The Great Swamp Branch ...... A PBX Hike

[Teegate]

All,

All PBX members received this edited email from Bob on 10/5/09.


Boys....lets not be quitters! Let us NOT be counted among those who just give up when faced with a difficult task--or in our case a difficult journey.

If you recall, last year we had to give up on crossing the Great Swamp Branch. Well my Pine Barren Brothers......Saturday the 24th is that day. We are going back. We will not be defeated, and we damn well better not give up if we want to be called explorers!

Let me know if you can make it....I hope you can.

Happy Trails..........bob

Obviously, we did not go on October 24; however, we did make it today. Because of the alternate date many members who were planning on attending last weekend were not able to make it, so our numbers were down to 5. Attending were, Bob, me, Scott, Chris (Hewey), and for the first time Tom (oji).

As with our hike earlier this year, we encountered brier, brier, and did I mention, more brier? This photo shows one of the many places we tried to cross the river easily. Notice brier lining the sides.

Briers

A beaver stripped this stick clean.

Bob going out on a limb, I mean tree.

When not in briers, we were in cedar swamps. Cedar Swamps were our friend. This photo shows a pool of water collecting cedar droppings.

Bob found this nine pointer, and with a flip of a coin Chris was the new owner of it.

A road along the Augustus Richards Canal almost at the end of our day.

Then across the Nescochage, food and drink at the end, and a ride down West Mills Road back to our vehicles. In the end we rated it a 7 out of 10.

A few video's to come later. Youtube is slow processing them tonight. And I am too tired to wait.


Guy

 

[Ben Ruset]

Very nice. I wasn't sure you guys were going to do this today!

 

[Teegate]

We did not have any rain while out there other than a few drops. It was a very tough and at times annoying day with the briers. A few of us fell in the rivers but in the end we came out alive.



This shows Scott, Bob, and Chris, navigating a cedar swamp.

Scott crossing the Nescochague

The ride back in Bob's vehicle on West Mills Road.

The final moments of the day.

If anyone wants higher quality views of these let me know. Youtube really is poor, but it saves Ben some space by using it.


Guy

 

[Pine Baron]

Nice report, Guy. Those briers looked frustrating. It's a good thing it was almost 80 yesterday. That could have been a cold ride home.

John-

 

[oji]

Those briers kicked my butt!

 

[Hewey]

This trip left me sore. My arms look like I was fending off a pack of rabid cats. It ws a good time overall. I stayed pretty dry untill the last two feet of the hike and I took a spill into the drink at bloody. The briers in this area have to be some off the worst in the pines.

Chris

 

[Hewey]

cedarville

scott in cedarville

Bob crossing at Bloody

Guy crossing at Bloody.

Scott crossing Great swamp branch.

Chris

 

[bobpbx]

This trip left me sore. My arms look like I was fending off a pack of rabid cats.

And you ended that with...."It ws a good time overall".

 

[glowordz]

Looks like a challenging adventure, worthy of the most intrepid PBX explorers.

I'll take the swamps, you keep the briers. What an initiation, Tom!

Love the videos. And Guy, you had the presence of mind, in the back of the truck, after a hike like that, to take photos? Not a fun ride, but an excellent vantage point. (Sacrifice all for art!)

Nice cedarville shots, Chris.

Question: Bob out on a limb in order to cross the water? Or just for fun? Looks like a big drop at the end.

PBX hikes are a great spectator sport--more satisfying than the Phillies at the moment. Thanks for reporting.

Glo

 

[bobpbx]

I rated this trip a 9, which was two numbers higher than any other member. The reason I did so was for our accomplishment alone. This is a very complex area. In addition to the heavy briars, the saplings grew close enough together to push you back a step for every two steps you took forward. Add to that the enormous flooding created by the beavers and the braiding of the river downstream from the area we called “Wilderness”, and you have a very tough situation. To get across this river, we had 4 or 5 false starts, and in the place we actually did cross, we had to use 5 logs as support to do it. In one spot we used one long, very slippery log to cross two braids of the river.

Here below is the planned route if you are familiar with the area. We saw no one, and would have been very surprised if we did. That is part of the appeal of our trips.

This below was the major obstacle. It was an expansive area of Phragmites that are 8 to 14 feet tall.

This is the photo of the area on “Bing”. It looks harmless enough, but when you get inside there you cannot see more than 5 feet ahead of you and it is flooded, with deep, rushing channels of black colored water. The colored area is where I climbed a tree to see where we were.

I was greeted with these views.

Very daunting, so we decided to go around it. That took time and bloodied us up even more.

On the way to this area the river started to braid, but was nonetheless wild and beautiful.

