Jockey Hollow can be wonderfully dense with green, so we decided to head over on a lovely May day forecast to be in the upper 70′s.

We really enjoy the Grand Loop and always end doing that, but I figured it was time to check out the area south, the New Jersey Brigade area. The Patriot’s Path links Jockey Hollow to the Brigade Area, with options to visit Cross Estate Gardens and/or Scherman-Hoffman Wildlife Sanctuary (part of the NJ Audubon Society).

From the Jockey Hollow parking lot, walk over to the visitor center. Bathrooms can be accessed from inside the center, or from outside on the right side of the building. Walk straight back from behind the visitor center towards the fence in front of Wick Farm.

Take the unmarked mowed path that turns right, cross the park road, and continue on the path a bit to a trail junction. There is a trail sign and junctions at this park have trail maps at them. Turn RIGHT onto the Grand Loop (WHITE)/Patriot’s Path (Tree and path symbol).

The trail crosses Tempe Wick Road and shortly after, the Grand Loop leaves to the right. Stay straight instead and continue following the Patriot’s Path. There are no viewpoints or big water features on this trail as it meanders through dense forest, except for a small bridge that crosses over the Passaic River at about 1.6 miles in.

There are some decent hills along this portion of the park, more so than the main area of Jockey Hollow.

We passed trails to Cross Estates and the WHITE trail that heads over to Scherman-Hoffman before ending up at the Dogwood Trail (RED and part of Scherman-Hoffman), which we followed down to the parking area and then into Scherman-Hoffman where it crossed the park road before turning left to pass through a field.

We kept on that until we came to the WHITE Brigade trail and ended up back on the Patriot’s Path to retrace our route back.

Miles: 6.3

Parking: N40 45.755 W74 32.519 [Jockey Hollow Visitor Center]

Route:  Mendham Road Trail (unblazed) – Patriots Path (Tree and path symbol) – Dogwood Trail (RED, through Scherman-Hoffman Wildlife Sanctuary) – NJ Brigade Trail (WHITE) – Patriots Path (Tree and path symbol) – Mendham Road Trail (unblazed)

• For Morristown National Park info and trail maps, check out our page on Jockey Hollow.

• Scherman-Hoffman Wildlife Sanctuary trail map and park info

This route passes by a side trail that leads Cross Estate Gardens, so that is an option to check out.

Wildlife spotted: tons of chipmunks, and something that may have been a groundhog that scooted off the trail into thick brush.

Sunny skies and temps in the upper 50s made for perfect hiking weather, but we saw only a few people on the trail and most were along the Black River as we neared the parking lot on our return. We always enjoy this park but it was an especially quiet, peaceful and enjoyable spring morning.

We parked at the Cooper Mill lot and took the Black River trail. A common turnaround spot is the intersection of Bamboo Brook Trail with Conifer Pass, but we kept on going as the Bamboo Brook Trail heads gradually downhill (keep in mind you’ll be heading uphill on your return). These trails feel like deep in-the-middle-of-nowhere woods even though roads actually aren’t far away.

There is a rock that makes for a nice break spot as the trail hits the brook. [Turning around here will take 1 mile off this route] We kept going to Lamerson Road and then turned around, taking Conifer back at the prior intersection.

The trail continues all the way to Willowwood Arboretum but we decided against doing that this day. [that's about 14.8 miles roundtrip, we have an old post on it if interested: Black River County Park]

Note: The new trail map (March 2012) for Black River is really excellent and much easier to understand now. See our Black River County Park – Cooper Mill page.

Miles: 9.2

Parking: N40 46.698 W74 43.217

Route:  Black River Trail (BLUE) – Bamboo Brook Trail (BLUE) – Lamerson Road, then backtrack to intersection with Conifer Pass – Conifer Pass (RED) – Black River Trail (BLUE)

Check our Black River County Park – Cooper Mill page for directions, trail map, and more info.

Wildlife Spotted: Seven deer in a field

I was flipping through 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: New York City, yet again, but this time a spot on their Cheesequake hike map caught my eye – “Steamboat Landing”. We’ve been to Cheesequake at least a bajillion and a half times – it’s our go-to park when we need a quick good hike nearby – so I never paid much attention to entries on Cheesequake in hiking books.

