Hike #741; Philadelphia to National Park NJ

 Hike #741; Philly/Camden to National Park NJ

12/7/13 Philadelphia/Camden to National Park with Oscar Alvaredo, Brandan Jermyn, Jason Kumpas, Amanda Murphy, Lyz Hagenbuch, Ric Giantisco, Stephen Argentina, Jen Berndt, Colin Webb, Ted Wright, Angela Wright, Ty Clark, John Bradford Ladutko, Paul ?, Diana L, Jack Lowry, Michele Valerio, Serious Sean Dougherty, Ed DiSalvo, Dan Stone, Justin Gurbisz, Gregg Hudis, Chris "Cupcake" Kroschinski, Darlene Perez, Maureen H, Carol Van Giezen, and Steve ?

The group hiking Camden

This hike would bring our group back to the city of Camden for the first time since the Buckettfest Hike in early 2008. I prefer to do hikes through high crime areas during Winter months, and with the close proximity to Carol and Rob Creamer's home for their annual Decemberween event, I figured I'd post this one.

As part of my Perimeter of NJ series, I would have to pick up where I'd left off at the NJ side of the Ben Franklin Bridge and hike the waterfront south to connect with where I had left off at Jake's Landing further south, which will take many hikes to do. The first of these north sections would be between Camden and the town of National Park's Red Bank Battlefield Park.

We met for this hike at Red Bank Battlefield, then shuttled with as few cars as possible north to Woodcrest Station, outside of Camden along the PATCO Speed Line. We would board a train here and take it to Philadelphia, as I'd done on the hike in 2008.

The train was pretty fast, and we arrived in Philadelphia pretty quickly. We exited the train and then headed up to soon meet up with Jason, Amanda, and some of the others on street level. They had bought us pretzels! We made our way from here to the Liberty Bell building. Amazingly, the lines were very short, and so we took this opportunity to go in and see the bell itself. I had not been here since the early 2000s, so it was cool to come back again to it, especially with no real line. We passed some sort of excavation site also outside the bell place.

We continued from here to visit the grave of Benjamin Franklin, and then continued on to reach the Ben Franklin Bridge, our route back into NJ. This bridge is outstanding, and always great to cross. The views are out of this world.

Completed in 1926, the bridge has a deck above and separated from the driving lanes which makes for a more pleasant walking experience. The PATCO speed line also crosses it, and it was designed originally to carry both motor vehicles as well as trolleys, with stations built into the piers for the latter.

We continued across the bridge to the Jersey side, and made our way down steps. A police officer on a bike was right there on the other side watching us descend. Most of the city of Camden that we passed through seemed nothing to worry about at all. It was great to have Oscar back with us as well. A resident of Camden, he was able to point out things we wouldn't otherwise know, as well as personal back stories to places he'd worked and such.

As soon as we got off the bridge, a turn back on Pearl Street led us to the riverside. The walkway on the waterfront there was lovely, and offered superb views of the Ben Franklin Bridge.

As we headed south, there was a nice old ship with sails on the Philly side. I can't find any information on this, but a white and orange one right next to it was Commodore Dewey's ship, The Olympia, which was launched in 1899, and is now a museum. Just ahead of us on the NJ side was the USS New Jersey, originally launched in 1942. I had been aboard this Battleship once before for a tour, but we wouldn't have time to do that this time. We did approach the ship, through Dr. Ulysses Wiggins Memorial Park, but then had to turn back because there was no way away from the waterfront on the other side. We had to go out Second Street to Ferry Ave in order to continue following the perimeter of the state as best we could.

We climbed around on a giant anchor in Dr. Ulysses Wiggins Park, but then continued on along streets for a while. Oscar told us more about his past in the area, and playing ball near one of the next parks we'd be checking out. As we walked down the street, away from the industrial areas and into more residential, there were nice painted signs reading "no big trucks". Sure enough, no big trucks passed us in these neighborhoods.

We turned right on 4th Street, then right again on Jasper passing some lovely murals, then entered Liney Ditch Park, with the idea that we'd walk on through and come out the other side. We found out upon entering and walking a short distance that this would not be possible. Still, it was a neat little park with all sorts of little things to climb on, animal statues and such, and an amphitheater. We ran around like silly little kids and played on the playground for a while. Every time we heard sirens we thought that someone in one of the nearby houses surely had called the police complaining about "adults on the playground". We certainly looked out of place!

We headed back out of the park the way we came in and continued down 4th Street to Jefferson Street where we turned left. There was a building on the corner that had been almost completely demolished as we went by, but of course we had to cut the corner and walk across the ruins rather than on the street. The large brick stack from the factory, whatever it was, still stood.

