Butler Road Natural Area

Butler Road Natural Area, Franklin Township, NJ (1/21/2013)

Today was Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Laura had the day off, so of course I took off to go hiking with her! And we returned to the area of Ten Mile Run (from just two days ago) for a short hike in more Franklin Township Land. Using this map we started at the small parking lot on Butler Road and covered every trail in the area, first heading north on Purple, doing the northern loop in the clockwise direction, then heading south on Red which had a few large blow-downs which were, nonetheless passable, and finally Yellow which also had a few blow-downs mostly at the beginning (if you are taking it in the clockwise direction). It's a nice, relatively small, area which allows hunting (though we didn't see or hear any today). It seems somewhat unused because the trails are still littered with small branches and evidence of Hurricane Sandy, and many of the trees with blazes have been blown down, so following the trails is a bit tricky at times. But the terrain is varied and interesting.

Total distance hiked today was about 4 miles in 2.5 hours.

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