Scott was so enamored that he gathered flowers for Dottie.

When we backed out of the Phragmites we got into an area of giant cedars. You had to lean your head way back to look at the tops, which were a beautiful green color against the blue sky. By the way, maybe part of the reason the Phragmites have such a foothold here is that this water rises close to Hammonton's agricultural areas.

We fought our way downstream only to be greeted with a wide area of many channels. We decided to do this crossing at all costs. There were many opportunities to fall in. At one point Guy slipped on a log and went down hard on it. I thought he was injured as he was close to a couple of those spars that stick up. But luckily, he did not and here he is after he got up.

Then, like a trooper, he gets back on the log just like getting back on the horse that threw him.

Here was the trickiest crossing. The nearest part of the log was submerged underwater. We had to lift another log next to the main one for support.

Here is log number 3. Scott was often able to use his waders, but even so it was dicey with the unknown bottom. The look on his face is..."will this ever end"?

Tom (Oji) used a stave like Friar Tuck. A smart move, unless your feet go out from under you on a slick log. But Tom proved all day long that he has very good balance.

It was tough, yes, but I feel good about what we did. It seemed insurmountable, but we pressed on and conquered a tough, challenging obstacle.

 

[Teegate]

Thanks for the photo's Chris. Tom, it was nice to have you along. Make sure you try to make a future hike. Gloria, Bob was climbing the tree to see if we could all go across the river there. The problem is with the briers and the fact almost every tree did not quite make it to the other side, had us traveling up and down the river looking for locations to cross.

We came from the North and you can see at the below link we tried to cross at various locations circled in yellow, and finally made a stand at the purple area and made it across. It was a struggle. That is where I fell in almost head first even though I also fell in somewhat less at two other locations. I believe Bob has a photo of that one.


http://home.comcast.net/~islandtee/tracks3.jpg

At the bottom right just to the right and slightly above Whitey you can see an area on our track where I maneuvered around. That was the most intense briers I have ever been in. I gave up and Chris finally used brute force and a couple of falls to the ground to get us through.




Guy

 

[Teegate]

Bob,

My ass is sore today from that fall. It did not hurt at all then, but I am feeling it now. Thanks for the photo's!


Guy

 

[RednekF350]

First I would like to thank Guy and Bob for their persistence in finding a way across the Great Swamp Branch. After we had attempted this feat in May and failing, Bob was not going to give up.

As luck. or no luck would have it, the area we selected to cross had three major channels instead of only one as we had pictured in our minds.
While Oji sat by the water at channel one and waited for word from the leaders, Hewey and I had a chew on an island in between the second and third channels as Bob and Guy found a way to get across the third channel.

The precarious nature of the crossings has to be seen to be fully appreciated. I was fairly lucky becuse I just walked through the first two in my hippers while lifting myself on a log.
The third crossing involved toothpick of a cedar that required a balancing act and a knee crawl to get across. The last cedar tapered to about 4" thick at the tip and it was splitting under me.
It always concerns me when Bob and Guy assuringly call us ahead because they both weigh what they weighed in high school.
While certainly not obese, Hewey Oji and I are a little beefier and hover at or over the 200+ mark and provide a better prooftest of makeshift bridges. Unfortunately, that kind of prooftest is a pass fail, with fail being a stump filled dunking.

Well, we all made it and the glide through a grove of flooded cedars on the other side was the high point of the day for me.

As always, we ended the day on the tailgate with some well deserved libations and exchanged war stories.

Great day in the woods boys.

Here are two pics.
This is the cedar grove after our crossing.
http://gallery.njpinebarrens.com/showphoto.php/photo/12904

Here is Bob checking to see if Guy's Garanimal tag in his sweatshirt matches the tag on his wet drawers.
Luckily, they matched and Guy relaxed for the rest of trip.

http://gallery.njpinebarrens.com/showfull.php?photo=12905

 

[Teegate]

Great comments Scott :rofl:


Guy

 

[glowordz]

I rated this trip a 9, which was two numbers higher than any other member. The reason . . . It seemed insurmountable, but we pressed on and conquered a tough, challenging obstacle.

Thanks, y'all, for more chapters--with photos--in an exciting story.

Glo

 

[Hewey]

The PBX "coin flip buck" all fixed up.

Chris

 

[RednekF350]

Awesome.
Unbelievable that there was no mice damage to the rack.

 

[Hewey]

Unbelievable that there was no mice damage to the rack.

I was thinking the same thing.

Chris

 

[bobpbx]

I'm surprised that you did that in one day. Tell me again how you do the antlers.

 

[Teegate]

Wow! A big change for the better. Nice work.

Guy