“The Dunes” – West Avenue Nature Trail – Delanco, NJ

“The Dunes” – West Avenue Nature Trail– Delanco, Burlington County, NJ
Distance – 2.3 miles of trails listed, did 1.5 miles
Type – A few loops
Difficulty: 2 of 10

Website – Delanco Township Parks and Recreation
Open – 9 am to dusk

Terrain – Woods and some wet areas
Surface – Mostly wood chips, with some dirt sections of trail

Trailheads – N 40° 03.762 W 074° 55.957

Directions – West Ave and Beaver Ave, Delanco, NJ

Parking – Small parking lot at trailhead – 7 spots (a few labeled as for the trails)

Dog friendly? Leashed dogs allowed
Stroller friendly? Heavy duty offroad stroller might work
Benches? A few benches

Facilities?: No facilities

Rules –

Markings –

Map –

Description –

In late January, I picked up The Pres and Tree Rider from a friends house and noticed we had just enough time to try to squeeze a hike in.  This was was close and, shockingly, I had never done it before.   So… time for a hike!

We found the parking spaces by the baseball fields easily enough, put on our warm layers, and headed past the car gate into the woods.

Creek right at the entrance.

We walked straight down the road and turned right at the intersection.  Here, a sign immediately warned that road we were on was not open to the public, and the trail split off to the left to get off of the road.

Good Eagle Project!

The wide trail takes you past thorns and, at least in the winter, some scrawny trees.  While there was mostly silence on this freezing January day, I’d imagine there are plenty of birds along this stretch in nicer weather.  We followed the arrow to the right (straight).  As the trail turned north toward the Delaware River, drop downs to swampy areas appeared on each side of the trail.

The trail got close to the water, but we couldn’t see it as we turned right to follow the yellow loop.

The trail reconnected at an earlier intersection, and we turned right, crossed the entrance road we started on, then bared left to check out the other side of the park.

We looped southward and then kept keeping to the left to keep to the outside of the many interlocking loops that make up this side of the trail system.  The trails followed a chain link fence up to our first (frigid cold) clear view of the water.

By this time, we were losing the light.  So we kept heading left again to finish the outside of the western part of the loop, passing a pollinator garden along the way.  We soon spotted the road out of the park and found our soon-to-be-warm car.  Fun!

Nearby:

Delanco is, of course, also home to the lovely Pennington Park, part of the Burlington County Park system.  That park also includes part of the Newton’s Landing Trail, which is part of the proposed-and-slowly-coming together Rancocas Greenway, which does reach from Amico Island to the edge of Pennington Park now.