Batona Trail Section

The Batona Trail winds through 53 miles of New Jersey Pine Barrens, and the Wharton State Forest section offers the most ecologically rich passage of this legendary long-distance path through one of the last great wilderness areas in the northeastern United States. The 8-mile out-and-back traverse is nearly flat, crossing a mosaic of Atlantic white cedar swamps, pine-oak uplands, and open sandy plains where specialized carnivorous plants thrive in the nutrient-poor acidic soils. Pitcher plants, sundews, and bladderworts are visible from the trail edge in boggy depressions, their insect-trapping mechanisms evolved to supplement nutrients unavailable in the mineral-deficient Cohansey Aquifer soils. The Cedar swamps along this route harbor trees over 200 years old, their reddish bark and feathery foliage creating a primeval atmosphere reminiscent of southern swamp forests far to the south. The tea-colored water characteristic of Pine Barrens streams results from natural tannins leached from cedar and oak, not pollution; the water is actually among the purest in New Jersey. The Batona Trail is blazed in distinctive pink paint, and the Wharton section passes through the heart of the 115,000-acre forest, the largest single tract of public land in New Jersey and part of the federally designated New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve protecting 1.1 million acres.