[Journal Entry for May 14, 2016; Mullica River] Lee Reiser, Marcus Santos and I took a day trip down the Mullica River through the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The three of us put in on the Mullica River at 10:10 AM from a point just below the dam on Atsion Lake (pronounced “at-sign”), off of Route 206, in Wharton State Forest, after leaving a car at the take-out point on Pleasant Mills Road, about eleven miles downriver. We all used short plastic kayak; me a Prijon Invader that I borrowed from Lee. The ruins of the Atsion Raleigh Cotton Mill is adjacent to the launch; now it’s only a very large brick chimney, a concrete floor and a low wall. The Atsion Historic Residence, an intact log cabin, is also nearby.

The Mullica is a narrow stream at this point just below the dam and is just ten to fifteen feet wide. Its surface is swirling with foam churned up from the spillway. The launch is a flat, open space along the side of the river, which is otherwise surrounded by trees and bushes. Although the stream was flowing fairly strongly, Marcus and I had no trouble paddling upstream to the spillway while Lee was getting ready to launch. Lee found two pineapples, presumably abandoned by some other kayakers, in the water. We kept one as we padded downstream.

Spring has come late to the Pine Barrens. The water temperature is 62 degrees Fahrenheit and the day is sunny and warm, in the low seventies. The bushes and deciduous trees are only sparsely leafed out. Blueberry bushes are blooming along the banks and Spatterdock (with button-shaped yellow flowers) and Golden Club (with yellow flowers like candelabras) are blooming on the water. We enjoyed our paddling, both along sections of the river that are narrow and tightly meandered with overhanging Cedar trees, and others that are straighter, wider and more open, with adjacent lily ponds and grassy hummocks. We sighted many turtles, Red Wing Blackbirds and Canada Geese in the more open sections. We crossed several old Beaver dams and passed two recently-maintained Beaver lodges, one of which was six feet or more tall. We passed the site of a forest fire. The Pitch Pines were charred but the bushes were starting to recover.

In places, hills of fine white sand, crowned with Pitch Pines, rise several yards above the river level. We stopped at the one that hosts the Mullica Wilderness Campsite, which is about eight miles downstream of the launch point. Lee and I made sandwiches, using a baguette, deli meats, Swiss cheese and vegetables that I had brought. Marcus brought his own lunch, as well as a thermos of coffee that he shared around.

We passed beneath four bridges during our trip; a railway bridge near the start of our trip and two roadway bridges and one pedestrian bridge towards the end. The sky clouded over as the afternoon grew late, the air became windy and chilly, Rain threatened but did not fall. We reached the take-out point at about 4:15 PM.

We enjoyed dinner at the Pic-A-Lili Inn in Shamong NJ, located a few miles north of Atsion Lake on Route 206. I had French Onion Soup and a Pulled Pork Sandwich.

Out total time on the water was about six hours.