Buttonswood Park Trails – Eastampton, Burlington County, NJ
Distance – Probably a little under a mile one way, did 1.4 miles with missing the “hook” at the end of the trail
Type – out-and-back
Difficulty: 2 of 10
Website – Eastampton Parks & Rec
Open – Sunrise to Sunset.
Terrain – Woods and some wetlands
Surface – Mostly dirt
Trailheads: Trail officially starts here – N 39° 59.940 W 074° 45.800
But from the parking lot, you can start at:
Trailhead 1 – N 39° 59.961 W 074° 45.744 (we ended here)
Trailhead 2 – N 39° 59.975 W 074° 45.745 (we started here)
Directions – 7 Knightsbridge Road, Eastampton, NJ
Parking – Two small lots.
Dog friendly? Did not see a
Stroller friendly? Offroad strolled should work well for most of the trail.
Benches? a few
Facilities?: a port-a-potty, playground
Rules –
Assume this is the playground, but it might be the whole park?Markings – None, but easy enough to follow
Map – No official map, here’s my GPS track
Description –
Sometimes I find new-to-me trails because people tell me about them. Sometimes it’s because of Social Media. And sometimes it’s geocaching. This time, it was the last one that brought me to this trail.
I’d already enjoyed a nice, chilly hike at Long Bridge Park with flurries coming down earlier in the morning, and was heading for hours of history presentations at the library nearby, and I found myself with about 30-40 extra minutes. So I did what I often do in those circumstances, decided to see if there was a geocache nearby. And there was a nice looking one showing off an Eagle project… making signs for trees on a trail system… that I’d never heard of or done. Tires squealing, I did a move from a Vin Diesel movie, spinning out and racing through the streets before doing six spins and ending up perfectly in the parking spot by the tennis courts at Buttonwood Park (this is the biggest lie I’ve ever told on here… one of my nicknames in high school was “grandpa” because of how slowly I drive).
I was a little unsure which way to the start of the trail, so I set out along the paved path toward the playground, figuring there would be a cutover at some point to the trailhead.
Approaching the playground, there was no cut over in sight. In addition to driving slowly, I also am a firm believer in 10 minutes early is 5 minutes too late, so I gave up and cut across the open area to the trailhead, which I could see next to the basketball courts.
The trail officially begun, it wasn’t long before I started to see the nicely made signs labeling the different kinds of trees. I love these kinds of trails, because for someone who has had a hiking blog for just about 13 years, I am embarrassingly terrible when it comes to plants and animals, so I treat these tree trails as a refresher course on trees (except when I don’t know the trees, then it’s just a course course?).
The trail soon crossed a little stream/drainage ditch.
Shortly after this, the trail split into two. I opted for left, went a good bit down, then looked for a cross trail that I thought was on the map, but wasn’t (ugh, why do I trust apps ever?) that took me to the other side of the split. Whoops. It was for naught, the loop closed back up after a short distance.
Walking back down, I came to where the two parts merged back together.
The trail then split again. I headed left and crossed what I would discover was Georgia’s Bridge.
I reached the trailhead at Dawn Drive on the other side.
By now, I was a bit worried about making it to my event, so I skipped the last section of trail that fishhooked, heading back down the trail to the park area.
This time, I made the left and followed the paved trail around the basketball court and back to the parking lot.
On to hours of historical lectures! (They were excellent).
And, it turned out afterwards, one more hike for the day…
Ratings:
What I liked – Trees were nicely labeled, which is always great. Some interesting trees to check out, and a nice bridge.
What could be better – I could have finished the trail (I ended up early at the event anyway), but that isn’t the trails fault. The trail is a nice patch of woods, but a little monotonous.
Overall rating – 4 of 10 – enjoyed my hike and loved the labeled trees, but not a hike I’d go out of my way to do with some spectacular trails so close to this one.
Nearby: Closest is Historic Smithville, which has a fantastic set of hiking trails and a workers village and museums and a lake. Long Bridge County Park is also close. The Mount Holly Rail Trail is also nearby. Lots of other nice ones in the area if you check out our Google map.
