Hibernia Bat Cave LbNA #41691

This box is located in the Wildcat Ridge Wildlife Management Area in Hibernia/Rockaway N.J.
The entrance you will have to use is just off of the intersection of Green Pond Road and Roundhill Drive. If you are travelling North on Green Pond Rd. then you will turn right onto Roundhill Drive, otherwise if travelling South then you will turn left onto Roundhill. Immediately after turning onto Roundhill Drive you will see a sign for Wildcat Ridge Wildlife Management area on your left and the parking lot entrance is right there. If the parking lot entrance is overgrown you may miss it on your first pass. So, if Roundhill Drive curves around to the left, then you've gone too far and should turn around wherever it is safest to do so.

Park in the lot and take the trail that is immediately opposite of the parking lot entrance. It is the only trail here so you can't go wrong yet. This is the white trail and you will almost immediately begin to notice ruins on the right. These ruins are left over from when this park was a mining area. Walk past the ruins, and very quickly the white trail will turn right and then come to a T intersection. At the T you will go left. Continue walking and you will soon come to a fork in the trail. You will stay to the left, taking the branch that is visibly less used. Stay on this trail (Should still be the white, but I don't remember how well blazed this trail is.) until it begins to curve/turn to the right. (Just as you reach this spot you may notice another even less used trail branching off to the left....do not go left.) The trail curves to the right and if it is warm out you will begin to notice a cool/cold breeze blowing down the trail. Continue climbing the trail.....it will get cooler the further up you go. When you reach the top you will see an observation deck on your right. In front of you you will see the Hibernia Bat Cave. The observation deck was built here a number of years ago here to view the bats coming and going. Unfortunately in the last few years about 90% of the thousands of bats that once roosted in the mine have died from 'white nose syndrome'. But they aren't all gone and it will likely still be a few hundred to see leaving the mine entrance around nightfall. Once you're done checking out the mine entrance return to the observation deck and walk around to the opposite side, standing approximately between the deck and a large tree. From here sight 195 degrees and walk approx. 32 paces. You should now see a large boulder on your left that has the name Tina B. written on it. From here sight 120 degrees and walk approx. 13 paces. (You'll be walking between some medium sized rocks (low to ground) and a small tree. The letterbox is a geocache/letterbox hybrid and is hidden in the wall. Once you get close the hiding spot will be fairly obvious, don't move any rocks from the wall. The rocks hiding the box were picked up off the ground and will be loose already. Please re-hide better than you found it.

You can then return the same way you came, or explore some of the trails. These trails are strewn with rock debris though so you'll want to wear boots.....no sandals! You'll also want to wear long pants and spray yourself with some insect repellent.....there are plenty of deer ticks here.

Also, there are more letterboxes in this park. One is another geocache/letterbox hybrid that I planted at the abandoned cemetery. It will be listed as the St. Patrick's Cemetery Hybrid. The other is not mine but is called Permanent Hibernation if you want to look it up.