Hartshorne Woods is but 2.5 miles from the house where I grew up. Yet this is only my second visit.
As can be inferred from the sign, I started at the Buttermilk Valley section, one of four, as seen in this trail map. I would saunter through three of the four, Buttermilk Valley, Monmouth Hills, and Rocky Point.
It was cold when I started, in the twenties Fahrenheit. I had not expected it to be so cold. And I was not alone. At one point a pair of runners passed me on the trail, with one complaining to his companion that it was like running in a freezer. I survived. (But my phone, an iPhone 6S+, did not fare so well, the charge dropping from 60% to under 20% in seconds. I put it in an inside pocket and it quickly recovered. A known problem with batteries I'm afraid.)
Wildlife was scarce. White-tailed Deer tracks, two Eastern Gray Squirrels, and four species of birds (Red-bellied Woodpecker, American Crow, White-breasted Nuthatch, and Tufted Titmouse) was the full morning's tally.
The other thing I saw on the ground was a steady stream of M&M's. A sloppy eater? A trail to follow home? A leaky bag?
The trail slowly gained in elevation, approximately a 250 foot gain in all, over 1.6 miles.
The trail I took, the Cuesta Trail, was labeled as moderate. I'd rate it as easy. Wide, trivial to follow, and as I said, a slow elevation gain with some ups and downs.
At the top end of the trail was the Rocky Point section, which was once home to a military installation. In fact, when I started high school it was still a Nike base and command center for missiles there and nearby on Sandy Hook. (I went to Henry Hudson Regional High School, and if you look on the right edge of the trail map linked above, you'll see the school just outside the park. Rocky Point was strictly off limits back then.) It was decommissioned while I was still in school, but not turned over to the Monmouth County Park System until 1984 (I graduated high school in '78).
The remnants of the Nike Base have all been removed. But the World War II gun battery is still there. Battery Lewis, the interior hallway of which is shown above. Unfortunately it was closed and this is a shot through the gate.
Two 16 inch guns, each weighing 150 tons, were installed to defend NY Harbor.
The guns were never fired in combat and in 1949 were cut up and disposed of as scrap metal. The gun barrel shown here came form the battleship USS New Jersey and is now on permanent exhibit. This is not a odd as it might seem, as the original guns were built for warships as well.
You can read more about the military use of Rocky Point here.
On the way back down I passed remnants of former land uses.
There were many of these old fence posts all along the trails.
There were several "rogue trails". I did not go rogue.
There was a stark beauty to the woods. But the complete lack of understory was concerning. Damn deer.
And along the way there were shadows ...
... and light that made for nice photos.
And just added to the beauty of it all.
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