CITO Wharton/Atsion
Burlington County, and Wharton State Forest, has become increasingly popular among deer hunters, and for good reason. The 2004 season saw a decent number of trophy bucks being taken on public lands in the county, especially among the bowhunter ranks.
Wharton State Forest is the largest single tract of land within the New Jersey State Park System with over 110,000 acres. Wharton is located in the heart of South Jersey's Pine Barrens. Of course, most of us know this already because we have cached in the Barrens!
The forest is mostly flatland and as part of the upper reaches of the Mullica River, it has plenty of marshlands and small streams running through it. It is crisscrossed by miles of unpaved, sandy soil roads, which give hunters (and geocachers!!) excellent access to all reaches of the forest.
Not all of these hunters police themselves after a long day of hunting, and invariably, over time, a large amount of trash accumulates in the forest. This is where we come in! As responsible geocachers with a healthy respect for our outdoor environment, we can remedy this situation! Enter the SJG CITO Event!
We will meet at the Atsion Ranger Station located at the above coordinates at 2 pm for a three hour CITO of the trails and surrounding area of Wharton. The FlyinV's will be supplying 2 dozen of the "official" CITO trash bags, and the good folks at the Atsion Ranger Station will be supplying the rest! If you have any of those handy trash picker-up-ers you might want to bring those as well, they could come in very useful! We will see just how many full bags we can pile into the back of the FlyinV's B.A.O.T. (Big Orange Truck). Following the clean-up, for those who are interested, we can go a few miles (really only about 1.25 mi) North of the Atsion Ranger Station on Rte 206 for an after-CITO dinner at the Pic-A-Lilli for wings and beverages!
Please post your intent prior to the event so that we may get an idea of how many will be coming out to join us on GC.com's Official CITO Day! This is also a great opportunity for our group to get some community service hours and be part of the NJDEP's "Earth Day" Challenge!
Schedule for the day:
2:00pm – 2:20pm
Arrive at the Atsion Ranger Station and check in/sign the logbook. Pass out trash bags and latex gloves.
2:20pm - 2:30pm
Carpool to designated cleanup area. (These are the coordinates so that any latecomers will be able to find us:
N 39° 46.679 W 074° 47.904.)
2:30pm – 5:00pm
CITO. (Make sure you sign the logbook prior to dispersing after the CITO so you can get proper credit for the event!)
5:00pm – Whenever
Head back to the Atsion Ranger Station, unload the trash collected at the designated area, meet up at the "Pic".
Remember to wear appropriate clothing for working outdoors.
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It was recently brought to our attention that it was not appropriate that we say that it was just one group of people who have created the mess that we are going to clean up for this CITO event. There are many groups to blame...besides hunters, there are careless hikers, careless campers, careles drivers who discard items from their vehicle windows, and even the wind will bring items to rest where they do not belong. We understand this, and hope that we did not offend anybody by implying that this is purely a problem brought about by hunters. The important point is that we are going to all meet today and clean-up whatever mess has been created for whatever reason it may have been created...this will then allow for all of us to enjoy Atsion and Wharton even more in the years to come. Thanks!
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