’s robe I had gotten from the thrift store in Suffern, NY recently. Lerch wore a suit with the similar type of priest scarf thing that he’d gotten in some abandoned asylum somewhere. Other people didn’t get as much into the crazy costume thing, but that was okay. I had a good time with mine. Even though there was a slight chill, my garb kept me warmer.
We skirted the edges of the ball fields starting from the corner of Tuckerton Road and New Road near the municipal building. We went right across ball fields heading generally in a southeast direction, and it was slightly wet. I wore two different shoes, one of my black higher top Newbalance ones where the right one had worn a big hole in the bottom, and the other was the Air Jordan I had gotten from my friend
We were able to go through sections of fields to the south, which eventually led us to a farm area with fenced in horses. There were no trespassing signs around the area toward the fences, so we kept to the right and headed directly into the woods. My plan was to come out in an area with apartments or town houses with non specific back yards off of Shady Lane. It worked out well.
We walked between a couple of houses and reached the road, then regrouped a bit down the street from where we came out. Lerch brought out his spiked gummy bears at this point, which were quite strong, as well as whatever other concoctions he had come up with.
Newcomer Tom had met us at the meeting point at what I posted on meetup.com as the “Rob Creamery”. I’m sure a few people got a little confused about that one. Tom had apparently seen the hike posted whilst randomly driving through Berlin, and because he lived nearby he decided to just sign up for it. He went home to get his dogs to join us slightly late. He was able to find us near the intersection of Shady Lane and Barton Run Blvd.
Serious Sean with the Serious Ball of Prophesy. The future was too heavy to keep.
We all turned right on Barton Run Blvd and followed it south. The road was a parkway style with grassy section in the middle. Serious Sean I think it was walked in it saying he was going to go in the “Nature Section”.
At the next section of homes, there was a lot of crap set out for the trash. Furniture and all sorts of nick knacks were sat around, so of course we had to go through them. There was an eight pound ball that Sean carried with him for a while which for some reason became the “Ball of Prophesy”. Others carried different things, and James ended up with some weird horse thing stuck to his back. I carried with me a yoga pad of bright purple that matched my religious garb. I don’t even remember what else others grabbed, but we took a little bit of time here.
We next crossed Barton Run itself, a wide and lovely tributary at this point. There was a little path that led down to an outlook over the water. If it had been warmer, I would have walked into it for a bit.
After crossing Barton Run on the road bridge, another development road known as Jessica Drive went off to the left. On the edge of this, another old unpaved roadway or path went into the woods to the right, parallel with the main road we had been following but moving slightly away. I had seen it on aerial images and decided this would be the best route to get us through to the south.
Right of way in the woods
The road was quite lovely. It was built up above any of the area wetlands in some areas, carved into the shelves of sand moraines, and even was in a sort of cut at one point. The farther we walked on this route, the more and more I had thought this must have been a railroad bed. I told Lerch about it immediately that I must look up this route when I get home to see what the nature of it’s construction was.
However, when I got home, USGS maps from back to the late 1800s showed nothing but roads through the area. Marlton once had a railroad, which was sort of near where we started, but it had no north/south connections through were we walked, near Barton Run.
I was quite surprised that my research into railroads between the area of Marlton and Taunton along the valley of the Barton Run turned up nothing. The aerial images seemed to show nothing there until 1956, when a section appears cut, and the upper end of it wasn’t even there until a bit later. All USGS maps showed nothing through that area as well. Perhaps it was used for cranberry bogs or other agricultural use. It’s too hard to say. I still find it hard to believe it was so well graded for anything other than rail.
The woods road led us out to Taunton Lake Road, which apparently changes names to Tomlinson Mill Road in that vicinity. We crossed the road, then turned right only for a short distance before heading left on Crown Royal Parkway. There was a sign on the opposite side saying something for residents only, but there was no such thing where we were. We got on a paved path after the next intersection, then to the right was a pipeline clearing. Google maps was showing this as a trail route. I was expecting to find an overdone paved pathway, and figured we’d be on those for quite a long while for this hike, but that was not the case at all. We ended up finding a hike that was mostly all off roads.
We followed the path, which was sort of weird, out through roads, and it came out behind people’s houses. The horse thing James had stuck to his back fell off, so Lerch left it on a rock next to a little pond behind the houses. The new Tom decided to head back to his car and said he’d try to connect with us again later, but he didn’t make it.
