http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/8131380.htm
Posted on Mon, Mar. 08, 2004
A new trail is the latest effort to save land around the mountains.
By Jacqueline L. Urgo
Inquirer Staff Writer
WARETOWN, N.J. - There really are mountains in South Jersey. You just can't see them easily. But now you can walk on them.
In one of the more remote areas of the protected New Jersey Pinelands, deep in a forest more than a dozen miles from the nearest paved road, stand the Forked River Mountains.
Unlike the Appalachians or the Rockies, which scream their grandeur for miles, these mountains - just foothills by comparison at 185 feet high - don't reveal themselves until you are standing on top of them. The aptly named High Point in Sussex County is the highest statewide elevation, at 1,803 feet.
"It really is a strange phenomenon that you can't see it until you are standing at the top and looking down," said John Boyle, a naturalist with the Ocean County Parks & Recreation Commission. "It's not a looming presence until you're standing on it. Then it seems like you can see forever."
For now, the county and nonprofit conservation groups want to make the mountains more visible - and accessible.
So Boyle and others, including a group called the Forked River Mountain Coalition, are heralding the late-February opening of a three-mile path called the Middle Branch Nature Trail.
The trail is the latest effort by conservation groups that have been working for years to preserve the 20,000 acres of remote pine forest with mountains as their centerpiece. Much of the land is now publicly held.
From an ecological standpoint, the area is important because it is the largest tract of undeveloped land in New Jersey without a paved road, Boyle said. And it contains the heaviest concentration of endangered species in the Pinelands, according to Kerry Jennings, president of the Forked River Mountain Coalition. Emanating here are the headwaters of three watersheds: Cedar Creek, Forked River and Oyster Creek, Jennings said.
The mountains also speak of rich cultural history. The crisscross sand trails and stagecoach routes once carried the products of traditional Pine Barrens industries such as colliering and logging. The bed of the old switch track of the Tuckerton Railroad, which carried passengers from Philadelphia and New York to points along the Jersey Shore before motor cars, still lies at the center.
In the pre-Revolutionary War era, Native Americans revered the Forked River Mountains as sacred burial grounds. Near the summit, during World War II, the Army built an observation tower to watch munitions tests.
Eight years ago, the New Jersey Conservation Foundation celebrated the purchase of about 3,000 acres from an Indiana developer who had planned to build a huge subdivision on the tract. The developer also planned extensive sand- and gravel-mining operations.
In 1998, the Leone family of Toms River donated 3,578 acres to the Nature Conservancy. The family, which had owned the land for more than four decades, previously mined a portion of it for construction-grade sand.
An additional 716 acres has been acquired for preservation in the last year by the Ocean County Natural Lands Trust. The property had been slated for development of 15 home sites, officials said.
The preserve now forms an impressive greenway linked to two state wildlife-management areas: the Greenwood Forest Wildlife Management Area and Double Trouble State Park. A variety of rare species have been recorded on the tract, including pine-barren gentian plants, the northern pine snake, curly grass fern, and the Knieskern's beaked rush reed.
"There is always the debate about whether opening up trails like this to the public will do more harm then good," said Jan Larson, a natural-resource instructor for Rutgers Cooperative Extension Service of Ocean County, who joined a recent hike along the new trail.
"But I think opening it up builds an appreciation for preservation of the environment and ecosystems that are essential. For some of us, it reshapes our thinking."
And while the new trail doesn't take hikers to the summit of the Forked River Mountains - the peak is privately owned and is open to the public only several times a year - it allows for a close look at Pine Barrens ecology.
The trail, much of it covered in the "sugar" sand the Pinelands are famous for, loops through lowlands of majestic stands of Atlantic white cedar and uplands of pitch pine, gallberry and bear grass. At some points the trail bisects the two habitats, allowing hikers to view the diversity of the forest.
Boyle, who regularly leads guided hikes of the area, worries about its future.
"But money is always the issue. It would be great if this entire area could eventually become publicly held."
