Rockwood Rocks!

[TeeGate]

All,

Today was the first fall hike of the year for the Pine Barren Explorers(PBX), founded by Bob Moyer(BobM). Since I had not planned a hike for the club, I decided to explore the area near Rockwood off of 206 and named the hike "Rockwood Rocks!".

We met on 206 at Rockwood road about 3 miles south of Atsion at 9AM, with 4 members of this site in attendance, along with Mike Baker of mikebaker.com. The members of this site were myself, Bob(BobM), Steve(Behr655), and for the first time Ed(ecampbell). Unfortunately, Bob was suffering from a severe head cold and was not sure he would be able to complete the hike. We decided to start it and see how things went with him.

We proceeded to drive down Rockwood Road where we parked our vehicles and started the hike. Our first destination was a spot on the Sleeper Creek where on an aerial map we though we saw a place to cross. Unfortunately, we were not able to cross there, but it was a very scenic site.


http://mywebpages.comcast.net/teegate/10232004/IMG_4414.jpg

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/teegate/10232004/IMG_4417.jpg

We continued on and came to what we thought was a large savanah, and we explored around there.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/teegate/10232004/IMG_4418.jpg

Two photo's merged together.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/teegate/10232004/merge2.jpg

More there.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/teegate/10232004/STA_4422.jpg

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/teegate/10232004/IMG_4425.jpg

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/teegate/10232004/IMG_4426.jpg

Slightly blurry, but a nice color.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/teegate/10232004/IMG_4429.jpg

All but myself in another savanah.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/teegate/10232004/IMG_4433.jpg

Then we arrived at the biggest savanah that I have ever visited, and it just continued as far as we could see.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/teegate/10232004/IMG_4440.jpg

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/teegate/10232004/STA_4449.jpg

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/teegate/10232004/STB_4450.jpg

And while playing with the settings on my camera, I got this view of the sky.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/teegate/10232004/IMG_4443.jpg

We ate our lunch in one of the raised tree lined area's in the middle of the savanah, and then decided to make our way back to the start. It had become more cloudy when I took this photo.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/teegate/10232004/IMG_4451.jpg

We covered almost 5 miles, much of it in water, at times crawling, and with a very sick member, and we did quite well. Upon arriving back at the vehicles we did our traditional rating of the hike, and I am proud to say it was an 8 out of 10. All in all a very good day.


Guy

[BEHR655]

Great report Guy and great pictures too.

It was a great day. The sun was shining for a good part of the day and it was pleasantly cool. The savannas we saw, in particular the last one, were breath taking. The section of the Sleeper we visited was beautiful and what we saw was clear of obsticals. A paddle is in order. For the most part it was easy going but we did need to do some crawling. The last area we went through, looking for the road back to the cars, was lousey with briars. But hey, that's half the fun! LOL
Go to my album to see some of the better shot that I took.
http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=236

Steve

[TeeGate]

Nice photo's Steve. I especially like this one.

http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10034/PICT0029.JPG

With the savanah's being very easy to get to, I am certain that Jessica and I will be going there again in the near future.

As usual, it is always nice to hike with you and the rest of the group.

Guy

[BEHR655]

With the savanah's being very easy to get to, I am certain that Jessica and I will be going there again in the near future.
Guy

Yeah, we only saw a fraction of it. Maybe next week.

Steve

[BEHR655]

Check out our track.
http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10034/Rookwood_Rocks_track.jpg

[TeeGate]

If we had cut off that one section where we headed back to the road, we could have saved ourselves a mile :)

The new Alpha version of the program I use will be allowing me to add the tracks to Terraserver maps. But it still is an Alpha version and that feature does not work yet. I have been using a different program to view them, but it is poor.

Thanks for passing that on.

Guy

[BEHR655]

Guy,

Look at the track. Did you see how close to the road we came when we turned off of that last skinny savanna?

Steve

[TeeGate]

I see that we also could have saved ourself some tough hiking if we had just hit that road where you are mentioning. At that point we went parallel with it for quite a while. Oh well!

Guy

[RednekF350]

Guy
Did you get across Sleeper?
Did you cross in the beginning using the beaver dam like you were talking about a few weeks ago?
Scott

[TeeGate]

Guy
Did you get across Sleeper?
Did you cross in the beginning using the beaver dam like you were talking about a few weeks ago?
Scott


Scott,

That was going to be the end of the trip. If you look at Steve's track log you can see where we went. The track log starts at our first stop which is the top part of the blue line. We went clockwise so you can see where we reached the Sleeper and walked along it for a short distance.

http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10034/Rookwood_Rocks_track.jpg

We reached the Sleeper to see what it was like, but since Bob was sick we decided to head back to the road and possibly drive our cars around to the fan shaped bogs and just explore there. But at the road we decided to just walk the savanahs going east.

From there we head back crossing the road and following the smaller savanah back toward our car. We then had to leave the savanah and bushwhack through the woods to get back to the cars, and we had to do quite a bit of crawling in that area.

So we did not complete our agenda, but that does not really matter. We had a great time. We will be heading back there as a group next June or July because of some interesting plants we found along the way.

We noticed that in the past two weeks the owner of the property that the ruins are on has strung up police tape to keep people off his property. He even added a few new signs. So he is either paranoid or someone is stealing bricks from the ruins. Hopefully that is not happening.

While in one of the savanahs someone shot off what appeared to be a shotgun not far from us. They did it twice and we headed away from that area. We did hear it one more time when we were quite a distance from there.

We found an area full of corn with a steel stand right near it, and the corn seemed recent. It still was arranged in piles.

Guy

[bobpbx]

I slept fitfully for 12 hours after I got home. I thought I was gonna die.

But here I is!

Here are a few shots of the crew who went:

http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=random&cat=10011&pos=-2199

http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=random&cat=10011&pos=-2201

http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=random&cat=10011&pos=-2197

And a couple I liked out of my batch:

http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=random&cat=10011&pos=-2195

http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=random&cat=10011&pos=-2196

Here's a good one of Guy's arse crawling through the brairs and blueberries:

http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=random&cat=10011&pos=-2200

Looks like an African Jungle don't it?

It was a good trip............bob

[TeeGate]

Great shot of my butt Bob!

Nice photo's. Thanks.

Guy

[BEHR655]

Great pictures Bob. Too bad you are feeling so poorly. Rest up now for the next one.

Steve

[ecampbell]

Lets not forget the lunch stop:

http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pos=5

http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pos=6

http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pos=4

and some more:

http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pos=2

http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pos=3

A great day!

Ed

[TeeGate]

Some nice photo's of me there Ed. In the second from last photo the camera caught me looking like an octogenarian with a cane :) I need to learn to stand up when I walk.

Also, a good coment on the one with me eating :) It is so true.


Guy

[ecampbell]

Guy,

Maybe I should name that picture "Whose the old guy"

[pinelandpaddler]

Wow, guys! I'm quite envious. EXCELLENT photos and it sure sounds like you had a wonderful time. The Sleeper looks just fabulous there. I've only seen that area via satellite imagery, and have waned to explore there for some time. If a paddle is truly in order, I would really love to join yas! Let me know.

gabe

[TeeGate]

Ed mentioned to me that he wanted to kayak it, and we even came up with our starting point. When and if that comes about, maybe we could all do it.

Guy