Big Timber Creek, South Branch – Blackwood Lake Dam, Blackwood, NJ to Old Pine Farms – Deptford Township, Gloucester County, NJ Distance: 1.3 Type: One way Difficulty: 10 of 10.

Terrain – Narrow, tidal river with marshes

Put ins – Blackwood Lake Dam –  39°48’8.50″N,  75° 4’24.41″W

Put downriver of Blackwood Lake Dam

Pull outs – Old Pine Farms –  39°48’43.23″N,  75° 5’5.77″W

Pull out Old Pine Farm. ( Picture from 2015 )

Five years ago, I started a blog about hiking in South Jersey as an excuse to go exploring with my then one year old son.  I expected maybe four people to ever read it, and that estimate included if my mom could figure out how to get to it to see pictures of her grandson (she hasn’t yet).

Five years (and two kids later), we’ve explored 166 trails in South Jersey and counting.  We’ve made many new friends, been invited to part of some amazing experiences, and have had a total of ELEVEN people read our posts (okay, maybe more like fourteen people… wait, 700,000 hits so far!?).

So, in celebration of five years, we present the Top 20 Trails in South [...]

We had a quite a 2017.  Adorable new baby to hike with, fancy new website, and some media attention starting with a feature in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

He likes hiking too.

It was quite a year on the trails too.  In 2017, we hiked about 780 miles, including hiking 31 new-to-us trails in South Jersey!  So as we do each year, our 10 favorite trails that we hiked for the first time this year:

Unexpected Wildlife Refuge – Newfield, Gloucester County, NJ Distance – 10 miles of trails.  (Did 5 miles here the first time, and 3.75 the second) Type – Web of trails Difficulty: 6 of 10 – for balancing acts on bridges and getting over/around/under blow downs

Website – http://www.unexpectedwildliferefuge.org/ Open – By appointment (see how to make an appointment below)

Terrain – pinelands and swamps Surface – dirt, sand, bridges

Trailheads –  39°33’35.68″N,  74°55’44.25″W