Quite a hill

[Boyd]

Not much of a "trip", but this seems like the best place to post it... Driving down Hunters Mill Rd near Halberton recently, I noticed what looked like a sheer "cliff" barely visible through the heavy tree cover on the North side of the road. I figured it was just more of the spoils from nearby mining operations and didn't think much about it. Out for a morning drive today, I decided it was worth a quick look.

It's got to be one of the steepest hills I've seen in South Jersey, over a forty foot rise adjacent to the road - really reminded me of what bad shape I'm in! The last 10 feet were especially steep, and I managed to stumble and fall right on my face (in the soft leaves) when I reached the "summit".

https://boydsmaps.com/#17.00/39.295282/-74.911414/mbx3dortho/-70.80/53.80

Here's a picture from the road looking towards the hilll, but the foliage is so dense you can't really tell what you're looking at.

If you look at the 3d view in my link and rotate the map, you'll see that a road spirals around that hill. Apparently it's just a big pile of spoils from the large pit South of the road? It is shown on the USGS 24k topo, but not the 1949 topo. I only spent a few minutes, everything is so heavily forested, there didn't immediately appear to be any scenic vistas from the top of the hill. Again, the photo doesn't show much.

There's probably more to be seen but it's private.

https://boydsmaps.com/pines/#15/39.295257/-74.911329/legacy24k/0/0/

It's interesting how this location is right where it says "Halberton" on the 24k Topo. But we have an old thread on Halberton, and it was apparently North of the railroad tracks.

To avoid another mishap, I took a section of that spiral road back down the hill.

 

[c1nj]

That's the infamous "Hundred Foot Hill."
It's man made. Anyone with a dirt bike in the 1980s climbed that hill.

 

[Boyd]

Looks like a big sand pile on the 1980's aerials!

https://boydsmaps.com/pines/#17/39.295614/-74.911608/njgin1980/0/0/

 

[bobpbx]

Reminds me. Here in Barnegat where they are constructing the cottages, they had to move an entire hill to make way for the new cottages. Here's my grandson who scrambled up it. He had some misgivings when he turned to go down. Something I've done more than once.

 

[manumuskin]

My cousin with me in the vehicle tried to climb the front of that hill with his bronco.He got the front wheels over the lip but couldn't get the back over because one front tire was off the ground spinning.They used to have bonfries on top with people driving around the back and watch and cheer the knuckleheads trying to climb the front.Occasionally one would make it. That was in the 80's.used to be an old man in a pick up in the day that would patrol the sand plant property and he would run folks off but at night you were usually left alone.

 

[Boyd]

I just made an auto mount for a new Android tablet and am installing a terabyte of offline maps for testing in the car. Took a drive past Hundred Foot Hill yesterday and the 3d image immediately reminded me of Xanadu in Citizen Kane...

"Here, on the deserts of the Gulf Coast, a private mountain was commissioned and successfully built."

This is a little crazy, but could there have been some similar motive for making such a huge pile of dirt here? If they just needed a place to dump the spoils from that pit, wouldn't it have been easier to spread it out over a large area? That "private mountain" would be quite a place to build a mansion!

 

[M1 Abrams]

I was looking for a "stately pleasure dome" Xanadu clip from Citizen Kane, but instead came across a video featuring the source of that phrase, the poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Coleridge. The reading is accompanied by a number of pleasant woodland, river, and seaside scenes.

As we are a group of folks particularly partial to the kind of places deftly described in Coleridge's poem:

"...And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery..."

...I couldn't help mentally substituting images of places in the Pine Barrens with those forest scenes, and the Mullica portraying the sacred river Alph.

 

[Boyd]

I was looking for a "stately pleasure dome" Xanadu clip from Citizen Kane

What?... you don't have a copy of Citizen Kane in your video collection?

 

[manumuskin]

I remember my cousin in his bronco and me in the passenger seat climbing the front of that hill.He got the front tires over the lip but one back tire came off the ground and he lost traction.The race backwards down the hill almost made me ruin my Fruit of the Looms. I told him you do know don't you there is a path around the back side you can drive up easily.he said thats not the point cuz,the back way is for sissies the front is for men so I got out the truck and ran and climbed up the front side and I made it over the lip so my manhood remained unquestioned.

 

[M1 Abrams]

Actually, I do believe there is an old VHS copy of Citizen Kane somewhere in the house. It's a movie for which I have great respect, certainly believe it to be a worthy contender for the title of "best all-time motion picture," but it's not one that I watch all that often. (My favorite movie is Casablanca. I was a fan of the old classics long before becoming one myself. )