MakePeace, A PBX Hike
- Thread starter Teegate
- Start date
Bob
if you want cedar swamp in makepeace you either have to go west of weymouth-elwood road or go around the eastern headwaters of makepeace lake.I see your route deviated from the original route.You seemed to not venture as far eastward on the return leg as you planned.If you had stayed in the long north south trending meadow to the road at the north end you would have had it easier.I assume you hit the bad stuff when you exited the medder to the east.In Makepeace if your in a medder or wet swamp your safe and on the crowns of most high dunes/ridges is okay but the briars are lethal in moist areas that aren't flooded and along the rising edges of the dunes/islands.I have fought my way onto some very nice islands but most of them you pay in blood to get to.My old campsite i told you about is an exception.It is in the middle of an old burn and surrounded on two sides by a nice leatherleaf spung.The area was wide open when i found it and just starting to regrow.It is now quite dense with 30 year old pine but the briars have still not recovered if they ever were there.You seem to have found some of the nicer meadows and there are extensive areas of leatherleaf that can be a real workout to cross,even for me 25 years ago.Whip and I said it was the best lower body workout you could ask for
Al
Jburd
A machete in country like this will just get you hurt.Every time you pull back to take a swing you will yank more briars down on your head,if it's not razor sharp you will just yank the briars around maiming yourself.Machetes are good for reeds and bamboo but briars are really tough and I usually don't carry them unless I know in advance I will need them but a nice pear of hand sized pruning or even tin shears are great for cutting your way through bad spots or cutting yourself out once your trapped.Gloves can be helpful but they interfere with my gps which i usually am using so i just watch where I grab the briars to push them off and usually only get a stab occasionally.I have actually rolled across mats of briars in winter wrapped in military bdu's and field jacket.This would rip wool or cotton up but denim or like material will let you roll without snagging too bad.Don't try this with rose bushes,they are shaped different anyway and don't make mats but the briars are hooled on the end and you can't push them off like you can greenbriar.When snagged by rose bushes i usually just have to get mad and thrash my way out.I come out bloody but sometimes it's the only way to get away from them.Another hint,look for deer trails,sometimes you can crawl down tunnels through the bad stuff,it's really bad when briar mixes with blueberry bushes,you will try to crawl under the blueberry and the briar will be snagging and cutting you up while your pinned on your belly,if you can't find a deer trail through this stuff your in for a world of hurt
Al
Yes, when we got to Bonnie's crossing we could not face one more patch of briar. Across there was another wall of green.
I used to do crap like that for fun.I know longer thing crap like that is funny anymore.I'll do it to get to a nice island or maybe a nice spung or vernal pond but if I can avoid it I do. I believe most areas like that were purposefully planted with briar to hide stones.
Well, not the delta.... but the wide ice age channel. The "bars" that run north-south are what once was the flood bank of a mile-wide Ice Age Great Egg Harbor River. Pretty wild, eh?
It was a neat trip, despite my misadventure into the briars. That's what I get for trying to take short-cuts. It was neat to finally explore this intricate systems of dunes, and bars. I now understand why, as the Spungman has pointed out, early settlers weren't fond of taking their horses through the ups and downs of the Lochs-of-the=Swamp.
Scott's party snacks have become the most anticipated part of the day for me. Thanks, sir!
Bob,
Damn, Scott brought long hots? I would have come along for that! Your trek was through the western portion of the Lochs-of-the-Swamp, a series of long narrow spungs (intermittent pools) bounded by wind-modified ancient river levees and dunes. Spring snowmelt floods fanned out over frozen ground, creating huge braided flood channels (paleochannels) of the Great Egg Harbor River. This tract is one the best examples of a Pine Barrens Ice Age landscape. The Steelmans raised cattle out on the savannahs during the 18th century. It's a shame that other parts of the Lochs are not protected.
Were there any signs of wagon ruts where you crossed the Long-A-Coming Trail? Bartram, Wilson, Audubon, and Stone all passed along its route.
No sign of them Mark! Getting back into some of those more remote levees and dunes was really nice...it felt real free to be back there. Your earlier post uses the term"drift-sand badlands". That is so aptly named.
Thanks for the information. Travelers still avoid it today!
Vaccinium and Smilax! The double whammy! Luckily you had some painkiller at the end. Do you think that maybe Witmer Stone left the banana seat bike?
Hey guys,
Thanks for the excellent photo documentation! Bob, I regret that I was unable to attend your excursion. I'm sure Guy told you that I had an important engagement.
Cheer,
Lost Town Hunter
Thanks for the excellent photo documentation! Bob, I regret that I was unable to attend your excursion. I'm sure Guy told you that I had an important engagement.
Cheer,
Lost Town Hunter
There were some unusual ruts on one of the dunes, or knobs. It was very old and ran right into a wall of brier. It wasn't until you were crawling through the brier that you could tell the ruts continued. They seemed too wide to have been from a horse drawn wagon. Too wide for most modern trucks. There was no cedar nearby to justify lumbering, so I don't know. In hindsight I wish I photographed it.