We turned right when we reached Broadway and continued south, soon crossing the Newton Creek on a bridge. I turned left briefly into a little park with possibly the shortest trail we'd ever walked, then back onto Broadway south. Around the time we crossed over railroad tracks as well as Newton Creek, the Walt Whitman Bridge was coming into view. This is another interesting bridge to gaze upon, towering above us over the river. We turned right on King Street just before passing beneath the bridge.

The girls needed to use a restroom, so some of them wandered off to find something, while the rest of us turned off to the right of King Street on a side road, through a parking lot, and out to a lovely piece of riverfront walkway along Freedom Pier. The Freedom Pier was originally constructed in 1914 as a processing station for immigrants before arriving at their destination, at a port in Philadelphia. It was later a coast guard facility until the federal government sold it to the town of Gloucester City 1988. The park had only been here since 2011, which makes me wonder how much the perimeter of NJ will change by the time I hike the entire thing.

We went out and back on the pier, with great views of the bridge, and the girls re-joined us here before we headed back out. We continued on the walkway which took us continuously south to Proprietor's Park, a very nice section with more docks and areas with great views of the Walt Whitman Bridge. We emerged from the walkway on Water Street, which still had some old railroad rails in it. There was a white anchor on the corner there that appeared to have swastikas on it, but the sign explained that this swastika was different than that of the Nazi party, which is offset. The one on the anchor, which was from a ship launched in 1919, predating World War II, is not offset, and is of Hindu origin meaning "long life and good luck".

I believe we turned left on Charles Street and left on Jersey Avenue which took us south further and over a bridge across the Little Timber Creek. On the other side we turned right on Chestnut Street, and right again on Pershing Road. To the right from here was a ball field which we continued along the right side of, paralleling Little Timber Creek. There was some kind of event going on and live music. We didn't investigate that any further, and rather continued along the edge of the field to the wood line on the other side. There was a nice little foot path into the woods from here, which we followed for a bit over a ditch, then out to another cleared area where locals had smashed lots of pumpkins all over the lawn. It was cool that this path took us right out to another section of the park, then out to Paris Ave. We followed Paris Ave to a right on Pershing Road.

Pershing Road was nice, as it made it's way close once again to Little Timber Creek and it's confluence with the Delaware River. When the road arced away, we were able to continue along the waterfront atop a block patterned erosion protection barrier that skirted the grass of yet another park for us to goof off on. At the end of this water break, there was a baseball field, but no way to get around any further. We had to turn left on Timber Blvd and follow that.

We turned right on New Broadway, and used it and it's bridge to carry us across Big Timber Creek. Once on the other side, we turned right into Westville Boro Park along the waterfront. It was a nice grassy waterfront park, which offered spectacular views across the brackish estuarine confluence of the Big Timber Creek and the Delaware. We could easily see the Walt Whitman Bridge, and the Philadelphia skyline beyond the swaying golden wetland plants. We continued north along the waterfront to the north end of the development, turned left onto Delaware View Ave, then left again on Highland Ave. Jen had to cut out because she had previous engagements, so I directed her to her car, which we spotted along the way. We turned right on 5th Avenue, then left on Woodbine, with some nice little access points to a small creek at Wheelabrator Wildlife Refuge. I had wanted to head in to explore this property which has a couple little trails in it, but we wouldn't have the time on this trip before dark. This would be one of the ones we'd have to come back to visit again on a future trip. I ran to catch up with the the group at Wheelabrator, and apparently someone called the police. I was wearing a Shop Rite smock and a beat up backpack which certainly didn't look to be the attire of a hiker. The officer caught up with me while I was walking again, with the rest of the group just ahead of me. He asked what I was up to, and I told him I was trying to hike the entire perimeter of NJ, and that it was part of a series. He looked baffled at first, and then he said "Oh, so that's what this whole group is doing out here...yeah, I guess that would bring you here, wouldn't it?".

The officer was surprised to hear of something like this, and I wish it was the highlight of his day, but knowing how Camden and Gloucester City are, I doubt it was. We continued from here along Rt 130, Crown Point Road, and continued past some interesting businesses and goofed off with the signs. The road came very close to the edge of Interstate 295, with merging lanes, and for a brief time it was like we were hiking directly along the edge of the interstate.

The road soon turned away to the right, and then there was a cut through to Harper Ave, in an area known as "Verga". We followed the road, which skirted a chain link fence that was on our right for a while. The road changed names to Trolley Lane, and I assume it was once a trolley line. When we had to turn left on Georgia Ave, there was some sort of way of cutting straight through the woods ahead, but I didn't want to chance getting stuck somewhere. It was going to get dark fast.

