Hike at the Franklin Parker Preserve

A landscape photo from a Saturday morning hike with some photographers into the Franklin Parker Preserve.

This expansive property encompasses almost 14 square miles in the heart of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, and is accessible by a network of sandy roads that wind though pitch pine forest and blueberry fields, and run along the preserve of the cedar swamp, shallow lakes and pristine tributaries of the West Branch of the Wading River.

The preserve was a formerly a cranberry farm, but was purchased by the New Jersey Conservation Foundation in December 2003, after the owner decided he wanted the property to be protected forever as a nature preserve. NJCF began an ambitious fund-raising campaign and was able to cover most of the property cost.

The property is a rare ecological treasure for the East Coast of the United States, containing some of the most beautiful wetlands in the Pine Barrens and providing critical habitat to more than 50 rare, threatened or endangered species.

http://njconservation.org/franklinparkerpreserve.htm

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