Little Hawkin Run ... A PBX Hike

Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
25,602
8,178
All,

On 2/16/2017 all members of PBX received the trip announcement from Bob concerning this hike. Here is an edited portion of it.




Boys, get your gear on. Rope ‘er down an saddle up--make sure she’s well shod on this one!

Our next trip is entitled “Little Hauken Run”. We’ll meet at 8:45 AM on Saturday, March 18, 2017.

We are going into the heart of the pines where I guarantee most everyday people don’t go. It’s kind of in an odd area that most people would not think of as they speed from rt. 563 into the other areas, like Quaker Bridge, or the state campgrounds, or Mount, or Devious, etc. They zoom right by this forsaken section without even thinking.

--It will be more strenuous than usual, and will include 3 water crossings and some tough country.

This shakes out to be about 5 miles as the crow flies, but I’ll be continually gaging whether we need to take a shortcut here and there. If we do the full run and stumble around, it may be a 6 miler.

Let me know if you can make it, I’ll keep an eye out for you.

Happy Trails!

bob



Obviously, we did not make the trip on March 18 and it was postponed until today. Along on this hike was:


Me (TeeGate)
Bob (bobpbx) and his fiancee Jan
Jessica
Chris (Hewey)
Al (Manumuskin)
Scott (RednekF350) and his wife Dottie
Dan (Menantico)
John (Smoke_Jumper)
And long time PBX member Paul


Our first find was an electric fence. Now I don't know about you but I just don't believe anyone has an electric fence in the pines so I just had to test it. I had to!


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Something strange happened today that kind of freaked us out. Someone had been all over the woods along most of our route putting up orange tape for some sort of project or testing. It was almost as if they knew our route. And to make it even stranger they were just there in recent weeks. (3/5/17 and 3/8/2017 just to name a few dates)


Two of many multiple locations. If anyone knows what this is for please let us know. They put a little red flag in the ground and painted numbers on the trees all around the flag.

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You can see the orange marking on the tree right in the middle of the photo.

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We stopped for a rest along the Wading River.


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John, Paul and Jessica explore the confluence of the Wading River and the Little Hawkin Creek.


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Our group photo in the Wading and a closer look below.


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We traveled this wet area saving ourself much time and from the ravages of brier along the edges. There is a video below also.


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I found this very nice shed on the upland.


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Lunch time.


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We started to notice massive amounts of deer tracks ..... more than anywhere I have ever noticed. Then we found this place. Enough cranberries and corn to feed every deer in the pines.



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Bob counting each and every one.


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This location separated the men from the boys. The Hospitality Creek and the Little Hawkin Creek run parellel to each other here. We had to cross them both making for an interesting half hour. This is one you have nightmares about. There is video below.


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While on every hike I am always on the search for state corners I have not been to before and this was no exception. While others were taking a short break I strayed off looking for one such corner. Experience has taught me what to look for and I noticed this in the area. Fully covered in moss it just fit the look of a monument that nobody has visited since it was placed there in the mid 1950s.


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And as I carefully pealed away the moss it just fell apart.


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It is Wharton corner monument NJ237W.


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And then the hike was over. I gave this event a 9 out of 10 because it brought back the PBX of old where the challenge was high, the company was great and the woods were exhausting. My kind of hike! Thank you Bob for the adventure!


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Now to the video's. Join Jessica and the crew as they splash their way forward along a quarter mile long wet area.




See us cross a small portion of the Hospitality Creek and Little Hawkin Creek and be glad you were not there.



Guy
 

RednekF350

Piney
Feb 20, 2004
4,944
3,080
Pestletown, N.J.
It was a great hike and the weather was more like May than March. The area sees very little human activity.

As Guy said, it was Old School PBX with a some difficult woods work, especially the afternoon stream/jungle crossing. I managed to stay dry but many did not. The score was a solid 9 out of 10. Three women, including my wife, did the hike without a whimper.

As always, we enjoyed an after party of good eats. I brought a cast iron pot and propane burner and we savored some deep fried venison back strap nuggets made by Chris and we demolished Smoke Jumper's BLT dip !

Thanks to everyone for the planning and participation !

A big pitch after exiting a cedar swamp.


Entering the Jungle of Death.


My wife crossing another deep spot in the braided stream.


Always a fan of homemade wine, we did a little stomping.


Disappearing into the cedars.
 

bobpbx

Piney
Staff member
Oct 25, 2002
14,153
4,257
Pines; Bamber area
That was an excellent write up Guy. And Scott, Dottie, Chris and John, thank you for the fine food.

Al, it was great seeing you again. Wish you could make it more often.

It was a very strenuous trip, but it really felt great being out in the woods again. We did over 7 miles without using trails, except those created by deer...and their trails are handy sometimes, believe me!

You know, people don't really understand how vast these woods are. We have been PBX exploring off-road and off-trail now for 18 years, and we still have a lot to see. I don't have a lot of photos, but here they are.

I love it how the Wading spreads out a little wide once in awhile.

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Janet negotiates a tricky log. She had a little difficulty at the end of this log, but she is a game girl. So is Dottie, and of course Jess.

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Chris, ready to keep rolling. Chris is a very stealthy and quick woodsman.

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Guy, hungry enough to chance a mouthful of cranberries, even though they were fermented. He was a bit woozy later!

