Beaver Branch Park/Green Acres Park – Runnemede, NJ

Beaver Branch Park/Green Acres Park – Runnemede, Camden County, NJ
Distance – 0.9 miles total
Type – Loop
Difficulty: 1 of 10

Website – Runnemede Parks
Open – Sunrise to Sunset.

Terrain – Meadows, swamps, wetlands, forest
Surface – paved

Trailheads – 39°51’7.18″N, 75° 5’32.38″W

Directions – Green Acres Park, Dettmar Terrace, Runnemede, NJ

Parking – Large lot

Dog friendly? Yes, must be leashed
Stroller friendly? Yes
Benches? Yes

Facilities?: Bathrooms, not sure how often they are locked or unlocked

Markings – None, but easy to follow
Map – None, but included our route

Description –

So our Facebook group is hopping lately (5,000+ members), and one of the members posted that they had gone on a hike here (thanks Rita!).  Well a trail I haven’t hiked just one town over from me is not something that happens every day, so Kite Flyer and I leapt into the car the next evening to go check it out!

We found it just fine, parked the car, and were quickly on our way away from the playground (nothing derails a hike faster than a two year old spotting a playground).  We headed up the paved trail, past the tennis courts, and through the wall of trees to the… soccer fields.  Alright, not the most promising start to a hike.

Past the soccer fields, the trail made a “T”.  To the left would take us back to the parking lot in about 60 seconds.  So we chose right.

Kite Flyer isn’t point for me yet like the other kids.

The trail immediately improved.  For one, we were now paralleling Big Timber Creek, with some nice views through the trees occasionally.  A few small trails headed down toward the water, but I’d already had my poison ivy for the month (thanks mowing the lawn.  Every.  Single.  Time.), so we stuck the pavement since this was the height of summer.  We quickly made our way past the soccer fields, into a beautiful patch of woods. and across a substantial bridge.

Big Timber Creek.

Kite Flyer was on a roll now, his two year old legs getting their exercise for the evening, but did not neglect stopping to play with leaves and sticks along the way.  No speed records are ever set with a toddler hiking with you, but the cuteness (usually) more than makes up for it.

We traveled along until the trail split again.

Here, we chose left.  We chose wrong, as this quickly crossed a bridge out to 3rd Avenue.  Whoops.

But a pretty creek was our reward for a wrong split.

So we backtracked and took the other split.  This looped us around to the back end of the trail, which headed back toward where we started, working it’s way between a row of homes and some very swampy land.  There were some nice flowers and butterflies along this stretch.  It eventually dumped us back into the entrance road to the park in a patch of big, beautiful trees.

We turned right and worked our way down the drive back to where the car was, stopping so that Kite Flyer could put in a solid 20 minutes on the slides and musical instruments (yes, this playground has musical instruments).

After all, I’m not a monster.

Nearby: Close trails include Timber Creek Park (Blackwood), Timber Creek Park (Deptford), Andaloro Wildlife Refuge, and the old Blackwood Rail Trail, now known as the Gloucester Township Health & Fitness Trail.