Apple Pie Hill

Apple Pie Hill, Wharton State Forest (6/29/2009)

I never heard of Apple Pie Hill until the May 2009 issue of Backpacker magazine named it one of America's 100 Best Dayhikes, grouping it with just three other hikes under the heading "Solitude". I've been fascinated ever since. "Apple Pie Hill is only 209 feet above sea level, but it affords a commanding view of this million-acre maze of scrub pine, swamps and bogs" the magazine informed. Well this I had to see. So off we trekked this morning, driving nearly two hours south to the middle of the seemingly infinite New Jersey pine barrens, an area in which I have never previously hiked (unless you count a couple of hikes in Allaire, which is nowhere like the heart of the Pinelands).

I was not disappointed. This hike is quite unlike any other. It's an 8-mile out-and-back using the pink-blazed Batona trail (from BAck TO NAture) from the Carranza Memorial (on Carranza Road) to the Apple Pie Hill fire tower and back. The Carranza Memorial marks the place where the Mexican aviator Emilio Carranza died tragically when his plane went down at this spot in 1928 during a particularly nastly Pinelands storm. Today, 78 years after the monument was erected, one can imagine the feeling of hopelessness he must have felt in those last moments. Even the feeling at this relatively popular monument is one of isolation. One can stand on Carranza Road, in front of the monument, and look one way, then the other way, and see just endless blacktop surrounded on both sides by pine trees.

The first mile of the hike parallels a sandy road, crossing it several times, using it for a stretch or two. The second mile is where the sense of solitude deepens, a stretch where the trail cuts through an area with upland on the left (populated with mostly pitch pines) and swampland on the right (populated with mostly swamp cedar). The last two miles is endless pines, where monotony becomes beauty, and where the feeling of being alone in the vast pine barrens is most profound. We had company at the fire tower, a group of teen boys was meeting in the shade, but passed only two other hikers during the entire 8-mile journey. The only sounds were almost all those of nature, with an occasional plane far up in the sky, barely a distraction.

For the complete description of the types of vegetation encountered, the history of the area, and the importance of the underlying aquifer, see Trip #34 ("Apple Hill Fire Tower") in Nature Walks in New Jersey (2nd edition). It is also hike #47 ("Carranza Memorial to Apple Pie Hill") in 50 Hikes in New Jersey (3rd edition).

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