Sunday Hike, Caranza Memorial to Batsto Village

Tales of what happens when a good hike goes bad!  I have the good fortune to have great friends who were willing to start late for a Sunday hike, as we all had things to do in the morning.  The plan was to do a section of the Batona (BAck TO NAture Trail).  I wanted us to do a section that I'd never been on before.

Strange people running from the Jersey Devil!  Oh wait,  no, it's my husband
and my good friend Vivian on a nice wide portion of the Batona trail!

The Batona trail runs for about 50 miles thru the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey.  It's an unusual area, full of unique plant and wildlife, with a few legends thrown in, including the likes of the Jersey Devil.    Most of the area is very flat, having once been ocean floor.  The soil is sandy and so white that at times the trail looks like it's been snowed on. The trail runs thru what are called scrub oaks, scrub pines and acres of wild blueberries.  Occasionally the trail crosses small creeks or rivers, running cool clear, tea colored, cedar water.  The water get's it's color from bog iron and the roots of cedar trees that line the banks.  Get it on white cotton and it will never be the same.

The Batsto River

Things began to go awry when I made the great mistake of not double checking my stats and figures for each section of the trail, and confusing which section we were going to do on Sunday.  So, instead of a 9 to 9.5 mile hike, we wound up doing a 12.5 mile hike.  Ouch!  At least three of us were sporting new boots on top of it!

I guess this is, as they now refer to these things, a teachable moment or a learning experience!  Things not to do when hiking.

A. Be damn certain which section/distance you are about to embark upon!
B.  Even if it is daylight when you leave home...have lighting gear, be it a head lamp, a hand held flashlight, a wind up no battery type, whatever....have a light!
C. If it's a longer than previous hike, you might want to reconsider using new foot gear this time around.
D. Bring food!
C. Make sure someone, not on the hike (!), knows roughly where your going and roughly when you expect to finish.

We did some of things right, and a few not!  We did have more than enough food, each of us, to go around and water for ourselves and Kiva the Airdale terrier and trusty trail companion.  Family members did know where we all were.

That first mistake though, resulted in doing an unexpected 25% longer hike.  Ok, if you are starting early.  But, we'd calculated to be coming in around 5:30pm to maybe 6pm, dusk.  End result was we were in the forest on fairly narrow trails after sundown.   Thank God for Rich having as always the most complete kit out on the trail.  His two head lamps brought us in safely.  With out them, we would have been in serious trouble, calling the rangers to bring us in.  I have several headlamps, but forgot to check that it was in my regular daypack.

Foot wear, well, I haven't heard back from everyone yet (hope they're all still talking to me!) but amazingly, I don't think we have any real blisters amongst us.  I did discover some irritated areas on the backs of my legs and heels this morning.  Things that, if I was doing a goodly distance today (the Camino!), would probably result in full blown blisters.  With a little more care and conditioning though,  looks like the feet will be ok!  The toe socks, they performed quite well.  The neuroma was at times fiercely painful, but then settled down to dull ache.  Ain't no question, I'm going to need to get a cortisone shot some time this week, and have it repeated six months or so down the pike.

When all is said and done it was a terrific hike inspite of the mishaps.  We made it safely to the Ranger station at Batsto village.  We retrieved the cars that'd been shuttled down there earlier in the morning.  As a full moon rose above the cranberry bogs, fully flooded for harvest, I can at least say we got in safely ahead of Mother Leeds 13th child!

The Jersey Devil himself!