I’m a Quaker from
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Trip to the Blue Hole
September 12, 2005 8:08 PM.
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Categories:
southjersey
,
theo
| Tags:
back roads, bike trip, blue anchor, blue hole, deep woods, egg harbor river, flickr, googling, great egg harbor, great egg harbor river, henry charlton beck
Categories: southjersey , theo | Tags: back roads, bike trip, blue anchor, blue hole, deep woods, egg harbor river, flickr, googling, great egg harbor, great egg harbor river, henry charlton beck
A few days ago my two-year old Theo and I took a meandering bike trip that brought us to the charmingly-named Piney Hollow Road (alas, not quite as rustic as it sounds). We stopped on the unassuming bridge over the Great Egg Harbor River and I looked for a trail into the woods. We found one about a hundred feet north of the river, hiked in another hundred feet and picnicked along the river. When I got back home I started Googling around and discovered that our sand trail was the Blue Anchor Fireline Road and that we were on one of the main paths in to the famed Blue Hole.
The best stories on Winslow's Blue Hole come from Henry Charlton Beck, whose folk histories of South Jersey are must-haves for any local's library. He wrote newspaper columns profiling old-timey local characters on the back roads and deep woods of the area and his accounts have been collected in volumes such as "Forgotten Towns of South Jersey" and "Jersey Genesis: The Story of the Mullica River." He wrote about the Blue Hole legends in "More Forgotten Towns of South Jersey" and one helpful fellow has broken copyright laws to scan in the relevant pages.
Today my two-year old and I set out again for the Blue Hole (well, I did: he actually napped half the way there). We started on Piney Hollow Road in Winslow Township. About 100 feet north of the very unassuming Great Egg Harbor River bridge is what the maps call the Blue Anchor Fireline Road. The picture on the left show the trailhead from Piney Hollow Road.
We went into the woods along this sandy road. It curves right, parallels Piney Hollow Road for awhile, then curves left back into the woods. There are weird metal bunker openings marked "confined space entry" in day-glow orange every so often: some water-related thing I suppose (though the conspiracy-minded might beg to differ). About a mile in there's an intersection with the equally-sandy Inskeep Road (those wanting an alternative path could take Inskeep from Piney Hollow: it's entry is about a half-mile north of the Great Egg Harbor River bridge).
Make a left onto Inskeep and go left when it forks. Within a quarter mile you'll see a creek with the remains of a bridge. This is the Great Egg Harbor River. Some of the trip reports I've seen end here with the sad report that the washed-out bridge prevented the creek from being forded ("Since the stream was too deep and too fast moving to ford, we were forced to retreat. The Devil's Hole was only 100 yards away, but it might as well have been 100 miles."). Bah: it's three feet deep in September, quit yapping and get your feet wet, okay? Just up the path on the other side is the famed Blue Hole itself.
It's always fun to retrace Henry Charlton Beck's footsteps but the Blue Hole itself isn't all that exciting. Yes, the water is kind of blue, underneath the pond scum. It does look deep and it's certainly not a normal geological feature. Some have wondered if it's an asteroid hit, which is as good a theory as any other. Here's a close-up of the hole in all its blue'ness:
No, I didn't see the Jersey Devil (wasn't really looking folks) but some sort of giant heron or crane did circle the hole overhead twice when I got there. One theory of the Jersey Devil legend is that it was inspired by sightings of the Sandhill Crane so our companion's presence was appropriate. I didn't swim into the hole to test out the Devil leg-pulling reports, bottomless depth or remarkable cold. I'll leave that to more intrepid souls.
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Thanks, Martin, for the tale of your trip and for alerting the Wider Quaker World to the work of Henry Charlton Beck. Just last night I had two friends over to meet with Robin and me (we were planning the coming academic year's series of SPICE workshops at the SF Friends School, fwiw), and I pulled out my stack of books on New Jersey, including five by Beck. That'll teach them to call it "Joisey"!
Thanks for sharing this father and son trip, Martin. Ohio also has a Blue Hole along the Little Miami River. Fortunately, it is not yet too developed and is near the town of Yellow Springs where there is a Friend's meeting. If you ever come to Ohio, I am sure you'll be made welcome there. http://www.naturalbornhikers.com/CliftonGorge/Cliftongorge.htm
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Ah South Jersey and the Pineys! Lovely area! :)
i want to take a trip out to the blue hole and plan on it. i'm a bit confused and if u already took a trip out there i wanted to ask a question or two.
i's the water odd is there a bridge u could cross or did u have to wade through any water.
did u take a sample of the water.
Hi Andrew: from the direction I came you do have to wade across the Great Egg Harbor River. It was only about three to four feet deep at Inskeep Road. Here's a picture of the long washed-out bridge: I waded across just to the left of the pilings. I didn't take any samples--the Great Egg Harbor is supposed to be a very clean river. Use common sense when crossing, of course: I'm sure it's higher and more dangerous in spring after a hard rain.
There's supposed to be an alternate route that keeps you from crossing any streams. You hike in from Piney Hollow Road from the other side--south of where it cross the Great Egg Harbor River.
Be careful if you try to swim in the Blue Hole itself. The banks looked somewhat steep and there's supposed to be some quicksand along the edges. It's probably going to be colder than the average piney river. If I were with a group of adults I might have tried a dip...
I grew up in the area and frequented the environs of the blue hole. Surprisingly, I did not know of the name of the blue hole until very recently. At any rate, it is a quite a strange geological feature, in the sense that I have been all over the Pine Barrens and can say that the "Blue Hole" phenomena only occurs in the immediate vicinity of the famed blue hole. There are a few other blue holes in the area. On Mays Landing road there is a country club that has a few of the blue hole phenomena surrounding it, but, they seem to be more of a seasonal thing and dry up. They are deep blue and bone chilling cold, even during the heat of summer. There are times around here when the temp can get above 100, w/ the heat index being well above that. The blue holes were a good reprieve when we were kids.
However, you go to the next township over (Waterford),which I consider to be the heart of the pine barrens, along w/ Chatsworth and other towns (Waterford Township and Atco are not so well known in Pine Barren lore) and where I grew up, does not have any such blue holes.
I am a historian and attorney by training and can't say for sure what the blue holes are, but, I know that some of them are dangerous as they are surrounded by quick sand. That being the case, I have to surmise that they are underground springs, that spring forth under certain conditions (never really studied it in detail, just grew up around them, but, like I said many are seasonal in nature).
To lend to the theory that the blue holes are underground springs, is the fact that you can drink the water (mind you it is in the heat of the summer and bone chilling cold).
You can even see some of the larger one of these on Google Maps (go down Mays Landing rd before Huntington Rd.)
Just thought I would add some good ole' local wisdom.