Jeff
Jburd
A machete in country like this will just get you hurt.Every time you pull back to take a swing you will yank more briars down on your head,if it's not razor sharp you will just yank the briars around maiming yourself.Machetes are good for reeds and bamboo but briars are really tough and I usually don't carry them unless I know in advance I will need them but a nice pear of hand sized pruning or even tin shears are great for cutting your way through bad spots or cutting yourself out once your trapped.Gloves can be helpful but they interfere with my gps which i usually am using so i just watch where I grab the briars to push them off and usually only get a stab occasionally.I have actually rolled across mats of briars in winter wrapped in military bdu's and field jacket.This would rip wool or cotton up but denim or like material will let you roll without snagging too bad.Don't try this with rose bushes,they are shaped different anyway and don't make mats but the briars are hooled on the end and you can't push them off like you can greenbriar.When snagged by rose bushes i usually just have to get mad and thrash my way out.I come out bloody but sometimes it's the only way to get away from them.Another hint,look for deer trails,sometimes you can crawl down tunnels through the bad stuff,it's really bad when briar mixes with blueberry bushes,you will try to crawl under the blueberry and the briar will be snagging and cutting you up while your pinned on your belly,if you can't find a deer trail through this stuff your in for a world of hurt
Al
Al, as usual, you make some good points. It's been a long time since I've been off trail in the pines. Even when my machete was razor sharp, in briars it would take much more effort and the briars had a magical ability, when cutting a line, to swing up and hit you in the face. They also had an ability to seemingly grab your machete on the downswing and make it go in an unintended direction. One definitely has to know what they are doing with a machete and especially in vines and briars. As for the gloves, I swore by them when surveying but that was for cutting and searching for corners in thick underbrush.
Having always had foot problems, by the end of the day, there was no better site than a deer trail, especially when we were locating wetlands.
Your hints make me miss surveying but bring back some fond memories. They actually used to pay me to tromp around in the woods. Best job ever.
Thanks,
Jay
Pretty cool looking lichen! Spanish moss Jr. . I have seen it before, but not like it was on that tree!
Chris
Didn't know you were a surveyor! If I'd of had more sense when younger I'd of got into surveying.I wanted to be a naturalist or wildlife biologist but with my YEC leanings I'm sure that would not have worked out well and a surveyors job would have kept me in the woods.I'll take a hundred ticks socks full of chiggers and choke on mosquitoes any day over the asinine schedule and mind numbingly boring job I have now.I wouldn't have this gut I'm toting around either.
Actually a small pair of snippers is much more effective than a machette when it comes to those thorny vines. I used to carry them with me when I bushwacked in Southern areas, but anymore I've decided that I really have no right to go around cutting things down and blazing trails on public land.
My own land has dense growth of these vines, and I am actually thankful for them because they serve as "nature's barbed wire" to keep everybody else out.
My own land has dense growth of these vines, and I am actually thankful for them because they serve as "nature's barbed wire" to keep everybody else out.
I was a surveyor for about 24 years. I took two classes at my HS (Eastern Regional, Gibbsboro). The funny thing is, I didn't feel like taking woodshop but wanted to take a trades elective. The bonus was we had class across from the lunchroom and got a locker there.
I got a call right after I graduated from a friend who was working as a draftsman for a surveyor and told me they needed a rodman. $4.00 and hour to do title surveys half the day and be a gopher for the second half...how could I pass that kinda cash up? I worked for that company for 10 years until they went under in the recession of the early 90's. Good guys but terrible business men. DuBois & Martin.
Worked for about 6 months for Churchill, got fired sort of on purpose because I had a party chief who was a miserable bastard and ended up in the best company I ever worked for, Gallante Associates. We had offices in Williamstown and Galloway. That's when I got to do some serious piney surveying. Galloway was pretty undeveloped when we started working for Hovnanian. All that retirement housing makes me fear for those woods now.
The prettiest place to survey was definitely Kentucky. We did a proposed power line easement that ran 11 miles from a dam on the Ohio river to a small power station. Along with traversing, we had to topo a 300' wide swath for that whole distance. Beautiful country but sometimes the people were a little scary. Had more guns pointed at me in KY than I ever did in NJ.
This is why I follow your hikes so closely. I can feel the briars, remember looking up in the trees and telling ourselves, yeah, it's beginning to open up ahead...when it wasn't.
If I had it to do over again, I'd have gone to college and become a history teacher and hooked up with a surveyor for the summers. It's a great weight loss system.
Forgot to share one of the joys, yes, joys of pulling ticks after a day working in the woods. When I was living and working in KY, the company owner was a total jerk. If he was being nice, you knew it wasn't just to be nice but because he was going to benefit. Well, being a surveyor, one will make mistakes, miss something on a survey, or whatever. This guy would always make it a point to call, give you hell and then hang up. The worst part is he was a book surveyor with very little field experience.
This is where the joy of ticks come it. We were always working late, especially in summer. He would be gone, so, yours truly would proceed to his office and remove ticks. Yes, they had had a long hard day so I figured they needed a nice comfy chair to enjoy. This was a regular thing for me, not mistakes, but always with the tick removal. It was a small victory, but sometimes, you just have to take them where you can get them.
This is where the joy of ticks come it. We were always working late, especially in summer. He would be gone, so, yours truly would proceed to his office and remove ticks. Yes, they had had a long hard day so I figured they needed a nice comfy chair to enjoy. This was a regular thing for me, not mistakes, but always with the tick removal. It was a small victory, but sometimes, you just have to take them where you can get them.