We continued along the trail away from the houses, then regrouped when we were far enough out of sight from them. I checked my phone GPS, which wasn’t always totally accurate because there were so many paths everywhere. Many of them were buried sanitary sewer rights of way. We kept to the left at this intersection, and then came to another trail that went off to the left over a foot bridge. There was a sign on this saying that it was for residents only. The trail we were on was marked with white posts, angled at the top, and with insignia that read “Kings Grant” on it. The google maps called this “King’s Grant Path”. The one we were following seemed to disappear shortly after another post pointed right saying “alternate route”. We tried going along the straight way, but it got really messy and overgrown. Ric found a giant pumpkin back there, which sort of made it worth it. We turned back and opted to follow the alt route path.
Historic Cranberry Bog paths now are trails at Kings Grant
The alt route was just a foot path, but it crossed yet another path that must have been the main trail. Still, this one continued ahead, and I figured it’d be more interesting to follow that. We kept on it, and it picked up more of these strange old berms out in the woods. I assumed at this point that these must have been former cranberry bogs, and that the route we were following earlier might have been a similar access at one point.
When I looked it up on historic USGS maps when I got home, my theory was correct. The entire King’s Grant development area was formerly Cranberry bogs with roads through them. The main road through the development in the middle sort of but not completely follows the former dirt road that was the main access across the lands.
We continued to a spot that had a very lovely outlook onto one of the lakes that were now in the middle of the development. The trail turned to the left here to follow some of the waterfront west.
Black Run pond view
There was a cut over to some of the homes to the north next to the next pond section. The ponds were all part of a creek called the Black Run. We didn’t want to get into the developments yet. The bicycling thing on google showed the trail just to the south of where we were. This one was more pleasant, and was heading back to that, so we just went with it. The trail then took us through some woods and out to where there were two pond sections separated by a bridge, with a large concrete pad foundation in sort of a circle at an opening.
Foundation at King's Grant
I can only guess what the concrete pad was, but I would bet it had something to do with the cranberry industry from before the development had been built there. It must hae just been left as part of the recreation area. There was no one else around. It’s sort of surprising that on a beautiful Sunday, the residents of this development were not seen anywhere on this trail system.
A serious hat
At the middle of the concrete pad, Ric saw his opportunity to smash the giant pumpkin he had been carrying. It broke into a few pieces on the first, try, and then the second one busted the larger of the two halves. Serious Sean grabbed the smaller of the two halves and danced around with it, using it as a hat.
We moved on from this point, along the trail which crossed over the connection between the two ponds on a bridge. The trail went through the woods from here out to one of the development roads known as Coventry Circle. There was a sign facing into the woods in the direction we had come from saying “no trespassing” and “residents only”. It probably shouldn’t have been included on google, but whatever, it said nothing of the sort the way we went in. We continued along the road, then at the intersection turned left on King’s Grant Drive.
I can’t believe we didn’t get more looks as I was walking down this rather busy thoroughfare wearing loud religious garb. We fortunately did not have too much of a road walk on King’s Grant, and we came to an abandoned road on the right that was now shown as a “King’s Grant Trail” on Google maps. It was gated with no sign of it being anything but a simple road, so that was the way we went. I was delighted to see a triple blaze marking the end of a trail as we went in. In south Jersey, standard trail blazing can sometimes be few and far between, but this was good.
We walked the road a bit further, and trails were branching off both left and right, with standard blazes. We opted to just keep with the main road this time. There was obviously a ton to explore in this preserve that would merit many more trips to the area. We can’t get all of that done in a day. We then came upon a utility line with several shoes dangling from the wires. We took a break an decided to knock some of them down.
The first few pairs were of no use to me, but then Lerch knocked down a pair of size 13 Adidas. They were a bit tight on me, but they’d do! I took my old shoes off and crammed them in my already tight bag, and then put on the ones he had knocked down. Serious Sean also put on a pair, but they didn’t last long for him before them were too uncomfortable. We moved ahead from there to catch up with the rest of the group, who were waiting at another trail intersection.