We followed Georgia Ave to the left, then turned right on Hessian Ave, then right again on Red Bank Ave, passing the West Depford Scout Center, which occupies an historic stone school house. We followed Red Bank Ave all the way north to the waterfront, and some of the group left us to continue directly back to the cars via the shortest route. I still wanted to try to follow the perimeter in this area as planned, because there was still a little daylight.

As it tends to happen with these sort of things, we get side tracked when there's something just too cool to pass up. This time, it came to us in the form of an old dock jutting far out onto the Delaware. It was like a covered bridge made of sheet metal and a basic framework. The first part had boards in place, but then it was just a horribly rusted small framework with no decking. We had to hold onto either end and continue across, bracing enough of our weight with our arms as not to break the brittle aged metal, keeping a good grip in case all of a sudden it collapsed beneath us. Lyz, Ric, and Colin went out first, and Justin and I of course headed out just behind them.

The covered section ended, and reached some sort of former mooring site perhaps, where they might have pulled a boat up for repairs as sort of a dry dock maybe. I've little other clue as to what this might have been other than something to do with the naval yards in Philadelphia, which were in plain view, large battleships, directly across the river. I wondered if they monitored sites like this, but it was not guarded at all. A chain link fence across it's entrance was clearly pulled aside and the access to the river certainly appeared to be well used public land, though there was no signage of any kind. To the west of the platform was the "soupy island", a creepy looking privately owned camp site area that I suppose is now abandoned.

We climbed around on this monstrosity for a bit, and I did my best to take some photos with my camera without dropping it off into the freezing water, in which case it would never be seen again. We then started making our way back along the rusty metal rails. I wasn't wearing gloves, which made holding on all that much harder to do. I am actually surprised that the metal held all of us getting out there and back, there was really barely anything left to some sections.

We made our way from here onto Front Street heading west. Some of the group already headed back from this point yet again. We thought we might go straight through on Front Street, which appeared to continue, but then we ended up in someone's back yard, so we had to backtrack and go down someone's driveway to 2nd Ave. From here, we continued to a right turn into Sanitarium Playground. I abstained from climbing on this playground, instead opting to use some of the remaining daylight to ascertain where we should walk.

There was a sandy area below the playground and a woods road heading into the woods parallel with the river from the end of the open area. We opted to follow this. The sand road took us around some giant puddles in a circuitous route with several obvious loops, a definite haven for off roaders. We followed the roads in a westbound fashion as best we could, and eventually they led us out to the bottom of Beach Hill Road, a dead end street leading to a small beach on the Delaware. There appeared to be no choice but to go up hill on the road from here.

It was getting dark fast. I decided we would take the first right turn on Bluff Road, gambling that there would be a way from the end of it into Red Bank Battlefield Park. The 44 acre park occupies the former site of Fort Mercer. It and it's sister fort, Fort Mifflin in PA, on October 22nd 1777 successfully held off British ships from approaching Philadelphia. Eventually the British made their way through, but the battle bought valuable time. The park still contains trenches and a few ruins from the time of the battle. The James and Anne Whitall House also stands in the park, and was used as a sort of hospital following the battle.

Our approach to the park was to a fence off of the end of Bluff Road. I hurriedly scaled the fence, which had a gate, but it was not open. Some of the others came across with me immediately, and I began running toward the waterfront with hopes to catch the sunset. Stephen was a short distance behind me, and was also able to catch a glimpse of the sun going down. I wanted to avoid a small utility vehicle with park employees on it, so I hurried through one of the famous trenches and up toward the water. The rest of the group were then approached by the vehicle. I think Michele and Lyz ended up doing most of the talking as I hear, and let them know we were parked on the other side, and the employees were good enough to open the gate rather than force the rest to scale the fence. They were able to more calmly walk back toward the cars.

From the waterfront, Stephen and I casually walked back toward the parking lot. There were a great many people just starting to enter the park at this time, so I was not at all worried about being there after dark. They must regularly get after dark visitors, probably for the sunset.

After eating, we all headed a short distance down Hessian Road to have some pizza, which was quite good. Some of us then headed to Carol and Rob's for the Decemberween Party.

I was tired, and for some reason just not feeling into the party thing. I fell asleep pretty early on, and just couldn't enjoy it. I ended up leaving way earlier than most anyone else. I suppose nothing could compare to the  enjoyment of climbing on kids playgrounds, on abandoned dock moorings, and such.