Next Up: Manasquan Hike and More!

Hey all,

As usual, we have a lot of interesting stuff coming up. This Sunday's hike will be in and around Manasquan ending at the beach! In addition to this hike, there will be another Tuesday night hike, this time with the Warren County Board of Recreation Commissioners for whom I am currently serving as Chair. We will do a loop on abandoned rail lines I wish to promote as a loop hike, then continue on other area trails possibly in a loop.

This Manasquan hike will be a point to point, between the Jersey Shore at Manasquan and Manasquan Reservoir. The hike roughly parallels the river, but has a lot of other stuff to see. It will hopefully be a welcome break to the crazy tougher hikes we've had lately. I've scaled off 15.5 miles, but as usual we are scouting a lot of new stuff too.
We will be meeting at Fisherman's Cove Conservation Area, a lovely little park that is where the original natural Manasquan Inlet once joined the ocean. The lot is on the corner of 3rd Avenue and Pompano Avenue in Manasquan. If the lot is full, use on street parking nearby, but it shouldn't be. Plan on leaving early to avoid shore crowds on the parkway and such. The parking area is just a couple blocks from the ocean where the hike will end with a great swim.
Once we meet, we will shuttle as few cars as possible to Manasquan Reservoir. There, we will hike their trail system and visit the visitor center, which looks to be quite lovely. The trail will skirt the southern end of the reservoir, and when we reach the east side we will try to trace an old railroad bed and maybe do some off trail stuff and woods/sand roads. NOTE: there is likely to be one river crossing with no bridge, so hikers should have a change of shoes to wade across. The section ahead may require a road walk, or otherwise we're following another clearing into Allaire State Park. We'll follow the abandoned Freehold and Jamesburg Railroad out to another trail on the northern perimeter of the park. Maybe we'll stop by the camp grounds for showers!
The rail bed continues out of Allaire toward Manasquan is is easy and open. We last covered this trail the end of Summer 2008. This time we'll skirt the south side of Stockton Lake to the end near the ocean.
Meeting time is 9 am. Until we get near the end where there's a convenience store, there are no known food or drink stops so hikers should have plenty of water and snacks or lunch with them. Most of the terrain this time is pretty level, so we should have a much easier time.
If anyone has any further questions, feel free to contact me at sneezehorse@hotmail.com or at (908) 343-8374
M'ke