Camden County College Trails – Blackwood, Camden County, NJ
Distance – supposedly 8 miles of trails total. We did 2 1/2 miles, but missed a lot.
Type – Series of interlocking loops
Difficulty: 3 of 10 – built for bikes, so more climbs and descents than a normal trail in South Jersey
Website – None
Open – Sunrise to Sunset.
Terrain – Hills, swamps, forests
Surface – Largely sandy and rooty, fun!
Trailheads – 39°46’40.00″N, 75° 2’14.26″W
Directions – Turnerville Hickstown Rd, Sicklerville, NJ 08081 (Parking is at Gloucester Township Community Park)
Parking – Several large lots at Gloucester Township Community Park. In theory, you could park at the college maybe, but their parking situation is so bad during classes (and I’m unsure of parking permit situation), that I’d just park in the park.
Dog friendly? Unsure of the rules, but I would NOT walk a dog here due to its popularity with mountain bikers.
Stroller friendly? Definitely not
Benches? None that I saw
Facilities?: None that I saw
Markings – Arrows on trees to help the bikers out
Map – Map with our track. Accidentally cropped a bit of trail in the top left corner. The “trail” above are the walkways for the college buildings, and the trails below are paved walkways around Gloucester Township Community Park
Description –
So The Pres and I went to check these trails out in August, yay! This was the third attempt to do so, as the first two times we came there were a bike race here and police safety drills. But third time was the charm, and what a charm it was!
So these trails were built for mountain biking, and I’ve heard nothing but good things from people who go biking here. Unfortunately, offroad biking is not really our thing, but we can walk with the best of them! The trails do an awful lot of twisting and turning, which make for good adventuring.
Just inside the trail head, decisions, decisions! We went left to start.
We started out exploring the Northwest part, the part closest to Peter Cheeseman Road, which is a great name for a road. Up here, the trail goes up and down some small hills, fun on a bike, fun if you are a kid that runs everywhere anyway.
The map shows that this section is not connected to the rest of the trail system except by backtracking. That’s because there’s a good sized wetlands that the trails in this stretch go along the edges of.
While no trails officially connect this section with the rest of the trails, it was August and it was hot. Going all the way around on the trails seemed to far. Going right back to the car seemed too short. Luckily, one of the roads through the college property also cuts through here. We took the trail out to the road, made a left, walked down the road a short ways, and then reentered the trail system in the middle section.
This middle section is true mountain biking trails – sharp turns, lots of cutbacks, and a crazy maze of a trail system.
We had a good time in this stretch with the crazy twists-and-turns, but as we got back toward the parking lot, we decided we hadn’t had quite enough. So we decided to dip our toes into the lower western section of the trails.
And by dip our toes in, we mean that we’ve fallen a little hard for Geocaching over quarentine and there was one more we wanted for the day. Either way, a peak at another section of trail! This one has some larger hills, which were a nice change of pace from the central, twisty section.
After that, we headed back for the car.
Wait, that’s not our car.
The trails work their way up to the edge of the fields, which we followed back to the parking lot.
We then checked out some of the paved paths (aka, went to find another geocache) before getting back into our car to head home.
Then, suddenly, it’s Fall, and we’re back! This time we came to check out the western end of the trails. We parked MUCH closer this time (hooray for the parking lot right at the trailhead being open this time), headed down the trail that runs along the edges of the field that we’d ended our hike on last time, and ducked into the woods.
At some point during quarantine, my kids started climbing everything in the world. Luckily, they also started running down the trail ahead of me to do it, so it works out perfectly. We ended up where we’d left off before and pressed on toward the stream at the western end of the trails.
Beware of monster trees.
The kids wanted to know what was going on here, but I had no idea.
Near the stream, we made a new friend, extra unexpected on this mid-October day.
Having made to the westernmost part of the trails, we began to loop back. Along the way, we found another creature. Please, PLEASE don’t drop your pets off in the woods, this could have ended very, very badly.
Along the way, we found another abandoned vehicle. How do these get back here?
Soon after, the boys discovered a tree absolutely covered in spotted lantern flies. They have a system by now, as one gets them to jump, then the other one squishes the bug.
With the excitement of battle over, we looped our way back through the western end, taking in the Fall colors.
Before long, we ended up back in the parking lot.
The nice thing about being delayed in writing a post for four months is that we tend to end back up at a place a bunch of times when we find a nice spot. So our most recent visit was on Christmas Eve where I attempted to walk some of the craziness out of them.
Needless to say, it didn’t work, but we did get a balloon.
Nearby: Gloucester Township Health and Fitness Trail/Blackwood Rail Trail – Blackwood, NJ
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It's fun walking bike trails as long as you're careful! Ups and downs, lots of twisting and winding. Also, fun for biking.
Easy enough to get turned around with all the twists.
Hello. I am one of the mountain bikers (and a hiker) that has been riding these trails for about 8 years now. Most of these trails actually have names. The paved road between the 2 sections of the trails is called “The Road to Nowhere.”
The trail in the flatter section between the parking lot and the Road to Nowhere is called “Chicken Wire Bridge” (Twisty Boi on the Strava app) because there is a little bridge across a gulley that was once made out of chicken wire and wood. It has now been replaced with an all wooden bridge.
Along the other side of the Road to Nowhere is a short little trail loop called “Cambodia” and a second one called “Endor.”
Into the woods a little bit is a trail called “Sophias.” Further into the woods is a trail recently renamed as “Twisties.” It was once called “Renegade” because there was once a Renegade Jeep hooh along the trail. It rusted out and is now gone.
Moving towards Orr Rd. and Rt. 42 there is a trail nalled “Vine Street” because there are a lot of vines along the trail. It crossed the wide trail (Jeep Trail) and goes onto “One Mile” trail. This is a hilly trail and is about 1 mile long.
If you go back behind the baseball fields where the cellphone tower is, there is a steep down hill which goes down to the creek at the “double bridges” trail. This dumps you back onto the One Mile trail.
Right next to the cellphone tower is an old fireplace (and a few others around there) where houses once were. The trail along the top of the ridge is appropriately called “Chimney.” Taking the Chimney trail along the edge of the woods takes you behind some of the college’s old yellow trailers. Going down the hill towards the circle on the road, it swings you across the concrete bridge over the pond. This takes you up a small hill toward the circle on College Drive. If you continue along the edge of the woods (on the left), this puts you onto “Molly’s Leash” trail which is a loop trail. This is the furthest trail from parking lot #7 at the Gloucester Twp. Park at the main trail head.
The trails in the section closer to Peter Cheeseman Rd. are simply referred to as “The College side” with a few sections called “The Cheeseman Shoot” and “The Ridge Line.”
If you look about 7-10 feet up the tree trunks at the beginning of these trails, you will see a wooden board with the name of the trail carved into it.
Besides riding these trails, I have hiked them many times. I hope you enjoy these trails as mich as I do.