Posted on Mon, Mar. 08, 2004
A new trail is the latest effort to save land around the mountains.
By Jacqueline L. Urgo
Inquirer Staff Writer
WARETOWN, N.J. - There really are mountains in South Jersey. You just can't see them easily. But now you can walk on them.
In one of the more remote areas of the protected New Jersey Pinelands, deep in a forest more than a dozen miles from the nearest paved road, stand the Forked River Mountains.
Unlike the Appalachians or the Rockies, which scream their grandeur for miles, these mountains - just foothills by comparison at 185 feet high - don't reveal themselves until you are standing on top of them. The aptly named High Point in Sussex County is the highest statewide elevation, at 1,803 feet.
"It really is a strange phenomenon that you can't see it until you are standing at the top and looking down," said John Boyle, a naturalist with the Ocean County Parks & Recreation Commission. "It's not a looming presence until you're standing on it. Then it seems like you can see forever."
For now, the county and nonprofit conservation groups want to make the mountains more visible - and accessible.
So Boyle and others, including a group called the Forked River Mountain Coalition, are heralding the late-February opening of a three-mile path called the Middle Branch Nature Trail.
The trail is the latest effort by conservation groups that have been working for years to preserve the 20,000 acres of remote pine forest with mountains as their centerpiece. Much of the land is now publicly held.
From an ecological standpoint, the area is important because it is the largest tract of undeveloped land in New Jersey without a paved road, Boyle said. And it contains the heaviest concentration of endangered species in the Pinelands, according to Kerry Jennings, president of the Forked River Mountain Coalition. Emanating here are the headwaters of three watersheds: Cedar Creek, Forked River and Oyster Creek, Jennings said.
The mountains also speak of rich cultural history. The crisscross sand trails and stagecoach routes once carried the products of traditional Pine Barrens industries such as colliering and logging. The bed of the old switch track of the Tuckerton Railroad, which carried passengers from Philadelphia and New York to points along the Jersey Shore before motor cars, still lies at the center.
In the pre-Revolutionary War era, Native Americans revered the Forked River Mountains as sacred burial grounds. Near the summit, during World War II, the Army built an observation tower to watch munitions tests.
Eight years ago, the New Jersey Conservation Foundation celebrated the purchase of about 3,000 acres from an Indiana developer who had planned to build a huge subdivision on the tract. The developer also planned extensive sand- and gravel-mining operations.
In 1998, the Leone family of Toms River donated 3,578 acres to the Nature Conservancy. The family, which had owned the land for more than four decades, previously mined a portion of it for construction-grade sand.
An additional 716 acres has been acquired for preservation in the last year by the Ocean County Natural Lands Trust. The property had been slated for development of 15 home sites, officials said.
The preserve now forms an impressive greenway linked to two state wildlife-management areas: the Greenwood Forest Wildlife Management Area and Double Trouble State Park. A variety of rare species have been recorded on the tract, including pine-barren gentian plants, the northern pine snake, curly grass fern, and the Knieskern's beaked rush reed.
"There is always the debate about whether opening up trails like this to the public will do more harm then good," said Jan Larson, a natural-resource instructor for Rutgers Cooperative Extension Service of Ocean County, who joined a recent hike along the new trail.
"But I think opening it up builds an appreciation for preservation of the environment and ecosystems that are essential. For some of us, it reshapes our thinking."
And while the new trail doesn't take hikers to the summit of the Forked River Mountains - the peak is privately owned and is open to the public only several times a year - it allows for a close look at Pine Barrens ecology.
The trail, much of it covered in the "sugar" sand the Pinelands are famous for, loops through lowlands of majestic stands of Atlantic white cedar and uplands of pitch pine, gallberry and bear grass. At some points the trail bisects the two habitats, allowing hikers to view the diversity of the forest.
Boyle, who regularly leads guided hikes of the area, worries about its future.
"But money is always the issue. It would be great if this entire area could eventually become publicly held."
