Glades Wildlife Refuge – Dividing Creek (Downe Township), Cumberland  County, NJ Distances: Bald Eagle Trail – 1.5 miles round trip listed (1.75 miles round trip by GPS) Maple Street Trail – Did not hike (yet)! Warfle Farm Trail – Did not hike (yet)! Tat Starr Trail – Did not hike (yet)! Type – A series of out-and-back trails Difficulty:  2 of 10 – although this has to go up in the summer, when I’m sure the bugs and the sun might be brutal. Total score: 7 of 10

Website – Natural Lands Trust Open – Sunrise to Sunset.

Terrain – tidal marshland Surface – Dirt Trailheads – Bald Eagle Trail – [...]

Songbird Trail and Woodcock Trail – Cape May National Wildlife Refuge – Delaware Bay Unit – Middle Township (Cape May Courthouse), Cape May County, NJ Distance – official is just over a mile, but my GPS said 1.5. Type – Loop trail Difficulty: 2 of 10 Total score: 4 of 10

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

Terrain – Meadows, woods, and marshland

Trailheads – Parking lot at Refuge Headquarters – 39° 5’58.64″N, 74°52’48.16″W Trail parking lot – 39° 6’3.43″N, 74°52’53.89″W

I first heard of Shell Pile and Bivalve, two old oystering towns, the way most folks do, through Henry Charlton Beck’s classic book Forgotten Towns of Southern New Jersey.  While many of the towns in that book are long gone, Shell Pile and Bivalve (along with Port Norris) hang in there.  Despite diseases that have nearly wiped out the oyster population (twice), one factory and a handful of boats still hang on.  And, of course, there are still gigantic piles of shells, same as there were in the 1930s.  I hadn’t been there in five or six years.  What sent me back?  Well, I drove by this the other day…

… and Millville is fairly close [...]