Wharton State Forest, NJ - Whispering Pines and Atlantic White Cedar Hiking Trails

ABOUT THE PARK: 

Wharton State Forest - New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection

New trails open in Wharton State Forest with the help of Medford Vincentown Rotary Club - Trentonian

DIRECTIONS: 

GPS Coordinates 39.846948, -74.676311

Parking at trailhead off Patty Bowker Road.

TRAIL MAP: 

Whispering Pines at Wharton State Forest - New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection

HIKE DISTANCE: 7 miles with additional exploring (a little over 5 if staying with the marked loop)

THE HIKE: 

This is a separate section of Wharton State Forest where new trails opened this past summer of 2022.

The white-blazed Atlantic Cedar Trail starts from the parking lot.

At the loop portion of the white trail we turned left.

Left on the blue-blazed Whispering Pines Trail.

The trail follows along private property (Camp Inawendiwin) for a stretch.

The blue trail turns left on Iricks Causeway Road, barricaded to traffic.

The blue trail leaves to the right but we continued straight for a bit...

... into Friendship Creek Preserve which has no marked trails.

The barricaded bridge over Friendship Creek.

We turned back at this point.

Friendship Creek Preserve/Wharton State Forest boundary.

We turned right on an unmarked path in Friendship Creek Preserve.

This led to an antique car just before a private property line.

Looping around at the car ...

... back to blue on the other side of Iricks Causeway.

You can tell by the sparse trees that old cranberry bogs are up ahead.

An opening to the left leads to the bogs but this is all that can be seen.

We continued on a berm along a drainage which runs parallel to blue on the other side of the drainage to the right.

This eventually ends at a flooded out section where we turned back.

Continuing on blue.

When blue turns right, we went left to explore some more ...

... and ended up the other side of that flooded out section.

You can see the old cranberry bogs along our track in Google Earth but can't really see anything other than the drainage from the ground.

Joining back up where we had left blue and continuing on blue.

Left on white.

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