Hiking the Great Swamp Again

manumuskin

Piney
Jul 20, 2003
8,552
2,465
59
millville nj
www.youtube.com
I have arthritis in one foot and am no longer in the best of shape so i feel for you.to get to that stone location you could have just came in from that side of the swamp which is an easy walk off the sand road.I guess you just wanted to get a cross section of that end huh?
Al
 

Y-BUC-BILL

Explorer
Mar 9, 2007
129
26
Great Swamp

Rednekf350....Glad to do some posting.We tried all summer to find a way to get across the Great Swamp on our motocycles[we were laying out an Enduro].Dave Amoto showed us some trails on the south side of Great Swamp
Said they were old Stage Coach Trails.At that time the ruts were about a foot deep.No one had used these trails for years.Shame Dave is gone.He was a world of information
 

Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
25,602
8,177
All,



I am reviving this old thread with a review and an update. Back in March of 2008 Rob from work and I headed into the Great Swamp to search for an inscribed stone along with other stones for a couple pieces of property that are isolated there. One of them is still in private hands today. This photo shows the location of the inscribed stone in yellow, and a few of the other stones are shown as well.


LH.jpg



This morning Al and I made an attempt to find them, and our adventure started off pretty poorly. The route we were taking was unexpectedly blocked by a bridge washout, so we had to quickly come up with another plan. Al came up with a route to take, and by 10:30 we recovered and had started our two mile walk to get there. On the way there and back we saw these.

Sedge.


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Flooding


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Al's snack.


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Getting close.


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I had calculated the coordinates as best I could a few years back when Rob and I made our first attempt, and just last night I tried a different approach and came up with locations somewhat different. I loaded them in my GPS and figured we could give them a try if my original locations were a failure. Sure enough they were at our first stop, so we moved the 120 feet difference and came to a clearing, where Al quickly spotted it. We had found one of the many we were looking for! This stone has been there since around 1857, and maybe as far back as 1824 when the deed to the neighboring property was drawn up. To put that in perspective, the first steam locomotive was unveiled that year, and Beethoven's 9th Symphony was new.



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Circled in yellow.


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Unfortunately, we did not find the inscribed stone on this visit, as well as the one other we looked for, but with the finding of one the rest get much easier. I want to thank Al for all his help, and Ben for help he gave me and did not even know it :) To be continued........


Guy
 

manumuskin

Piney
Jul 20, 2003
8,552
2,465
59
millville nj
www.youtube.com
That do be a beeoootiful island with a very purty stone.i can camp to the left of that stone and past it in the pic of me next to it and the state can't touch me:) the owner can if he finds out but I'll explain to the rangers as long as my tent is southeast of that little stone there you cain't touch this!
Al
 

gipsie

Explorer
Sep 14, 2008
547
67
55
atlantic county
I am not sure why I didn't notice this post earlier, but I am here to tell you that the Great Swamp (and all other swamp area of Wharton) are some of my favorite places to explore. I have found the logging machine (Swamp Monster) out there and have traversed that swamp many times. I would love to be able to learn some history and find MORE interesting stuff out there.

Guy, PLEASE! If you are ever taking another journey out there...I would LOVE to go! PLEASE let me know....
 

Kevinhooa

Explorer
Mar 12, 2008
332
25
41
Hammonton, NJ.
www.flickr.com
Hey guy, I was just checking out the "road" that runs through the middle of this swampy area. It looked like it had a ton of puddles in it in the satellite photos, and I'm sure it's a lot more wet now, but is it ever passable? It just seemed weird to me that a road would ever even be put through there having to cross so much water, was it only for the logging?
 

Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
25,602
8,177
Hey guy, I was just checking out the "road" that runs through the middle of this swampy area. It looked like it had a ton of puddles in it in the satellite photos, and I'm sure it's a lot more wet now, but is it ever passable? It just seemed weird to me that a road would ever even be put through there having to cross so much water, was it only for the logging?

The road is a series of puddles all along it as you say. I have no idea if it was for logging. The 1940 aerials do not show it and the 1956 shows a very thin road. I would suspect that during the big fire in the 1970s it was plowed wider for the equipment to fight it. Walking along it there are quite a few pipes that can be viewed breaking through the road, and there are a few pipe graveyards along there also.

What is interesting is there was a truck last weekend parked where we eventually parked, and Al and I followed the naked footprints of someone who walked more than a mile each way and obviously further down another road. When we were returning the footprints also had, and the truck was gone. That is some serious walking in bare feet when it is impossible to know what is hidden in those puddles.

Guy
 

Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
25,602
8,177
All,

Al and I returned to the Great Swamp to again search for the stones that eluded us last weekend, and we unfortunately came up empty.

We noticed the vegetation is greening up quite a bit in the savannas.


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I walked right over this snake which Al noticed after I went by it.


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No harm was done to it in the making of this video :) Give it time to load.


http://teegate.njpinebarrens.com/04172010/snake.mov


Guy
 

manumuskin

Piney
Jul 20, 2003
8,552
2,465
59
millville nj
www.youtube.com
Guy
what happened to the stone pic? did it come out?
having trouble opening the video clip.windows media player won't touch it,neither will gom player.real player tells me I need an update and the install starts and won't finish.
did the clip turn out nice?
Al
 

Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
25,602
8,177
Al,

I will post that late tomorrow. I have other things I want to add with that stone. I posted and had to leave for the evening and just got home. A long day and I am tired.

Bob...Al said it was a garder.

Guy
 

manumuskin

Piney
Jul 20, 2003
8,552
2,465
59
millville nj
www.youtube.com
Bob
yes that is an Eastern garter snake and I'd say by the way the tail pinched in past the cloaca it was probably a female.Hamipenes tend to fill out the tail more an d make it harcer to identify where the tail begins from above.
Al
 
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