Black River County Park Hike

Today Kenji and I went on a nice hike in Chester, NJ at Black River County Park. This was a hike organized by my friend Jason. Eight of us met at Cooper Mill, and then we carpooled to the Wildwood Arboretum where we began our hike. The trek back to Cooper Mill was about 7 miles over fairly level terrain, through fields and forest and eventually following alongside the Black River back to the Cooper Mill.

We saw some nifty stuff, like this little blue bird. We also came across several millipedes and a few tent caterpillars.

While we were eating lunch, a lady came by who said she and her boyfriend lost her brother's dog. She gave us some phone numbers to call in case we came across Sadie, and continued with her search. After lunch, we came across her again, and she borrowed one of our cell phones to call her brother and father to see if they could come help her locate the dog. About ten minutes later, we came across Sadie. Unfortunately, Sadie wouldn't allow us to pet her, so we weren't able to capture her. But here she is, sitting a little ways off from us in the woods.

Some other photos from our hike...

This is a bathtub we came across shortly after we left Sadie behind. I don't know what it's doing in the middle of the forest, but it does serve the purpose of bearing a red blaze on it to mark the trail (the blaze is on the inside of the tub and not visible in the photo).

This is the Cooper Mill, as seen from the trail. It was built in 1826, and still has two grinding stones in operation today.

After hiking, we stopped at Alstede Farms for ice cream and to pet goats!