ABOUT THE PARK:
Horseshoe Bend Park - Kingwood Township
Horseshoe Bend Preserve - Hunterdon Land Trust
Horseshoe Bend Park - New Jersey Trails Association
DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 40.497133, -75.043580 for parking lot. Although these coordinates worked when I hiked here in 2014, this time the GPS took me to Fairview Road and told me to turn "off road" into the woods. To get to the park entrance the driveable way, enter the coordinates for the park entrance,
40.503503, -75.040377 then continue in on the long drive to the end where the parking lot is.
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| Arriving at the parking lot through the south entrance versus how the GPS was sending me. |
TRAIL MAP:
Horseshoe Bend Park Trail Map - New Jersey Trails Association
HIKE DISTANCE: 7 miles
THE HIKE:
Shawnee and I had hiked the more northern part of this park in April 2014 before the trails we hiked this time existed. The Flagg-Kirkland Trail was flagged but not cleared or blazed so we tried but did not get very far. Now the entire trail exists as well as the field edge trails in the Cooley Preserve section.
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| April 2014 hike (red) and this hike (pink). |
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| In just a few steps, the blue trail comes to a T-intersection. We turned left and would be returning from the right. |
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| We turned right on orange heading towards the field edge trails first since they would probably be in full sunlight and it would be best to do those while it was still cool. |
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| Passing by the Flagg Kirkland Trail were we would be returning to after the fields. |
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| Crossing Burke's Run. |
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| Burke's Run |
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| The orange trail heads uphill to ... |
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| ... the field edge trail where we turned left. |
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| The Delaware River Valley up ahead but no views of the river. |
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| Many trees are loaded with bagworms. |
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| Just before we reached the bottom of the hill where we would turn left to access the lower loop, something came crashing through the woods directly towards us giving Brodie and I both a heart attack. I had no clue what it was until I heard a woman calling a dog's name. I yelled back that I had a dog with me. She finally got control of her dog then stood in the trail where I needed to go to get to the lower loop so I had to just keep going. |
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| Ran into that woman with the off leash dogs again so we aborted the field edge loop and headed back on orange. We ran into no other people the rest of the hike. |
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| Crossing back over Burke's Run. |
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| Right on the yellow Flagg Kirkland Trail. |
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| Brodie suddenly lunged forward and I looked up to see a big SKUNK smack in the middle of the trail. We all stood there for a moment and I could have gotten a picture except I had to reel Brodie back first before we all got sprayed. Fortunately, even though the skunk's tail was up and ready, he did not spray and took off just as I got the camera ready. |
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| On the lookout for more skunks. |
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| Crossing over Fairview Road. |
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| The trail continues slightly to the left just before the bridge. I have a feeling most stay on Fairview Road here and road walk the short distance to where the trail crosses over again because this next section south of Fairview Road does not appear to be used much. |
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| The trail alternates between being clear through the woods ... |
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| ... and becoming more overgrown in more open sections. |
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| Dry creek bed. |
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| On one of these overgrown sections I happened to look down just in time to see a Spotted Lanternfly spread its wings so there was no doubt that is what it was and they are an invasive pest that kill trees. As much as I hate to kill anything, I know these should be destroyed so in my mind I quickly categorized it as "tick/flea/mosquito OK to kill" and squish, he was no more. I reported the sighting to the NJ Department of Agriculture as I believe they are tracking these. |
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| Crossing back over Fairview Road. |
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| Now the trail is back to being more consistently in better shape. |
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| The trail switchbacks up ... |
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| ... to mowed paths at the top. |
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| At the end, left on orange. |
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| We turned right on blue to head back to the parking lot but... |
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| ... ran into some trail work just before the parking lot. They had disturbed a hornet's nest and those hornets were mad as hornets so we could not pass through. We turned back and stayed right on blue where we had come off of orange. |
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| An unmarked trail to the right shortcuts up to ... |
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| ... a different section of blue where we turned right. |
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| To the left, a quick jog over to open field views. |
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| Back on blue to that T-intersection from the beginning... |
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| ... then left back to the parking lot. |
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