The map shown on Google mostly showed the Blue Trail, the main route, heading through the preserve, and that was what I was planning on as the spine to get us used to the property. We can make better plans for in there on future hikes based on what we saw with that. This one was sort of a boring woods road though. I didn’t necessarily want to keep with that, and Michele was coming to meet up with us anyway. We needed to stall for a few minutes so she could catch us. We continued on the blue trail a bit, and passed some sort of memorial made all haphazard out of motorcycle fenders and brightly painted old tires.
I chose to turn us to the right, which took us down to another outlook of the wetlands, then left on the Nature Trail, which was a really nice foot path through woods. We followed this one to a point of multi use trail, and turned right. This took us to a clearing in the woods where there was a junked up and closed trail, but we turned on I think the Purple Trail or something from there heading generally to the south. This one took us to the sand surface Bortons Road. Michele caught up with us while we took a break here. Ric found a pile of old abandoned car junk and made himself a suit of armor out of it. Lerch rode on Michele’s car to the spot she found to park just west of us.
When we were all ready to go, we follow the sandy Borton Road to the east, and then reached the northern end of the abandoned airport runway area. I had seen this on aerial images and figured it would be a great spot to walk through. I can’t recall ever hiking an abandoned airport before, so off we went onto the narrow strip heading to the south.
Abandoned airport
We followed the route and picked up old paved tracks heading further along. This was probably where the take off and landing would have occurred, and the other clearing was probably just for emergency landings and such. When we started to near the south side of the former airport, we could see there was a lot of chain link fence stuff blocking the way from us heading to the west. My planned route was an off trail one to woods roads to reach Berlin. I seemed to find an opening between two sections of fence, and we followed that on out to and across Kettle Run Road. Lerch found his own way over or through the fences. We made our way through woods off trail to an opening. There was a huge sandy area where ATVs were riding around just to the west. We skirted some of this heading to the west further, and then Lerch appeared on the far east side walking toward us. He crossed right by the ATV riders, and then rejoined us where we picked up long ATV trails heading to the southwest.
The ATV riders was apparently an adult with his kids doing races. We got out of their way, and the ATV path were really nice and easy to follow through the woods. I watched phone GPS very closely to be sure we were following the paths that were going to take us where I wanted to be. It was overall pretty easy to line up where we should be coming out. I think someone smashed an old toilet we found too. By this time in the hike, we had been pre-gaming and I was already feeling tired (I hadn’t slept very well the night before anyway, so I knew I would live up to Carol’s joke that I fall asleep at all parties).
Deep cut
We reached the top of a hillside where there was a deep cut path heading down the hill. Jason K and I think maybe Ric? Not sure who else went running down it, just because it looked like fun. I waited to check the phone and see if it was going to be the right way. James let me look at his because mine wasn’t showing the aerials as brightly. I should probably change my screen brightness for future hikes. Either way, it turned out down the hill was where we wanted to be, so I ran down right after the others.
Progress?
The woods road eventually came out into a development. According to the aerials, we weren’t supposed to get out to a development for quite a bit. This was all new development.
When we arrived at the road, no one was around, and there was a house under construction to the right. I decided to go on inside and have a look around. I also got a shot of the group from the top floor of it. I figured it’d be a really cool thing maybe to go back to this spot in a decade, knock on the door, and present he land owners with a photo of their house under construction, and even a photo inside their top floor. They could take a photo of the same place and actually see their development being made, watch the growth of the ornamental trees planted along the way. This could be something someone would treasure one day. All it took was just snapping a shot.
Sean joined me exploring the house, then we moved on down the road to a giant earth mover. I tried to see if I could get in it, but there was no opportunity for too much trouble. Lerch climbed on top of the arm. Fortunately when the guys showed up a few minutes later in dump trucks they both did not car nor did they see us in any machines.
Dirt
We came to another area of development under construction. There were giant piles of sand around which at first I felt tempted to but decided not to climb up. Lerch, Lyz, Ric, and Sean were all up on the things very quickly. I started walking across a construction site, and when I looked at the farthest pile, which the rest of the group seemed as though they were heading to, I decided I wanted to go up too. There was an interesting view from the top of it anyway that I’m glad I got. We spent a little time here looking around, climbing in the dirt.
Pile
The rest of the group waited somewhat patiently down below while we frolicked in the mess. We then headed down and over to regroup with them. I had to double check the maps again for game plan.
