This area along Pasadena road brings back a memory. Our 12th trip in Oct 2001 was titled "Lebanon Crossing". We went straight through the woods from route 70 to Pasadena Road. Here's the trip report and a rough route. I apologize if I posted the trip report already.
Trip Date: 23-Oct-2001
Leader: Bob Moyer
Followers: Bob Bruneau, Paul Follman, Doug Cook, Mike Baker, Phil
Iapalluci
We are probably the only people in NJ to have walked 7 miles straight
through the woods without using roads in Lebanon State Forest in order
to cross it. The weather was almost perfect. Perfect would have been
slightly cooler, sunnier, and less windy. But almost perfect is nice
too. The temperature was about 48 degrees.
We started out 3 miles East of the 70/72 circle. We set our compass
towards Pasadena road and dug right in. Our track was exactly 98.5
degrees from North.
If we saw anything on this trip it was an abundance of animal sign. We
saw fox holes and skunk holes and snake holes, and plenty of deer sign.
We crossed about 6 wet areas, either streams or cripples. The big one
was Mount Misery Brook and all of its tributaries. The brook has a high
population of rattlesnakes, but the weather was too cool for them to
introduce themselves.
Most of this trip was through upland forest of Chestnut Oak. In the
second half, more towards Pasadena Road, there was a large area of scrub
oak, that provided us some trouble as the going got rough. And in the
wet areas we often had to crawl to overcome the high-bush blueberry,
gum, and swamp magnolia. The last mile was a pine lowland forest.
We had an interesting encounter of a flying squirrel on this trip. Mike
spotted him on a tree I was walking under. I had never seen one before
in the pine barrens. I later researched and discovered the reason why;
they are nocturnal. That explains his large eyes. We had a few minutes
to check him out, and then he darted in a hole in the same tree. Mike
and Bob got photos. Maybe they will share them with us.
The Pines are incredibly dry this autumn. There were areas that were
completely dry that should have had water. The middle branch of Mt.
Misery brook was one such area. We came upon a small savannah type of
area about 1 acre in size. The deer had worn a path around an island in
the middle looking for the water that just isn’t there. A neat site to
monitor how much water is coming out of the pines is the following web
site which monitors the water discharge at New Lisbon. Mt. Misery Brook
is a feeder stream to this gauging station.
I was a little worried about bow hunters this trip, but we did not see
any. However, during the course of this trip we came upon about 30 deer
stands, some fancy, some falling down.
We were a little beat at the end but it gave us a lot of satisfaction to
make the crossing. This reinforces my feeling that a true bushwhacking
trip should not last more than about 6 or 7 miles.
We collectively gave this trip about 8.5.
Happy Trails………..Bob