2018 Hike 4 - February 10 - Monmouth Battlefield State Park

Monmouth Battlefield State Park NJ

Red trail and Red Dashed Trail (Southern half of park)

Posted by Chris 2/10/18

Basics:

Length - About 4 miles

Elevation gain - Not much

Nearest city - Freehold (Monmouth county)

Difficulty - low.  In terms of effort of exercise or navigation this was an easy walk.  There were muddy spots at the start of the hike and a few 50 foot ambling climbs up little mounds but this was a very mild hike.

The Day:

The weather forecast was more or less the same anywhere within driving distance... Dry and relatively warm in the morning then increasing chances and amounts of rain in the afternoon.  So I figured, lets get as far south as we can easily because it will have been warmer there.  This worked out.  There were only a few remnants of barely frozen over puddles at this state park and no snow was left at all in comparison to the soggy snowy landscape of home.

The visitors center for this state park was rebuilt about 5 years ago and the building is very modern and cool looking and the modern aesthetic extends to some of the light fixtures along the walkways around the building etc.  There were bathrooms, brochures, park rangers and some interpretive exhibits in the visitors center.  A good showing for NJ's sometimes thread bare park system.  

In irritatingly P.C. style the building was LEED certified (which is fine enough) and features exactly zero garbage cans inside or out.  So there were little paper towel bits and other refuse scattered here and there in the bathroom since they proudly provide no place for you to get rid of even the smallest item you might have with you.  There was also at least one nicely bagged dog poop that somebody didn't opt to take home with them on the grounds.  I'm not sure if the no garbage thing is an example of wishful thinking (if we don't provide any place for garbage, none will be made) or just being cheap but it stinks.  There were other scattered pieces of litter here and there and one sizable collection of bottles and cans near one of the bridges. It wasn't like the place was full of trash but I certainly noticed it.

The trails were mostly wide mowed or plowed pathways through the scrub trees and fields.  There is a large area of Apple and Cherry trees in the park and there were multiple people out trimming the trees today, a job Brian and I both imagined to be tedious but important which I suppose somebody could say about most jobs.  These pictures are just random places we saw, not a great view of the orchard where people were working.

One thing that caught my eye in part of the orchard was an entire grove of young trees, each of which had a hotel sized travel soap attached to it on a little hook...

You can't really see the other trees in that shot but there were dozens and dozens and almost every tree in that section had the same kind of bar soap attached.

After the hike we headed into Freehold and ate at the food court in the Freehold Raceway Mall.  The mall was hopping with people and after the sedate experience of walking through fields and orchards we felt like people were really pushy and had little sense of personal space almost the entire time we were in the mall.  Panda Express (groan if you must but we really like it) provided some crave worthy post hike nutrition but we were glad to get out of the mall.  We followed lunch up with a visit to the apparently long lived Jersey Freeze nearby.  All together this was definitely the least ambitious hike so far this year but between marginal weather and limited time (with weather worsening) it was a way to get a decent walk in and see an area of NJ we'd never been to before.  I would recommend seeing the Battlefield park and even the mall was huge and attractive if you are into such things.  Will we go back for a redo?  Probably not.