I pulled up the relatively new Cheesequake park map to take a look and realized to get to Steamboat Landing meant a right turn onto a boring looking park road that we’d always ignored as we headed straight on the green trail. Part of the allure of Cheesequake for us is that we can go without having to plan a route or look at the map and just hike… but here we’d missed something. For years. Hunh.

Lately our weekends had been taken up with trip planning and then being away*, and we needed a quick hike to get back into the swing of things… so it was off to Cheesequake. (*see “Hiking Mt. Vesuvius, Italy” if interested… or just bored at work…)

Miles: 5.7

Parking: N40 26.165 W74 15.932

Check our Cheesequake State Park page for directions, trail map, and more info.

Route:  YELLOW – GREEN/RED – BLUE – GREEN – Unmarked park road (“Museum Road” on map) – Steamboat Landing then backtrack to GREEN. This route can be found in 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: New York City

So this time we made that right turn onto unmarked “Museum Road”. The big old park sign at the intersection says “Dock Road” is to the right. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen that sign but have not really read it. (The sound you hear is the slap of my hand against my forehead).

The wide woods park road was mostly non-descript as expected. We passed a trail on the right marked with an orange blaze that wasn’t on the park map (we checked it out on the way back: it just leads to Dock Road.)

In a bit, the trail comes to a metal gate. On the other side of that is another woods road going both left and right, and a path up a hill straight ahead. To the right or up the hill ends up at the same place – but the hill is more scenic and you get an overview of the area.

After those paths join, we were in a marshy area that was muddy and had tall reeds around. It ends at “Steamboat Landing”, a scenic little spot along Cheesequake Creek with a few geese floating along. Just some wooden posts are all that are left of the landing. There area itself is just a muddy little patch with nothing but a low remnant of concrete slab to sit on, but the view is nice.

There is an osprey nest off to the side. Bring binoculars or use your camera zoom lens to check it out. We saw one osprey sitting on a post and another in the nest. Check out this amazing footage on YouTube of an osprey catching fish.

Old Timey Fun: A bit of info and some photos for Steamboat Landing can be found in Old Bridge, NJ – Images of America, and it’s info on Steamboat Landing comes up on Google Books here.

New Fun: Whilst poking around for info, I also found this article on kayak tours that land at this spot for a lunch break: “Human Powered Adventure in Central New Jersey“. Check with the park for current kayak tours offered.

So, on a recent trip to Italy we had to hike Mt. Vesuvius.

Mt. Vesuvius is the volcano responsible for covering the city of Pompeii with a blanket of ash in 79 A.D., preserving it until it’s re-discovery in the 1700s. Much of what is known about day-to-day life back then is because of the excavation of Pompeii.

The Hike
This isn’t a long or particularly hard hike, but certainly interesting and worthwhile. We were told it takes about 20 min up and 30 min down… it was less than this. Anyone who has done any hiking at all would have no problems – as long as you aren’t horribly out of shape this is doable.

The hike is quite steep in the beginning and then becomes more gradual toward the top as the pathway goes about 3/4 of the way around the crater rim. The trail surface is mostly wide and of pumice/ash. It’s about 1 mile.

We had views into the crater, which has no lava but a little steam. The view out to the Bay of Naples was totally obscured by clouds when we were there, but when clear it is spectacular. There are nice views on the bus ride up as well.

There is no need for any gear, water (there are snack shops along the way!) or hiking boots -  all you need is the comfy walking shoes that you should be wearing to wander around the streets of Italy anyway.

If You Go
We did this as a long day trip from Rome, but Vesuvius is closer to Naples or the Amalfi Coast so that is an option too. It should be combined with a visit to Pompeii (awesome).

There are basically two ways to get to Vesuvius from Rome: the DIY approach or book a group bus tour. Do It Yourself involves two trains and a bus ride, each way. There are several organized bus tours to Pompeii, but not all include the Vesuvius hike.

We usually travel independently but do take the occasional bus day trip when they are more efficient, and felt that trying to juggle visits to both while relying on so much public transport was just going to be annoying. Plus, this was at the end of a very logistically complicated trip and we just wanted to have a break and be driven around for a day.

Note: From Nov 1 – March 31 (or due to weather) the tours don’t include the hike and a visit to Archeological Museum of Pompeii is substituted. So keep that in mind while planning.

