The Park
Sawmills have operated at this site on the Cedar Creek, processing dense stands of Atlantic White Cedar into shingles and ship masts. Over time cranberries were planted in the swamps vacated by the harvested trees. In 1909 the entire area became the Double Trouble Cranberry Company. The name supposedly comes from problems with the dams used to sustain the bogs. One theory has two wash outs in a single spring rainy season inspiring the name and another traces it to two separate leaky holes gnawed in a dam by muskrats. Today the park centers around Double Trouble Historic Village, a cluster of 14 surviving structures from the late 1800s.
The Walks
The park preserves more than 8000 acres of natural Pine Barrens habitat but you will experience just a tiny slice of it on just a single trail in Double Trouble State Park. The 1.5-mile Nature Trail leaves on an old sand road along a series of cranberry bogs. You leave the open area around the ponds with a sharp right turn into a dark avenue of Atlantic Cedar. The trees were once thought to be limitless in the Pinelands when the sawmills were running full force. You and your dog will have experienced what lies beyond in millions of acres of the Pine Barrens in a short, exceedingly pleasant outing.
Where The Paw Meets The Earth: Sandy dirt
Workout For Your Dog - Long, flat hikes possible
Swimming - Ponds, canals
Restrictions On Dogs - None
Something Extra
The cranberry is a native American fruit that was harvested naturally in the Pine Barrens for centuries. Commercial production began around 1835 in New Jersey and today only Massachusetts and Michigan grow more cranberries, named because its flower resembles a craning neck. The restored cranberry sorting and packing house at Double Trouble park is the finest of its kind from the 19th century. The bogs are still producing and if you come in the fall you can see thousands of the buoyant berries bobbing on the surface; at other times of the year you will have to make do with looking at a few harvest escapees washing against the shoreline.
Phone - (732) 341-6662
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Admission Fee - None
Directions - Bayville, Ocean County; traveling south on the Garden State Parkway take Exit 80 and turn left to Double Trouble Road. Follow to end in about four miles and cross the road into the park. Heading north use Exit 77 and turn left to park entrance in 1/4 mile.
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