Pinelands National Reserve, Franklin Parker Preserve, 5.74 Miles RT, 79' +/-, March 1, 2025

March 01, 2025

Today, we visited a very special place, the Pinelands National Reserve in New Jersey. The Pine Barrens have been on my bucklist to hike and today was the day. Weather conditions were sunny in the low 60s and perfect for hiking.

The Pinelands, also known as the Pine Barrens, is the largest surviving forest on the eastern seaboard between Maine’s North Woods and the Florida Everglades. The biodiversity here is remarkable! It is truly a unique and special place.

The ecosystem consists of acidic, low-nutrient water and soil, which support a wide variety of plant and wildlife species that have adapted to these conditions. The Pinelands provide critical habitat for over 50 rare, threatened, or endangered species. Here, you can find bald eagles, northern pine snakes, pine barrens tree frogs, and rare plants such as the pine barrens gentian and bog asphodel, to name just a few. Spanning over 800,000 acres, the Pinelands forest has only about half of its land permanently preserved.

Today, our hike took place at the Franklin Parker Preserve, the New Jersey Conservation Foundation’s largest property, covering 16 square miles in the heart of the Pine Barrens. We followed the Sam Lambert Trail, formerly known simply as the Red Trail, which is marked by red blazes. The loop trail led us through beautiful pitch pine forests and cedar swamps, with sandy roads winding through the woods, past shallow lakes and tributaries of the West Branch of the Wading River.

Once home to an active cranberry and blueberry farm, the land was purchased by the New Jersey Conservation Foundation in 2003 and is now a protected nature preserve. Efforts are underway to restore the land to functioning wetlands, providing essential habitat for a diverse variety of plants and animals.

There was little to no elevation on this hike, and the terrain was easy walking, allowing us to enjoy the scenery and take in all its beauty.

Discovering this incredible gem in such a densely populated state was a delightful surprise. I look forward to exploring more of this unique and beautiful area.

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Enjoying Conifers and Glacial Wetlands at the Thomas Darling Preserve, 2.5 Mile Walk, January 18, 2021

January 19, 2021

We were back at it again today exploring another nature preserve. This time we drove back to the Pocono Mountains. There are so many great places to see in this area that aren’t too far off the 115. The Thomas Darling Preserve is another preserve that’s part of the Wildlands Conservancy Land Trust. It was named after conservationist Thomas Darling Jr. This area has one of Pennsylvania’s largest spruce forests, and boy was I excited about that! I love me some conifers! The preserve is made up of 2,500 acres with glacial wetlands, meadows, bogs, and forest. Two Mile Run traverses the preserve before spilling into Tobyhanna Creek. The hike around the preserve is a short 2.5 mile loop, but it really packs in the scenery! After leaving the trailhead just off Burger Road/T551, the trail takes you along a boardwalk and through the wetlands. You are then transported into a beautiful evergreen forest. It was about 30 degrees in the morning today and being we were walking through wetlands, the trail was icy under the light dusting of snow that was covering the ground. I couldn’t get over how pretty it was walking through the snow covered conifers. At about .7 miles we reached Two Mile Run. We took a moment here to enjoy the beauty of the cascading pools. Next we headed on a long section of boardwalk that traversed an expansive wet meadow. There were more evergreens and also birch trees with their white bark. I’m not sure which part of the trail was my favorite, this section or the spruce forest. The boardwalk going through the meadow made us feel like we were transported into some other land… and really, if you think about it, we were. After this section of trail we headed into a hardwood forest and it began to flurry with some light snow. It was such a beautiful scene. As we arrived back at the trailhead, the snow flurries picked up and we were soon on our way headed out for a hot cup of coffee after a really wonderful day.

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Wildlands Conservancy Maple Tract Preserve, 6 Miles RT, January 17, 2021

January 19, 2021

Pennsylvania has a good number of nature preserves to explore. Today we headed back up to the Pocono Mountains to the Maple Tract Preserve located near the 115 in Long Pond. The preserve is part of the Wildlands Conservancy Land Trust, and there are about 8 miles of hiking trails within its 680 acres. The area is made up of glacial wetlands, forest, mountain laurel and rhododendron which is so commonly found along the creekside trails of Pennsylvania. We started on the red trail heading southwest which took us past a frozen pond and along a carpet of soft pine needles. The day was mostly cloudy, which I’m learning is pretty typical of a Pennsylvania winter. As we continued we came up on another frozen pond. It seemed pretty solid so I got brave and ventured out onto it. It’s been years since I stood on a natural, frozen body of water. I remember ice skating on them as a kid many moons ago. We then continued along the trail through more forest of hemlock, spruce, larch, rhododendron and mountain laurel. I’m finally starting to be able to identify some of the trees and plants here on the east coast. It’s still very foreign to me since being out west all these years. As we hiked, we came upon some sections of trail that were on boardwalks to get across the wet marshes that were mostly frozen over. At about 2.5 miles we found Tunkhannock Creek. We walked down to the banks to get a better view and take some pictures. From here we followed the red trail west a bit further to enjoy more views of the creek before backtracking and heading north to explore the blue trail. I was really impressed with the scenery at this preserve. I loved the hilly ups and downs of the trail and the varying terrain. We hiked about 6 miles and didn’t see another person the entire day. This preserve is located close to the 80 and also the Pocono Raceway. I would imagine it might get a little noisy in the summer when the raceway is open. Nonetheless it is an incredibly beautiful area to explore.

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Nescopeck State Park, Lake Frances, Wood Frog Trail, Swamp Trail, Mountain Loop Trail, September 4, 2020

September 09, 2020

Today’s adventure took me to Nescopeck State Park. This park sits between two mountains; Mt. Yeager to the south and Nescopeck Mountain to the North. Most of the trailheads are accessed via Honey Hole Road. This is a beautiful area, and I’m still in awe when I’m driving down these Pennsylvania backcountry roads. To start the day I took a walk around Lake Frances. There’s a nice wide loop trail that goes around the whole lake. It’s not a very big lake, just .6 miles around. I didn’t see many people here except for some fishermen. After checking out the lake, I got back on Honey Hole Road and drove to the Wood Frog Loop Trail. There are 200 acres of wetlands in this park, and this trail is an easy 1.1 mile loop around a swamp on a wide grassy path. It’s very serene and relaxing here. After meandering around the loop and taking in the scenery, I drove to the parking turnout for the Mountain Loop Trail. This trail boarders SGL 187 and just off the parking area there’s a beautiful creek that heads into the Game Lands. The Mountain Loop is about 3 miles. There are lots of rocks and uneven terrain very typical of Pennsylvania. I took the loop clockwise making my way steadily up Nescopeck Mountain. This trail must not see much use because it was very overgrown. It also had a lot of spiderwebs. In fact, I almost walked right through the spiderweb of the biggest spider I have ever seen (besides a tarantula). From what I could guess after I got home and looked up Pennsylvania spiders, it was a Marbled Orb Weaver. I watched her spin her web before ducking underneath to pass by. At the top of the loop, the trail turns east. There were a few boulders here which would be a nice place to sit and take a break after the walk up the mountain. As I continued eastward the trail opened up to a sunny, grassy path before descending back into the woods. I didn’t see another human being on this trail (always a plus), but I did scare up a large grouse that took off when she saw me. I also found a praying mantis which eyed me curiously as I took her photo. It was a beautiful day. There’s more to explore here and I am looking forward to coming back.