The route I had planned from here was the heaviest on road walking on the entire trip, but it would work out pretty good. Heading west from the development, the next road was Cooper Road. Rather than make any turns, I decided we should cut straight and go through one more swath of woods before doing the road walk section. Jason K went up the steep slope on the other side first heading for the road.
Dirt view
We made our way through the section of woods heading out to Commerce Lane next to a business. We turned right to follow the road westbound. Along this stretch, we very soon found a shopping cart, I don’t remember to which store, but it was far away from any of them. I decided to start pushing it, and put my backpack inside.
Happy
We followed Commerce to where there were parking areas on the left, so we pushed through those, and did our group photo there. We then reached the Wal Mart parking area and cut directly around the back of it heading to the south. Once on the other side, we turned right to head west. We regrouped briefly, then headed sort of west torward Berlin-Kresson Road. I didn’t want the shopping cart really any more, and others took turns pushing the thing around for a while.
Cart
When we reached the road, Lerch and Jen went with Stephen and Christian into the McDonalds, while I kept with my original plan of going to the Taco Bell within sight to the left.
This was a great stop, and a funny experience. I ordered tons of stuff, and tried the new special Cantina Steak burrito as well as several of the shredded chicken mini quesadillas. While ordering and going back up to get more Sangarita Blast drink, people were asking me questions.
“Father, what kind of an event to you have going on?”
“Father, where to you preach?”
My answers were as simple as “Just a hike” to “I preach in the woods”.
I started getting a little weirded out by it. Lerch and Jen decided to get a taxi back to the party while the rest of us continued to walk, now all stuffed on glorious taco bell, save for Jason and Megan who went to a salad place across the street (hikers love salad).
Say wha?\
Out the back of the Taco Bell, we walked across a very long section of parking lot heading west. The main business there was a Shop Rite. The lot took us on out to Walker Ave, where we turned to the left. We didn’t go too far before turning right on Zulker Ave, then left on Haddon Ave. I chose this route because Haddon Ave would take us across the active NJ Transit tracks. Any other way might be a bit more difficult and we would have to find some through route.
Oddly enough, Haddon Ave had a random sign that read “Sidewalk closed” with no effort whatsoever put into actually closing it. We paid it no mind and simply walked across to get over the tracks, then turned right along Rt 130 to Park Drive, at the northern end of Berlin Park.
From here, we had the pleasant paths of the crescent shaped northern end of the municipal park to take us along the pond sides, the northern headwaters of the Great Egg Harbor River. We had to cross over Cross Keys Road, but then got into the deeper wooded section of park for a good while parallel with the Great Egg Harbor River. I’d done several hikes through this park and it’s always a pleasant way to finish off a hike.
Pong
The trail ended at New Freedom Road, where we turned left and hiked on out to the access to Dunham Loop, along some pleasant farm lands and such. It was already just about dark when we first entered Berlin Park, so by this time it was pretty dark. Fortunately, it was not too long after dark, but unfortunately Decemberween was not scheduled to start until 8 pm. The car shuttles were taken car of and we pretty much hung out anyway. I was exhausted and just fell asleep on the couch in the living room. I kept to that point until Lerch started sitting on me to wake me up. When it was getting to the point that he might break my back I decided to actually get up. I started having horrible stomach pains. Some of the worst ever. I ended up having to sit back down, and Jason K convinced me to get up and have a slice of pizza. When I felt well enough to do that, it helped immensely. I still felt far too stuffed from all the food, but I was then able to wander around the party more.
Pong
I went down to the fire they had going in the back and chatted for a little bit. I got to see some old friends I hadn’t seen in a billion and a half years like Chris Herbig and John Bradford Brad Ladutko, and Carol’s sister Nicole and her husband. It was pretty mellow overall as far as parties are concerned, especially for this group, but nice.
It’s fortunate that James was around both in the morning and afterwards, because somehow my car’s battery had died in the very short time it sat parked in the morning, and then again at the end of the night. He was able to jump me so that I could get home.
Decemberween photo from Carol
And so it felt like it should again, with the parties as well attended as the hikes, with a balance that had once been missing. For a time, it seemed as though more were interested in just going to parties and not hiking, and there was a similar time when the hikes were well attended but the parties not so much. We now have a fantastic base of people who are good friends, who can have the best of everything and each bring their own special distinctiveness to the group.
I’m quite confident that the next 100 hikes could be the best yet.
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