All,
On January 7 there was a discussion with a few PBX members about getting together for a hike as we had not had many this season. At that time I was working on finding a few stones in Job's Swamp and offered to make a hike out of it. Bob agreed to it so I mapped out a route and came up with a name. Unfortunately, as you know this winter was a little out of the ordinary and the date of the hike kept changing. I did not want to stone search in the snow. It has taken until today for it to come to pass and even then a few members were not able to make it because of other obligations. Just last week Bob announced it to all members. Here is an edited version of that from Bob.
Boys, as you can see in the attached trip list (and if my tally is correct), this upcoming exploration will be our 70th in the history of the Pine Barren Explorers. I have not missed any of these trips.
Guy has come up with this short explore titled “Job’s Old Swamp” that will bring us into some wild areas in the back of Whites Bogs, next to Fort Dix property. I always wanted to get back to this area too. I think it is very infrequently visited.
This trip is 4 miles long if you are a crow.
Normally, we go on Saturday, but this trip has been very hard to schedule. April is always busy for me…so this one will be outside the normal. We are meeting at 9 AM on Sunday, 12 April (next week). Let me know if you are coming so we can look for you if you are running late.
Happy trails!
Bob
So this morning at 9AM we met along route 70 at the southern edge of Job's Old Swamp. This swamp is all of the area at the below link bounded by the Ft Dix property on the East, Bombing Range Road on the North, Whitebog on the West, and Route 70 on the South.
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.9635470760442&lng=-74.45510644119264&z=15&type=hybrid&gpx=
On this hike was rednekF350, bobpbx, teegate (myself), Hewey, lost town hunter, Mike Baker from MikeBaker.com, Mickey Coen, and Mark Szutarski.
The beginning of the hike was the stone searching portion. I had acquired an old map from 1919 with the property owners names and stone locations. The primary owners at that time were Mick and J.J. White. On one corner of J.J. Whites property he had placed a creosoted post which is mention on this portion of the map.
We found the post in very good shape.
We were also looking for a stone that was the "Beginning Corner of the Shinn Survey" from 1796 which was also shown on the 1919 map.
And from what I can tell we found it. It is a huge stone laying on its side.
We also found a few other stones. This one on the Ft. Dix line underground.
This appears to be a nice marble stone tilted on it's side. I will be going back and examining this one more closely.
And this large one underground. I tried to feel to see if it was incised but could not tell.
And the day would not be complte without our first male box turtle of the season. It looked tired.
Lunch time in Job's Swamp.
At this point we had a 1 mile straight hike directly across the swamp to Troy Island on the other side. This portion would seperate the men from the boys and was at times extremely tough. In the end we all came through.
A cedar stand along the way.
After more than an hour we finally made it to the series of islands on the West side of the swamp.
Guy
On January 7 there was a discussion with a few PBX members about getting together for a hike as we had not had many this season. At that time I was working on finding a few stones in Job's Swamp and offered to make a hike out of it. Bob agreed to it so I mapped out a route and came up with a name. Unfortunately, as you know this winter was a little out of the ordinary and the date of the hike kept changing. I did not want to stone search in the snow. It has taken until today for it to come to pass and even then a few members were not able to make it because of other obligations. Just last week Bob announced it to all members. Here is an edited version of that from Bob.
Boys, as you can see in the attached trip list (and if my tally is correct), this upcoming exploration will be our 70th in the history of the Pine Barren Explorers. I have not missed any of these trips.
Guy has come up with this short explore titled “Job’s Old Swamp” that will bring us into some wild areas in the back of Whites Bogs, next to Fort Dix property. I always wanted to get back to this area too. I think it is very infrequently visited.
This trip is 4 miles long if you are a crow.
Normally, we go on Saturday, but this trip has been very hard to schedule. April is always busy for me…so this one will be outside the normal. We are meeting at 9 AM on Sunday, 12 April (next week). Let me know if you are coming so we can look for you if you are running late.
Happy trails!
Bob
So this morning at 9AM we met along route 70 at the southern edge of Job's Old Swamp. This swamp is all of the area at the below link bounded by the Ft Dix property on the East, Bombing Range Road on the North, Whitebog on the West, and Route 70 on the South.
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.9635470760442&lng=-74.45510644119264&z=15&type=hybrid&gpx=
On this hike was rednekF350, bobpbx, teegate (myself), Hewey, lost town hunter, Mike Baker from MikeBaker.com, Mickey Coen, and Mark Szutarski.
The beginning of the hike was the stone searching portion. I had acquired an old map from 1919 with the property owners names and stone locations. The primary owners at that time were Mick and J.J. White. On one corner of J.J. Whites property he had placed a creosoted post which is mention on this portion of the map.
We found the post in very good shape.
We were also looking for a stone that was the "Beginning Corner of the Shinn Survey" from 1796 which was also shown on the 1919 map.
And from what I can tell we found it. It is a huge stone laying on its side.
We also found a few other stones. This one on the Ft. Dix line underground.
This appears to be a nice marble stone tilted on it's side. I will be going back and examining this one more closely.
And this large one underground. I tried to feel to see if it was incised but could not tell.
And the day would not be complte without our first male box turtle of the season. It looked tired.
Lunch time in Job's Swamp.
At this point we had a 1 mile straight hike directly across the swamp to Troy Island on the other side. This portion would seperate the men from the boys and was at times extremely tough. In the end we all came through.
A cedar stand along the way.
After more than an hour we finally made it to the series of islands on the West side of the swamp.
Guy
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