Resources
Since this is a trail blog and not a travel one, I’ll just list some resources and won’t go into the rest of the Italy trip… except to say that it involved wandering around the streets of Venice, Florence, and Rome and totally overloading on amazing art and history…. while sustaining ourselves with pasta, pizza, espresso & gelato. (ohhhh the gelato… we ate gelato every…single…day. And Italy is the only place we’ve ever found good pizza outside of the New Jersey metro area. Because Jersey pizza rules.)

Books and two sites we found very helpful:

We used DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Italy for an overview of the whole country to plan which areas to hit. This book is a brick, so I just photocopied the ruins/museum spreads instead of the taking the whole thing. Since we were just hitting the tourist highlights of each city, we brought the Top 10 Florence and Top 10 Venice which both covered everything we wanted to see but are a nice small size.

For Rome we used Rick Steves’ Pocket Rome – very compact size with info that gets right to the point, and covered everything we needed. In addition to solid travel info, the book has tours to follow for the Colosseum, Forum, Vatican Museum, etc. Normally we never follow guides like that, but he outlines the highlights of these VAST places so you don’t miss the key stuff, and gives just enough info to be informative but not boring.

Ron In Rome – Very detailed articles with lots of how-to pictures on the logistics of traveling in Rome: buying train tickets, metro/train travel, to/from the airport, how to order gelato etc, tips on avoiding the lines at museums and a lot more. Spend some time on this site, it will help a lot with the nitty gritty of your trip.

Slow Travel Italy – While some of the articles may have been written a few years back now, we found the info on how to read menus and order/pay, and language lessons such as “Caffe Talk“ to be helpful.

About the bus tour:

We were happy with our choice of the Dark Rome Pompeii and Vesuvius Volcano tour. My two concerns in going with a tour were 1) we wouldn’t have enough time in Pompeii (as we are really into ruins and historical stuff), and 2) I kept reading on forums that tours wasted time stopping at a cameo factory.

This tour didn’t stop at a cameo factory. Pompeii is huge so it can’t all be seen in one day anyway, so while we certainly missed areas I felt that this tour was in depth enough that I didn’t feel disappointed.

In researching this trip we didn’t find that much detail about any of the tours. So for anyone who happens upon this blog who likes to over-research and plan like we do and is wondering about the tour details on the Dark Rome tour, here ya go:

7:15a – met the 2 guides at Piazza del Popolo (right near a metro stop). They checked every one on the list, and pointed out a cafe for restrooms.
7:30a left on the bus.
Rome to Pompeii drive – 3 hour drive + 20 min rest stop: first 1.5 hrs it’s quiet, no info, then after the rest stop, they start covering some basic history etc but it’s still pretty relaxed (we found both guides delivery to be rather amateur, though not a huge deal). The rest stop was 20 min, which was just enough time to order a cappuccino and pastry (decent quality), and use the restrooms (very clean). To exit, you have to walk through a little Italian pasta, chocolates, limoncello, souvenirs area, but its minor and it’s not like being taken somewhere just for that.
Pompeii: Our bus guides handed us off to the Pompeii guide at the entrance. Was somewhere in the 1.5-2 hr range for the guided tour, with ear-bud headsets. The Pompeii guide was very good.
Lunch: Driven to Naples for pizza, for about an hour and half. Pizzas came out kind of slow, with our table getting it last after others had finished. But time passed quickly by chatting with the two other couples at our table. Pizza and beer was decent and better than I expected at a group tour restaurant. Pizza choice was Margharita or a white pizza, and beer, wine, water, soda were the beverage options. Restrooms were clean. Lunch is probably the biggest time-sink of any bus tour, but a group of people can only be fed so quickly.
Vesuvius Hike: Drive up the winding road to the summit parking area. Hike up is on your own. I believe we were given around 40-60 min to be back at the bus. We had plenty of time to hike up, walk the whole crater path, and take pics, and come back down.
Drive back: 3 hrs, plus a 20-min rest stop halfway through at the same place.  After that, the guides did a bit of promoting of their other tours but since people were interested I can’t say that’s a big negative.
Return: around 8pm-ish. It was a long day but it was actually a relaxing break for us to just sit on a bus and enjoy the view of the countryside out the window (our travel style is go-go-go with a ton of things packed in).

Detailed hike info and directions on our Bass River State Forest page.

This is the first time we’d gotten around to checking out Bass River State Forest. We’d always headed to the other Pine Barrens area parks instead, mainly because I’d never had much info on the trails here. It doesn’t appear in any of our hiking books other than a mention in the New Jersey Walk Book of some short trails, and I’d never located a trail map online. Without a trail map to plan a possible route out ahead, it didn’t make sense for us to drive over an hour to park that may only have a couple miles of trails.

