Road Trips and Hike Reports

Various trails in and near park including Delaware and Raritan Canal Trail Posted by Chris 8/30/18 Basics: Length - 4 miles Elevation gain - 200 feet Nearest city - Titusville is pretty close to Trenton Difficulty - Easy hiking with some navigational challenges The Day: My goal was to get to Haddonfield NJ to see the Indian King Tavern Museum  and I heard Haddonfield has an interesting downtown.  We did make it to both the museum and downtown and both were worth seeing.  On the way down I tried to take some side roads and we were on NJ-29 for quite a while.  Brian was longingly looking at the canal's walking path and when I saw the signs for Washington Crossing I knew I finally had a chance to visit this park which has been on my to-do list even if our visit was more serendipitous than planned. The trail: We walked along one of the historic paths that Washington's army used from the visitor's center over to the canal and then walked North along the...

East Shore Trail Posted by Chris 8/24/18 Basics: Length - 4 miles approximately hiked out of a 5.3 mile loop planned Elevation gain - 300 feet Nearest city - Prompton, PA (West of Scranton about 20 miles near US-6) Difficulty - Moderate terrain with some wet conditions today The Day: We were in Scranton to have one of the cars serviced.  Rather than having one person go to the dealership and sit around all day bored we both took the day off, both drove to Scranton in separate cars and then took off in the other car for the hike.  We started our hike about 10:20 using the Alltrails map for this hike. The trail: This was our second visit (ever) to Prompton state park.  It is one of the less developed PA State parks (no bathrooms, no camping areas etc as far as I know) and it feels pretty remote with just a small gravel parking lot and not much signage.  This does not detract from my opinion of the park at all!  With 26 miles of trails and a var...

City Park Trail Posted by Chris 8/24/18 Basics: Length - 3 miles Elevation gain - None Nearest city - Warwick, RI Difficulty - Very easy The Day: We were visiting Brian's family in RI and did mange to get one qualifying walk into what was a rainy and humid weekend.  The walk was very relaxed and easy until it started raining at which time we picked up the pace a bit. The trail: The trail goes out around a loop and at one point it goes right up to the shore looking across the bay separates Warwick into two separate peninsulas.  The shore view was probably the highlight of this basic walk.

Choke Creek Trail Posted by Chris 7/17/18 Basics: Length - 4 miles approximately hiked out of a 5.5 mile loop planned Elevation gain - Minimal Nearest city - Gouldsboro, PA Difficulty - Easy The Day: We has an uneventful drive to the trailhead.  The road through the forest is gravel and quite long.  We had both an Alltrails guide to this hike and our trusty 50 hikes in Eastern PA book but they didn't seem to correlate very closely regarding getting to the trail or starting on it. The trail: The trails in this area seem very well marked.  Unfortunately, that doesn't mean they are very well cleared.  We walked through a lot of brush filled areas sometimes densely covering the trail.  As such we ended up turning around and getting just 4 miles in. Pics by Brian

Two Rivers Trailway - Karl Stirner Arts Trail Posted by Chris 6/23/18 Basics: Length - 3 miles approximately Elevation gain - Minimal Nearest city - Easton, PA Difficulty - Easy The Day: After dinner last night (McDoanld's in Phillipsburg) it was still light out long enough to try to squeeze in a hike.  I had looked briefly online for places to walk near Phillipsburg and Easton and found a page for the arts trail .  I quickly printed the map out as we headed off to dinner.  I was surprised to find that it was mostly off street walking and even more surprised that a good part of it lies JUST below the very familiar and often traveled curvy section of US-22 just West of Easton. The trail: There are multiple places that could be used to get onto the trail.  We parked at 13th street near the creek crossing in a marked trailway parking lot.  The trail started squeezed in the space between US-22 and Bushkill creek.  I had no idea there was anyth...

Turkey Brook Park Posted by Chris 6/23/18 Basics: Length - 3 miles approximately Elevation gain - Minimal Nearest city - Mount Olive/Budd Lake NJ Difficulty - Easy The Day: After seeing a movie, Book Club, we had dinner at Red Lobster in Ledgewood.  On the way home I really wanted to check out this park (which I had recorded simply just as 30 Flanders Road, Budd Lake.  The park was large and very clean. It is focused on sports fields which it has a seemingly endless number of but there are some walking opportunities too.  I found the war memorial with the war dogs memorial that doesn't allow dogs to be a little amusing. Pics from Brian:

Swartswood State Park Posted by Chris 6/23/18 Basics: Length - 3 miles approximately Elevation gain - Minimal Nearest city - Newton, NJ Difficulty - Easy The Day: It was hot and we didn't get as early  of a start as I might have hoped. There were bugs. The trail was flat.  We needlessly paid 10 dollars to get in (the trail heads are outside the paid area).  It just wasn't a great morning. Pics from Brian