Little Woods on Rancocas Creek – Moorestown, NJ

Little Woods on Rancocas Creek – Moorestown, Burlington County, NJ
Distance – Just about 1 mile exactly.
Type – Lollipop trail
Difficulty: 3 of 10 – little bit of ups and downs, a few small downed trees to navigate.

Website – S.T.E.M – Save the Environment of Moorestown homepage
Open – Sunrise to Sunset.

Terrain – Small hilly area, forests, creekside swamp

Trailheads –  39°59’54.60″N,  74°53’24.05″W (right next to the deer crossing sign!)

Directions – Located on Creek Road almost directly across the from the intersection with Laurel Creek Blvd, Moorestown, NJ.  Next to the township leaf composting area.

Parking – Streetside parking along the shoulder of Creek Road.

Markings – Originally yellow painted blazes, have been replaced by white semi-reflective plastic markers.  VERY well marked.

Map – My mapping app didn’t work for the first stretch (the gray line), but picked up the last 3/4 of the hike.  It is better than nothing!

Description –

On a lovely Sunday afternoon, the wife, Tree Rider, The Pres, and I set off to try out some of the Save the Environment of Moorestown (S.T.E.M) preserves in lovely Moorestown, NJ.  I knew that they maintained a trail at Little Woods on the Rancocas Preserve, so that was our first stop for the day!

What we found was a well blazed trail of about a mile that looped through a nice patch of woods, made that much nicer by the explosion of Fall color.

Start at the trailhead, conviently located next to the deer crossing sign on Creek Road.  You’ll head in a short ways until you reach a piece of plastic piping suspended over the trail on a chain, which seems to be a dirt bike deterrent.

Just after the pipe, the trail will split and run two ways.  You can head either direction, as this is a loop.  We headed left, just because.  The trail runs through the woods for a ways until it reaches some benches near the banks of Rancocas Creek.

The benches are a nice spot to sit and enjoy the woods.  They do not, however, give much of a view of the creek.  For that, you’ll have to follow the trail as it drops down toward the Rancocas, they leave the trail to find gaps between the trees to admire the view through.  We found two pretty nice views on either side of a big, old, beautiful tree.

 From here, you’ll climb away from the bank and back into the main part of the woods.  This back stretch has many downed trees in it.  None of them are so big that you can’t easily step over them (except one, which you’ll do around), although one combo required you to duck down, then immediately step over another trunk (I had to take Tree Rider off my back for that maneuver).  This is the type of terrain where I’m usually in danger of losing the trail, but the trail was so well marked with plastic blazes that I never lost it for a moment.  This leg will eventually bring you back to where the trail split.

From there, it’s back up the way you came until you reach your car at Creek Road.

Nearby – This is one of several trails in Moorestown, of which we have already covered Boundary Creek Natural Resource Area. Also not far from other great trails on Rancocas Creek like Rancocas Point Trail in the next town over, Rancocas State Park (North End) in Westampton and Rancocas State Park (South End) in Hainsport.