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Vandals spoiling the view atop Apple Pie Hill tower

It is one of the highest points in the New Jersey Pinelands. And the view from the 60-foot-tall Apple Pie Hill fire tower is so sweeping that at certain times on a clear day, you can see the sun refracted from the glistening Liberty Place tower in Philadelphia, some 30 miles to the west and the Borgata Casino about 50 miles to the southeast.

Craig Watson, 62, a retired phone company lineman, has worked part time in the Apple Pie Hill tower for 14 years spotting fires. "This tower is such an important asset to this entire region, so it's very sad that there people who have come here and treated it the way they have," he said.
Craig Watson, 62, a retired phone company lineman, has worked part time in the Apple Pie Hill tower for 14 years spotting fires. "This tower is such an important asset to this entire region, so it's very sad that there people who have come here and treated it the way they have," he said.Read moreMichael Bryant / Staff Photographer

It is one of the highest points in the New Jersey Pinelands.

And the view from the 60-foot-tall Apple Pie Hill fire tower is so sweeping that at certain times on a clear day, you can see the sun refracted from the glistening Liberty Place tower in Philadelphia, some 30 miles to the west and the Borgata Casino about 50 miles to the southeast.

With so little light pollution from electrical sources in the remote Burlington County spot, the site is said to have an almost magical vibe at night, with the stars above and a carpet of sparkling points of light for miles and miles below.

And until this month, that spectacular view could be had by anyone hiking along the Batona Trail in Wharton State Forest just about any time of the day or night. The site in Tabernacle has been popular since the 1950s for hikers, campers, and scout troops. They would climb the 78 steps to take in the view and perhaps learn about the New Jersey Forest Fire Service fire observers who keep the area safe by sitting in the tower during daylong shifts looking for columns of smoke rising from the thick woodlands.

But after years of after-hours vandalism at the site - which has ranged from obscene graffiti, to people defecating on the steel steps and throwing televisions off the top decks, to break-ins and thefts from the observation room - fire service and state park officials last week have severely restricted access to the tower. It's now by appointment-only.

"It's not a decision we made lightly . . . but it's gotten to the point where we just feel we have no other choice," said Shawn Judy, an assistant warden with the state Forest Fire Service.

A 10-foot-tall chain-link fence has been placed around the base of the tower and admittance is now granted on an appointment-only basis during regular business hours of 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and through special arrangements on the weekend. The tower is in a remote, wooded area at the end of a sandy, unpaved lane more than two miles from a paved road outside the village of Chatsworth. The tower was built there in 1950 and is similar in design to eight others scattered throughout the Pinelands.

Though the vandalism has been occurring over decades, its frequency has increased in recent years. Officials say that maybe it is being spurred by social-media sites such as Facebook and Instagram, where "bad actors" will often post photos or videos of their escapades and boast about them to followers.

Sgt. Barrett Beard of the New Jersey State Park Police said several vandals over the years had been caught "red-handed" on the site and postings on social media have led to a few arrests.

"I think the remoteness of this particular location is what makes it attractive to vandals," Beard said, "because we really haven't had this sort of trouble at the other towers."

Beard said most of the acts had been more typical types of vandalism - the spray-painting or the etching of racial slurs or obscenities upon the metal guardrail around the tower or into the steel structure itself or throwing trash - including old computers and TVs - from the decks.

But other crimes have been downright dastardly, like the morning a fire observer arrived for work and found a used condom entwined on a padlock. Or the time human feces was smeared along the entire length of the hand railing on the six-story structure. Bottles of urine are often left outside the door of the room.

Several years ago, a communications radio and a map showing the entire radius of the region in relation to the other fire towers - a key to determining the precise location where fires have broken out so crews can be quickly sent to fight them - was thrown off the tower and destroyed after vandals broke into the observation room. The map was a particular keepsake because it contained notes and details about remote locations in the area that had been made over the years by fire service observers.

"It's a shame a few people can ruin it for everyone else," said Lisa Dove, of Claymont, Del., whose family owns a summer cottage in nearby Chatsworth and often hikes the Batona Trail. "We always enjoyed hiking out there in the evening to look at the stars or in the daytime take friends out there so they could understand the vastness of the Pinelands. Now the only way to do it will be to make an appointment, which kind of spoils the spontaneity of going."

Across the country and throughout the world, such stunts at public parks and monuments have become almost de rigueur. So much so that psychologists are calling it the "online disinhibition effect," a kind of dissociative behavior pattern that leads people to act out so they can post about it.

The latest high-profile national example may be an act of vandalism caught on camera this month along the Oregon coast, where an iconic sandstone rock formation known as the Duckbill Rock was pulled down by a group of hikers who snapped photos of themselves and their handiwork afterward - presumably to post. But a surveillance drone captured footage of them in the actual act of pushing the rock over and they are being sought by authorities.

Earlier in the summer, the exploits of three international tourists came to light when authorities saw postings about their illegal behavior at three national parks, including Yellowstone, where they recorded themselves walking on the Grand Prismatic Spring. The so-called High on Life vandals had also posted on social media their alleged illegal behavior at other sites, including the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and the Berlin Holocaust Memorial in Germany.

"This tower is such an important asset to this entire region, so it's very sad that there people who have come here and treated it the way they have," said Craig Watson, 62, a retired phone company lineman who has worked part time in the Apple Pie Hill tower for 14 years spotting fires.

Watson and his fellow observers don't use satellites or GPS because so much of the Pinelands is quite remote and essentially off the grid. And since the tower is made of steel, a compass can't be used to determine locations. So an old school instrument called an alidade is used to sight the distant locations where a fire may have broken out.

"I do love it up here," said Watson, who noted he is unfazed by the sometimes loneliness of his job. "I don't get tired of looking at the view. . . . I feel it really is something to be honored, to be appreciated. I just wish everyone could understand that and treat this area with the respect that it deserves."

jurgo@phillynews.com

609-652-8382 @JacquelineUrgo