A trail map with descriptions appeared recently on the park site so I was able to plot out a decent length hike and off we went…

The focal point of this park is Lake Absegami, a popular swimming area in the summer. Several trails lead from the lake parking lot, while the Pink trail is on the other side of Stage Road. This park is typical pine barrens… super easy, flat, sand and pine needle covered trails and woods roads.

Other than the lake and a few remains of some CCC buildings, there isn’t much to “see” but it’s a nice really easy walk through lots-n-lots of pine. Most pine barrens trails are easy, but these were even more so…. no boggy wet areas to cross, and the trails were mostly wide and not overgrown with brush. We felt the Pink trail was nicer than the section of the Yellow we did and the Plum trail (which runs along the parkway and Stage Rd for a little bit…bleh). So, if you are looking for an easy 3 miler…we recommend just doing Pink.

Miles: 8.3

Parking: N39 37.577 W74 25.493

Route:  YELLOW – PLUM – PINK – RED

Bass River Trail Map

Snack Time: We’d received a sample of Clif Bar Shot Bloks awhile ago and decided to try some more. This wasn’t a strenuous or really long hike where we needed a meal replacement, we just wanted a little “something”. While not 100% sold on their effectiveness – we do like them as an alternate to energy bars. A single pack costs $2, but buying a box online brings the cost down to about $1.70 a pack.

Taste Verdict: Orange flavor = “ehhhh”, too fakey tasting. The Citrus we tried before was better. Margarita flavor = “not bad”,  tasted like margarita mix sans tequila. As we were eating them I read the label and noticed that this flavor has 3X the sodium and is billed as a “cramp buster”. The extra salt was evident in the flavor, but not in a bad way (unless you hate salt with your margarita of course…)

Wish we had these when hiking in the Grand Canyon a few years back, as it’s important to watch your sodium/water ratio there and these would have been a nice option to switch out with salty snacks.

We just had a loose route in mind, and were going to decide which trails we felt like taking as we went along (which you should not do without a good map and a very good idea of how far you can hike!!).

Overview: This route takes in several view points – along Mountain, SMB and Raccoon Brook Hill trails. Pine Meadow Lake was a lovely break spot as usual and we also decided to take a woods road over to see Lake Wanoksink which was pretty. While this route is not overly long (8.6m), there are decent uphills and rugged sections, especially Raccoon Brook which has lots of large rocks, a little scrambling and a ladder to make this hike challenging.

Miles: 8.6

Parking: N41 08.729 W74 06.754 [Kakiat County Park]. Bathroom in the lot was open.

Route:  Mountain (Orange) – SBM (Suffern-Bear-Mountain Yellow) – Conklins Crossing (WHITE) – Pine Meadow (Red Square on White) – Conklin Road & unmaintained trail to Lake Wanoksink – Woods road – Pine Meadow (Red Square on White) – Pine Meadow Road – Poached Egg (Yellow Circle on White) – Raccoon Brook Hills (Black Dot on White) – KAKIAT (White)

Trail Map: Harriman-Bear Mountain Trails

The Details: From the Kakiat County Park lot, walk over a bridge and pass Old Mill and Kakiat Trails on the right. Mountain Trail (Orange) starts a little ahead and heads steeply up a rocky woods road, with 2 viewpoints where the NYC skyline is visible in the distance.

After a pipeline cut, turn left onto Kakiat (WHITE). At the intersection with SBM (Yellow), turn right. Some views along SMB. Turn left onto Conklins Crossing (WHITE). Pick up Pine Meadow (Red Square on White) as it goes around the lake. There are great places to hang out and have a snack.

There is a woods road (Conklin Road) on the right just after the ruins of a building and it was one of those “hey let’s check this out” days so off we went. After climbing over a couple blowdowns and going a short ways on a woods road, we veered to the left on an unmaintained trail to Lake Wanoksink. The trail hugged the water until hitting a T-intersection at a bunch of pine trees. We turned left and made our way back, turning right back onto Pine Meadow (Red Square on White) again.

