Almonesson Creek Park – Deptford, NJ

Woodbrook Park Trail at Almonesson Creek Park – Deptford, Gloucester County, NJ
Distance – 1.25 miles total
Type – Loop-ish
Difficulty: 3 of 10 – difficulty for trails being a bit confusing.

Website – Deptford Parks & Rec
Open – 8 AM to dusk

Terrain – creekside woods
Surface – Mostly dirt

Trailheads –  39°49’5.48″N,  75° 5’43.60″W

Directions – 1898-1838 Cooper St, Deptford Township, NJ 08096

Parking – Good sized parking lot.

Dog friendly? Yes
Stroller friendly? Bit too overgrown in spots for stroller
Benches? Yes, but mostly concentrated in the front of the trails

Facilities?: Pavilion.

Standouts – Some fine, big trees.  Nice views of the creek.
Markings – Sporadic arrow on trees and a few (very few) markings on trees

Map –

Rules: 

Description –

It was a relatively nice day after work, and my wife had work, so The Pres, Tree Rider, Kite Flyer, and I headed out to nearby Almonesson Creek Park in Deptford, which someone on our Facebook group had posted about.  It was just a few days before the shortest day of the year, so we pulled up at nearly 4:00, getting ready for a race with the clock.

We started the trails to the left of the steps.

Listed here as Woodbrook Park Trail, but listed on the town website as Almonesson Park, as well as on the big sign out front… so… we’ll go with Almonesson Creek Park.

What we found was a pretty little patch of woods.  Unfortunately, the trails weren’t particularly well blazed anymore (although they definitely were at some point), and there were a lot of what may have been deer trails that split off pretty regularly.  So we stuck to what was the obvious trail, cutting off of it only when we saw a way down to the creek.

Despite the graffiti, the little creek is pretty, and Kite Flyer loved the burbling sounds that could be clearly heard despite the road noise.

We then headed back up to the main trail, which we took until straight on it would have taken us into someone’s backyard.

Kite Flyer is so happy to be hiking with Daddy.

A bit of green at the very tail end of Fall is much appreciated.

Blazing?

At this point, there was a post with an arrow point us to the right.  We went right, and before long, totally lost the trail.  Don’t know if it was us, or its overgrown, or it was just indistinct.  Wh

atever it was, we ended up lost with the sun going down.  Adventure!

Luckily, these trails aren’t very big, so we bushwhacked a bit (it wasn’t hard, the underbrush was very thin) back to the main trail, hence the little loop up top).

We then backtracked until we saw a bit of trail and some benches to the left, so we cut over to check them out.

This section was right behind home Depot.  We followed the again obvious trail around to the tops of the two stairs near the parking lot, then went onto the pavement to walk out to the end of the trail by the Almonesson Creek Park sign by the road.

There, there was a fascinating little history of the park, that I share here, because its fascinating.

Across the street is the last bit of the old park, which is now part of a catering place.

From here, it was back across the parking lot to the car to head home.  Almonesson Lake is across the street, but I didn’t want to brave the road with three kids in the dark to take a look, but it looked pretty from the car window!

Well done to Allistair Edinger and Andrew Dunleavy of Boy Scout Troop 62 in Almonesson, NJ for completing their Eagle Scout projects on these trails back in 2011.  There’s a nice article from the Gloucester County Times about it.

Nearby:
Timber Creek Park (Gloucester County) and Timber Creek Park (Camden County) are both very close, as is the Old Pine Farm Natural Land Trust.