Looks like the roadwalk just South of Vernon, NJ has finally gone away!!!
VERNON TOWNSHIP, N.J., Oct. 15 — For those who trek from peak to peak along the Appalachian Trail, this is a definite low point. Aptly called the Pochuck Quagmire, a broad valley of empty meadow and soggy marshland here has long forced hikers to detour and dodge traffic along two and a half miles of shoulderless highway.
On Sunday, state officials plan to formally dedicate a new mile-long elevated boardwalk and a handsome 144-foot timber suspension bridge that traverse the meadow and the marsh. They provide a pristine link to two long-disconnected sections of the trail and take hikers away from whizzing cars and into a world of rustling cattails, songbirds, a swiftly flowing creek and serene acres of field.
The bridge, boardwalk and vista are unrivaled along the 2,169-mile trail, said Pamela Underhill, manager of the Appalachian Trail for the National Park Service. “There’s nothing else like it on the whole trail from Maine to Georgia,” she said. “It’s just so extraordinary.”
Most of the trail, Ms. Underhill said, is on wooded hillsides and the tops of ridges in the 14 states in which it lies. Although a few lowland sections exist here and there, none are as big as the valley here, she said. And none are crossed by anything as elaborate as the curving, four-foot-wide boardwalk and the suspension bridge, which arches nearly 17 feet above Pochuck Creek and is designed to withstand the worst flood that might occur every 100 years.
Moose