Hawk Rise Sanctuary — Attraction in Linden

Short review: Nice, small park built on a former landfill. Located in the industrial part of town; the sanctuary is literally surrounded by petroleum tanks and gas/oil pipes. You will smell mixtures of industrial smells at time.

The place is practically hidden. When driving through the industrial area to get there, and when entering the road (with long, massive steel oil/gas tubes on your sides) that leads to the sanctuary, you're gonna be expressing 'what the heck...a sanctuary..here?!' The industry side of town and its presence of factories, pipelines, tankers, trucks, etc is going to toy with your mind. Expecting a nature 'sanctuary' here won't process at first. You'll be expecting a 'sanctuary' of chemical dumps and trash. And that's not too far off.

At the end of road, a small parking area with a sign "Hawk Rise Sanctuary" is on your left. Once you start parking, your mind will ease knowing you're at the right place. This place was a former landfill (an area where all of the town's garbage gets thrown into) and a hot spot for chemical dumping. Many referred to it as 'Cancer Alley' for years. It was a place set to close in 1982, but kept packing in waste till 2000. It has been a problematic area, with Linden racking up close to a $1 million in fines by NJ's environmental protection. As part of a settlement, the idea was created to turn the place into a sanctuary, which opened in 2012. You are reminded a bit of its past by the various signs that teach about 'landfills' in the park.

As you walk inside, you quickly become enveloped by nature. Tall trees, lots of botanical life, marshes, and more. It is a fairly quick hike around the loop. There's an additional part in mid-loop that lead down a terrain path to a 'observatory-like' section. Here, you can view the immediate marshes near you, some of the meandering water channels, and a distant pond with birds. Sometimes, you'll encounter bird watchers with massive telescopic lenses at the observatory. The entire hike is a quick 1 mile.

I visited a few times to explore and practice photography (see attached photos). You'll hear a large array of bird sounds in the early part of the day. If you are a bird nerd, over 200 species have been documented here. Deer and racoon sightings are common. Though there are no gardens of flowers, there is interesting plant life here. Fields across marshes. Life is thriving here.

Sometimes, you'll smell chemical-industrial odors mixed with nature smells. Although you'll be immersed by nature, you can hear all sorts of industrial sounds piercing in - notably a pipe-chime. It's somewhat degrading that locals has one of their rare parks built on a former landfill (some landfill parks in other places hasn't worked out well). At the sametime, this place is worth your time to see how nature can heal environmental wounds caused by the hands of humans. The large 'mountain' you see is not an actual mountain; it's a mountain of human-created trash now covered by scenic pastures concealing its past.

'Sanctuary' is a bit much for its naming. Humans exploited the area for countless decades, then cover it up with a pleasant 'sanctuary' name. A part of you wonders if the near-century build up of trash will leach methane, mercury, lead or other toxic chemicals into the local ecology. Another part of you wonders if there are local mutations due to its past dumping history. I have not yet come across 3-headed deer or birds with four wings. At the time of this 2018 writing, the 'sanctuary' has existed for 7 years and it seems to be thriving and...

It's a small sanctuary nestled in between some neighborhoods, strip malls and light industrial buildings. This is one of those parks where they did their best to make it accessible to everyone and did an ok job but it's just not the same as a walk in a real forest. The biggest issue is the walkways that were installed have huge open areas in the middle so people throw tons of trash into them. I wonder if that ever gets cleaned up? There is a literal hill made of trash on one edge of the wetland. If you live in the area and want to take a short walk in a lightly wooded area or you have some sort of scouting event this would be a good place to visit. The signage around the place highlights the work that has been done and also explains the importance of not having every square inch of the Earth. Otherwise it's not all that exciting. It's small and convenient to the area but not worth the effort of...

It’s really a shame that we could not enjoy the scenery due to multiple things. There are political graffiti’s on the property, and I know it is not the sanctuary itself at fault but clearly there has been no attempt to remove them. As a Jewish person I found it extremely offensive that this antisemitic graffiti is not removed (I did NOT add the stickers over it and I don’t condone that either) moreover, there is clearly no dogs signs everywhere however we were greeted unpleasantly by an extremely aggressive pit bull. After walking away to avoid it, not but 5 minutes later it was behind us clearly charging towards us, as the individual had to pull the leash back with all of their strength to control it. I wish we could enjoy but I was so upset by all of this we had to leave less than...