Just keep heading towards the lake and bridge, there are several trails in this area and it’s not real clear. More nice views of Pine Meadow Lake and popular lunch spots on this side of the lake. We followed the woods road around the lake until coming to the start of Poached Egg (Yellow Circle on White.. get it? it looks like a egg…)

Poached Egg goes a short ways and ends at Raccoon Brook Hills (Black Dot on White). Turn left onto this (it comes in from the right). Raccoon Brook Hills heads uphill for a limited view of Pine Meadow Lake. There are some steep sections when it starts going downhill, some rocks to scramble over, as well as a ladder (which while not too tough for humans, Fido may be less than thrilled).

Turn left onto Kakiat (WHITE).  As you approach the powerline cut in a rocky area, watch for a left turn to cross a stream. It’s easy to miss – even though there was a rock with a stick on it, we walked right on by. Continue on Kakiat, crossing over SBM, then the pipeline cut. Back within the County park, Kakiat turns right when it comes out to a stone fence, take this out to the main path from earlier and make a left back to the lot.

It was another practically balmy “in-the-50s-in-January!” day and the Johnsontown Rd. parking lot was nearly full when we arrived. We’d last hiked from this lot in September 2006, and I’d forgotten how nice the Blue Disc trail is. The return route via R-D and Kakiat is on the “eh” side in our opinion, perhaps next time we’ll try something with White Bar instead.

There is a trailhead for Kakiat (WHITE) within the parking lot, but for this route we started on Blue Disc. Walk back out of the lot to the paved road that heads off to the RIGHT. There are Blue Dot on White markers. The paved road curves up and around, past a house and a gas utility area before heading into the woods.

“Almost Perpendicular” is a steep rocky section on the Blue Disc trail, with a little scrambling that leads to a nice viewpoint. From here, we could see that the visitor center parking lot at Pine Meadow was quite full too. Our GPS data puts the “Almost Perpendicular” section at an elevation change of about 275 feet in .25 mile.

“Elbow Brush” is a short squeeze through a rock crevice, along Blue Disc. This is easily bypassed by following the sign as you approach, however right at the actual “Elbow” you can decide to bypass or go through.

At the large rock face that contains “Claudius Smith Den” we scrambled up, continuing on Blue Disc to another viewpoint. [To cut this route short, take Tuxedo-Mt. Ivy to the left to meet up with Ramapo-Dunderburg instead of heading up Blue Disc]

After Claudius Smith Den, the Blue Disc continues downhill on a rather rugged section, then up to another view. It ends at Black Ash Swamp . Follow the trail around to the left along the water and pick up Ramapo-Dunderburg (Red Dot on White).

The return route on R-D is more level, on a loose rock and a sometimes muddy woods road, with a few small rock hops over streams. The trail crosses a gas line cut and heads toward Rt. 87. (with much traffic noise), coming to a view over Tuxedo.

RD goes down almost to a small road to pick up Kakiat (White). Follow Kakiat back, passing Orange (from Dater Mtn Park) on the right. Arrive at Blue Disc again, and turn RIGHT on it, which will go back to the lot.

Miles: 6.2

Parking: N41 10.793 W74 09.816 [Johnsontown Rd. parking lot]

Route: Blue Disc (Blue Dot on White) – Ramapo/Dunderburg (Red Dot on White) – Kakiat (White) – Blue Disc (Blue Dot on White)

Trail Map: Harriman-Bear Mountain Trails

Wildlife: two sets of deer; one hanging out at the bottom of a hill on the pipeline cut, and another that kept running away in front of us.

Detailed hike info and directions on our Woods of Wenonah page.

We decided to check out this small park as part of our South Jersey Sampler – we were in the area for some post-holiday gatherings, so we had hiked Estelle Manor the day before, spent the night in Williamstown, and hit Wenonah on the way to the Turnpike.

The Woods of Wenonah is a U-shaped wooded area that surrounds the town of Wenonah. It has several short trails, with access paths that lead off into neighborhoods. It’s not remote by any means, as houses are visible along most of the route. It’s a nice little park though, and we felt the Comey’s Lake area was the prettiest part.

If you are in the South Jersey, this is certainly worth a visit. It’s hillier than you usually get in southern Jersey, and it’s not in the Pine Barrens. For those in north Jersey with all the rugged hiking surrounding you… it’s probably not worth driving down to this park.

Oddly, we only ran into a handful of people on the trail. It was chillier this day than the warm weather we had the day before, so maybe that is why… but we’d assume this trail has to normally be full of joggers/walkers/dog-walkers. It has such great access for the people in the town to walk out their street and have a nice trail right there to use. Hey, all towns should have hiking trails attached to them, right?

