Cranberry Trail

Dogs Leashed

Features Birding · Fall Colors · Spring · Views · Wildflowers · Wildlife

This trail is an old sandy path from the Whitesbog General Store (open weekends 10-4 year round), past the worker's cottages to the Cranberry industry buildings (The Barrel Factory, The Barrel Warehouse- now Cranberry and Blueberry Cultural Museum- and past the ruins of the Cranberry Packing House. There is a Clivus Unit (composting toilet) behind the Barrel Warehouse that is always open and should be stocked with toilet paper.

Pass the water pump building and continue down the cedar forest trail where worker's gardens used to grow. Around to the left you'll head into heavy sand to an overlook bridge of the wildlife-filled wetland around Cranberry Run where the original wild cranberry bog was the first to be cultivated in 1857. From there, hikers will make their way out to the paved road and past a vista over the cultivated cranberry bogs. From this vantage, visitors will be able to see functional pump houses and the demonstration cranberry bog on the left where we pick cranberries in October, next to the parking lot.

Visitors can also navigate around the dry cranberry bog on the side closest to the Parking Lot. Bands play on the porch on Friday mornings and some weekends, and horse-back riders, bicyclists, trail runners, dog walkers and hikers use the trails.

Keep an eye out for cars and motorcycles on the roads, but they are usually pretty quiet. The village is managed by Whitesbog Preservation Trust, a non-profit, and the volunteers host fund-raisers and workdays to help keep the village up and educate the community on the history. More information can be found here. Feel free to share pictures with us using #whitesbog, and check in with the Whitesbog Preservation Trust.

Ferns, Atlantic White Cedar, Sweet Gum trees, holly, moss, arrow arum, sedges, orchids, rare and endangered species, lichen, cranberries and Turkeys, chickadees, barn swallows, woodpeckers, hawks, deer, chipmunks, squirrels, turkey vultures, snakes, frogs (Spring Peepers, Carpenter Frogs, Wood Frogs, Cricket Frogs, Gray Tree Frog, South Leopard Frog, Pine Barrens Tree Frog) and dragonflies, damselflies, moths and butterflies.