Guy Biting berries.JPG
 

manumuskin

Piney
Jul 20, 2003
8,552
2,465
59
millville nj
www.youtube.com
Got home,took a nap and got up,popped four Motrin and a Vivarin hoping for the best at work last night and I got it! Good night and the Motrin did it's job so I am now recuperated and after sleeping nine hours today I"m ready for another hike! That stream crossing was the toughest thing I"ve done in awhile.I was wondering why there were so many channels.I looked at the map later and realized we crossed two streams at one time that were actually paralleling each other.The woods on the way back were awesome.So open with hills it was like walking through a prairie of pine trees.
 
Had a great time and it's always a pleasure seeing the pbx crew again. Highlights for me: the stream(s) crossing, amazing how deep some spots were; all the cedar swamps we hiked through, especially the first stretch; the wild cranberries I kept picking at along the way; Chris' venison bites and hanging by Evans Bridge as it rained; walking down that stretch of blackwater talking about geo-political behavior in Asia; finding the deer superhighway and where they battle after getting drunk on those fermented cranberries; talking to Al about what spots we want to check out down south in our neck of the pines; and of course spending time and learning from the pbx guys. Thanks again for having me along. I slept like a baby last night and didn't get up until late, perfect weekend!
 

Hewey

Piney
Mar 10, 2005
1,042
109
Pinewald, NJ
Another stellar day in the big woods of Jersey with the PBX crew! This hike is what PBX is all about. I can't lie, this one left me a little sore Sunday morning. The pain is well worth the pleasure. With out doing what we do, we would never get to see what we see. Areas of the pines very few people get to lay eyes upon.

At the beginning of the hike. A cedar in a standoff with a pine. Only time will tell who wins.



We passed through some great deciduous swamps.






And an extremely dense new growth cedar swamp.



Little Hawkin



Hospitality Brook



A good number of us went over the top of our boots on this trip. This is where I met my demise. Very little water but muck that was well over the top of an 18'' boot.



Chris
 

smoke_jumper

Piney
Mar 5, 2012
1,518
1,046
Atco, NJ
It was another great hike!! It was great seeing everyone again. Al it was nice meeting you. After the first stream crossing I tucked my phone up high in my backpack for safety and didn't get many pictures to share. The tailgate didn't disappoint either except for the rain. And that may have been a good thing or we could have been out there much longer. There's something about having good food amongst good friends in the pines that makes it hard to leave. I can't wait for the next one!!
 

Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
25,602
8,178
I missed them by one day. This was at another remote location. I was there last weekend and again today. I noticed the streamer today and investigated.


And I believe I know what they are.

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Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
25,602
8,178
I spoke with someone today who saw a man along a road putting up streamers on trees. He stopped and asked the man what he was doing. The man said he was doing tree counting. He goes to various locations that he is told to and picks any old tree in the area and counts the trees around it up to a certain distance. I would have to assume someone looks over aerial photo's of Wharton and maybe other places, and picks locations in every particular area and makes the decision on where he goes. So lets say it is a cedar swamp. If the man counts three places in a cedar swamp and there are 20 trees in each location within the distance he should go, they can calculate approximately how many trees are in that swamp. This would mean he has to go to each and every gum swamp, cedar swamp, upland pine, etc and count them. These markings have been noticed from Harrisville all the way up to deep in the woods near 532 so far, which tells us it is a major undertaking. I have been getting text messages telling me where they have been noticed. The place I was at today is 1 mile into the woods without crossing private land.

Now this information may be incorrect, but from the information I have gathered and from what I have seen, I would say at this point it is fairly accurate. It would be interesting if we received a confirmation of this. If anyone disagrees or has info feel free to share it. If the person doing this reads this I was at #177 today. That was on the flag.
 

Y-BUC-BILL

Explorer
Mar 9, 2007
129
26
Great Pictures and Great story.Wish I was able to join you,but you would need a hellicopter to get me out.Your reports are great.Makes me feel i was with you .Keep the stories coming.Thank You All
 
Feb 1, 2016
273
133
53
Camden County, NJ
I spoke with someone today who saw a man along a road putting up streamers on trees. He stopped and asked the man what he was doing. The man said he was doing tree counting. He goes to various locations that he is told to and picks any old tree in the area and counts the trees around it up to a certain distance. I would have to assume someone looks over aerial photo's of Wharton and maybe other places, and picks locations in every particular area and makes the decision on where he goes. So lets say it is a cedar swamp. If the man counts three places in a cedar swamp and there are 20 trees in each location within the distance he should go, they can calculate approximately how many trees are in that swamp. This would mean he has to go to each and every gum swamp, cedar swamp, upland pine, etc and count them. These markings have been noticed from Harrisville all the way up to deep in the woods near 532 so far, which tells us it is a major undertaking. I have been getting text messages telling me where they have been noticed. The place I was at today is 1 mile into the woods without crossing private land.

Now this information may be incorrect, but from the information I have gathered and from what I have seen, I would say at this point it is fairly accurate. It would be interesting if we received a confirmation of this. If anyone disagrees or has info feel free to share it. If the person doing this reads this I was at #177 today. That was on the flag.
A friend inquired with the State Forestry folks and he was told that they hired an outside contractor to evaluate "stand compositions"...to what end the research is for I don't know but it supports your posting about tree density research.
 
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Teegate

Administrator
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Sep 17, 2002
25,602
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If you go down Carranza Road you can see at least in two places where they put the streamers. Right at Moore Meadow Road and at the road to the right heading towards Friendship that takes you to the dune just after the Tulp.

I actually believe I saw the person and their car parked just off of Moores Meadow a few weeks ago in early April.
 
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