The trails aren’t blazed, but marked with signposts at intersections. There are a few spots that it was a little difficult to figure where to go, so we recommend picking up or sending for the trail map.

Miles: 6.0 – [This is combining every trail, most individual trails are under 1 mile.]

Parking: N39 47.922 W75 09.138 [Wenonah Lake lot, which is not marked as parking on the trail map!?]

Route: Wenonah Lake Trail – Break Back Run Trail – Mantua Creek Trail – Monongahela Brook Trail – Eldridge Trail – Monongahela Brook Loop Trail – Eldridge Trail – Comey’s Lake Trail – Eldridge Trail – Monongahela Brook Trail – Mantua Creek Trail – Break Back Run Trail

Detailed hike info and directions on our Estelle Manor Park page.

The weekend after New Years we found ourselves in southern Jersey for post-holiday gatherings two nights in a row, and took advantage of hotel stays to check out some smaller parks we wouldn’t normally drive down to: Estelle Manor Park and then Wenonah Woods the next day. We even lucked out with a gorgeous upper-50s day.

We hit Estelle Manor Park on our way out of Atlantic City. Trails here are super easy – flat, level, packed sand typical of Jersey’s Pine Barrens. This park is more of a ‘hey let’s go for a walk or have a picnic” kinda park and not a remote hiking destination but it’s worth a visit. A big highlight of this park is the long section of boardwalk called the Pine Swamp Trail.

The trails are not really blazed, there are some directional signage at junctions… so it’s a bit vague. Make sure you print out a trail map or pick up one at the nature center.

There is also a nature center, playground, picnic areas, bike rentals, fields, etc. The trails are multi-use and the north section is a mountain bike trail. The easy trail surface here may make this a good choice when snow is on the ground.

Miles: 6.5 [actual miles: 7.4 due to a wrong a wrong turn in the mountain bike section]

Parking: N39 23.895 W74 44.565

Route: Pond Trail – Exercise Trail – Point Trail – Cribbers Road – Swamp Trail – Smokeless Powder Trail – Duck Farm Trail – North End Trail

Bombs Away!!!: This area was used as a munitions plant in WWI, check out some history and photos about the Bethlehem Loading Company.

We chose Mahlon because we wanted a moderate loop that we’d mostly done before so we didn’t have to think too hard after having our annual ‘wine-n-cheesies’ the night before. Mahlon’s trails are very scenic, plus there is Headley overlook and another viewpoint. (Both viewpoints are a little drab this time of year however)

We planned on parking at the Saffin Dam lot. While I knew that there was a Highlands Trail re-route on the one side of the dam, I didn’t know the entire Saffin Pond parking lot was roped-off and closed (and porta-john removed). There were several cars parked along the road but we decided to head further down the road to another parking lot and start our route from there.

Saffin Pond is really pretty, but if you are heading just to the park just to see it – hold off. It’s not-so-scenic while they are working on the dam. The water is very low, and there is construction equipment at the dam. The trails in the park are fine and worth hiking though!

>>>For more info, trail maps, and other hikes in Mahlon, check out Headley Overlook or the Beaver Brook Trail.

Miles: 8.7 miles

Parking: N41 00.776 W74 33.833 (picnic parking area)

Route: HIGHLANDS (Teal) – WHITE – BLUE DOT – BLUE – HIGHLANDS – [Saffin Pond] – YELLOW – Unmarked – HIGHLANDS

Snack Time: Clif Bar recently sent us this cute little box with some samples. On this hike we tried the last item we had left: Clif Shot Bloks, Citrus. They come 6 bite-sized pieces to a package, and it’s recommended to eat 3 to 6 pieces every hour. Well, we had one package so we split it.

Verdict: 2 thumbs up. We’d never tried any of the Clif Shots products before, as they’ve never appealed to us. We use energy bars as an easy, portable meal replacement while hiking – as opposed to some super performance thingy. (It’s not like we are running a marathon or a bike race.)

The texture is like a gummy-bear but not as chewy or sticky. The citrus taste was mild and pleasant, and not fakey or left an aftertaste like we expected.

As for actually giving us energy… we’d have to test them more to see.  Negatives: Not filling, so they wouldn’t work as a portable meal replacement. However, we would consider buying.