Runnemede Lake Park Nature Trails – Runnemede, NJ

Runnemede Lake Park Nature Trails – Runnemede, Camden County, NJ
Distance – Over a mile of trails, with our backtracking we did about 2.8 miles with a bit along the southeast that is not part of the trail map.
Type – out and back spurs, although you can make it more of a loop if you are brave and want to jump a creek.
Difficulty: 4 of 10 if you stick to the trails (some blow downs that you need to navigate, some tricky steps to navigate, steep area around the lake to get down),
10 out of 10 if you are crazy and try to balance on a log to cross the creek. You can guess which difficulty my kids chose. Can do much of it with a 2 of 10.

Website – http://www.reimaginerunnemede.org/
Open – Sunrise to Sunset

Terrain – Some small hills with swampy areas and forested areas
Surface – Mostly dirt. Concrete for the walk around on the sidewalk.

Trailheads – We used the one at N 39° 50.750 W 075° 04.970, but there are several entrances from the roads that loop the park.

This is the trailhead we took, but there are several at nearby roads, each with one of those lovely signs.

Directions – We parked behind the baseball fields off Sheppard Ave in Runnemede, NJ, but there’s better parking a few hundred feet toward the woods

Parking – decent sized gravel lot.

Dog friendly? Yes? Saw dogs on the trail.
Stroller friendly? No, would be really tough, even with an offroad stroller
Benches? A few along the trail

Facilities?: None

Markings – Markers on trees

Map –

Description –

When the oldest ones were a bit smaller, we came back to Hirsch Lake (popularly called Runnemede Lake) a few times to look for bugs and tadpoles and such. There were a few bike jumps (now labeled an RC area!) that kids had made, but that was it.

Apparently, there used to be a lot more. The land was saved in the 1950s, but in the 1960s there was a move to sell it for development. There was public outcry, and the idea was abandoned. Local banded together and organized to create hiking trails, picnic areas, and small bridges in! Over the years, much of this fell into disuse.

A group called Reimagine Runnemede took on the project to restore the trails (check out there website for some great photos and some of the old plans from the the 1960s). And restore them they have! In March, Kite Flyer and I finally set out to check out all their hard work.

To start, I expected this to be maybe a mile. I was wrong, with our backtracking and a bit of extra on the south end, we ended up with 2.8 miles!

We went in behind the baseball fields, were there is a large, gravel lot.

You drop down and immediately have to choose left or right. We choose right.

We followed the yellow blazes along the creek that feeds in Hirsch Lake. The trail is nice and wide, and we had some clear views down toward the creek thanks to the leaves not quite ready to come in yet. We followed this until it split two ways (both ways yellow).

From the map, we knew the split to the right would just take up toward Sheppard, but we walked up it for research purposes.

Trailhead at the cul-de-sac at Sheppard.

We backtracked to the intersection and took the trail around and down where the trail petered out at the creek. Or did it? We looked closely at the map… yep, that is the only way across. While I am in no way suggesting that YOU cross this way (I am officially suggesting you backtrack and drive your car around), we intrepidly decided to try it so that you don’t have to (also, we watched some kids do it first, who clearly did it regularly).

Wandered past it… nope trail doesn’t go anywhere. Well, okay.

We made it! Kite Flyer had no problem. I was a mess (it’s pretty high up and I don’t like heights).

If this is not for you AND you don’t want to backtrack, looks like there is a small, improvised bike bridge just past this at the creek level that would be less terrifying.

Perhaps better? Could probably jump it without the bridge, although we were hiking when there was still a drought.

Now across and up a tiny rise, we arrived at another intersection. Left looked fun. Really run! So we turned right first to get it out of the way. This was a long, straight, fairly level path over to the trailhead on Clements Bridge Road. There was a bench along the way and a nature sign.

Looking out toward Clements Bridge Road. That car is driving, not parked.

Backtracking to the post-log intersection, we not went the more interesting way. Things were looking at us. THINGS WERE LOOKING AT US. We looked at them, dropped down some steps and crossed a stream by jumping (or you can step on stones), and then looked at some more of them. How awesome is this?

I could maybe draw a stick figure owl? This is much nicer.

Just after the pipe, we have another choice of right or left. We chose right first, and immediately arrived at the trailhead at Orchard. There’s space here for a few cars.

No, we didn’t miss any narrative, it’s a very short way “right”.

We then headed down the steps, now on the red blazed trail. The would follow the other side of the creek that we’d first walked up. The upper section of trail had a neat little “South Jersey waterfall” (it’s water over a log, don’t get too excited. Or be like my kids and get VERY EXCITED, because it’s pretty great… yes, kids, we’ve been back twice already with various other children from the household).

Daff-o-thrills!
It’s been such a long winter…

Trickiest section that didn’t cross a creek.

He asked if we could cross this one too. The answer was “no”.

The little bridge with the waterfall over the log.

From the little waterfall, it was clear walking up a little hill and eventually past an intersection (stayed right/straight) and up to the trailhead at Lakeview.

We made it! Lakeview is a street name, not a scenic overlook.

There had been an intersection that headed down toward the creek that was blazed red, so we slightly backtracked to check that out. It led down to the water where a nice spot would be for a future bridge someday. We poked around a bit along the creek and found some beavers had been hanging out.

You can see someone started their own bridge to make it a loop, but I am not that brave, which is how we ended up doing 2.8 miles.

Do not go this far… it was a severe drought. You’d be a mess in normal times.

We backtracked up to the blazed trail and headed the way we came, back to our animal friends…

Yes, we went back the same way we came. He insisted.

We then went all the way back to that first intersection to head the other way. There wasn’t much other way, it just led down to the other side of where someone put two too thin logs across where a bridge may some day go.

We then headed down toward the lake. These are not official trails on the map, but it’s where we’d followed fisherman paths and apparently RC car paths to get down to the water before. It’s steep and a little tough on the ankles in this stretch.

There is an official trailhead here at Holly on the opposite side of the ball fields from where we’d parked.

We dropped a short, but steep and a little awkward stretch of fishermen trails here to get by the lake, then followed the well worn path up to find another official trailhead at the dam at Singley.

We walked up to the sidewalk to peek at Timber Creek on the other side of the road, then made our final backtrack along the lake to the waiting car. Fun adventure!

But we weren’t done for some reason, so we headed over to check out the Gabriel Daveis Tavern Nature Trails, which I realized we had hiked and never posted. It’s a really neat place that’s older than the United States (1756!) and has open houses and tours and events So we hiked them and then I posted them. Hooray! (Yes autocorrect and spell check, it is spelled “Daveis”. Don’t tell me how to live!).

Nearby:

David L Vanella Memorial Park (formerly Beaver Branch/Green Acres Park) is nearby in Runnemede with a 1 mile paved loop through the woods.

Gabriel Daveis Tavern Nature Trails are nearby (about a mile) and Timber Creek Park with it’s popular dog area (about 5 miles of trails)