The Cooper River Park loop - a fall walk around the lake from Cherry Hill to Collingswood

Every time somebody new moves to the county and asks me where to walk, I send them to Cooper River Park. It's flat and paved, and in late October the trees along the water finally turn. You can do the whole loop in a little over an hour at an easy pace and still get home before the kids notice you left.

If you've only ever driven past it on North Park Drive, here's how to actually use it.

What you're walking around

Cooper River Park is a long, skinny county park that follows the Cooper River through four towns. Camden County lists it at about 346 acres in Pennsauken, Cherry Hill, Collingswood and Haddon Township, bounded by North and South Park Drives, Route 130 and Grove Street. The river widens into a long lake through the middle of it, and that lake is the whole reason the park feels the way it does.

The main path is a paved loop of about 3.8 miles that runs from Cuthbert Boulevard to Route 130 and back on the other bank. Both the county and the Circuit Trails coalition give that same number. There's also a shorter 1.35-mile stretch from Cuthbert out to Grove Street if you want to add on toward Haddonfield. The Circuit Trails guide points out that the loop doesn't cross a street, which is the thing parents of little bike riders care about most.

Where to park and how to start

The Circuit Trails guide lists parking at 101 Park Boulevard in Cherry Hill, on the north side near the Route 130 end. Plenty of people also pull into the lots along North Park Drive by Cuthbert. If you'd rather leave the car home, the same guide names PATCO's Collingswood, Westmont and Haddonfield stations as the closest, with back streets that walk you down to the water. NJ Transit buses 406, 413, 450 and 451 get you close too.

My move is to start at Cuthbert and walk west along the south bank first, so the sun is behind me in the morning. The county says the indoor restrooms at the stadium are open all year, 10am to 10pm, which is good to know before you commit to the far end.

How Cooper River Park got its lake

The lake looks natural if you don't know better. It isn't. The Cultural Landscape Foundation says Camden County hired the planner Charles Leavitt Jr. in 1923 to lay out a county park system, and the county and its park commission built Cooper River Park between 1925 and 1940. Crews dredged and filled the river and built a stone dam, which turned about 2.5 miles of the Cooper into the lake you're walking beside. The county's own park guide also credits Depression-era work crews with the job.

Preservation New Jersey adds that the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps built a lot of what you still see from the path in the 1930s, including a model yacht basin, a tennis clubhouse and the rowing course. Look at the low fieldstone walls and steps near the water as you go. TCLF says that stone was quarried locally, and most of it is older than anyone's grandparents in the park that morning.

The county counted the park's first century in 2023 and threw more than 100 events for it. The Inquirer covered that one, right down to the anniversary beer a local brewery made.

The old house on South Park Drive

About halfway down the south side you'll pass a brick Georgian house that looks like it wandered in from Haddonfield. That's the Hopkins House, at 256 South Park Drive. Sources don't agree on the exact year. Preservation New Jersey says Ebenezer Hopkins built it in 1735, the photographer's caption on Commons says 1737, and TCLF just says early 1700s. Call it the 1730s and you're safe. TCLF says the county bought the house in 1936 and the WPA fixed it up as the park police headquarters. Either way, the house is about two centuries older than the lake it overlooks.

Watching the rowers

The real show at Cooper River Park is on the water. The county describes the straightaway as a 2,000-meter Olympic-distance course, narrow and sheltered, and it's why the big spring regattas come here. Even on a fall weekday morning there's usually a crew shell or two cutting down the middle with a coach puttering behind in a launch.

The Camden County Boathouse is the four-story building on the bank. The county says it opened in July 2006 and has an observation tower with a view of the Philly skyline. The Circuit Trails guide says seven local rowing clubs train out of it. I can't promise you'll get up the tower on a random Tuesday, but the deck view of the shells coming in is free.

A few tips before you go

• Go in the morning if you want the rowers. Afternoons are busier with joggers and strollers.
• Bring a layer. It's always a few degrees cooler right by the water than it is at your car.
• The Rohrer playground pavilions are first come, first served, so don't plan a birthday around one.
• If you want food after, the Circuit Trails guide sends people to Collingswood and Haddonfield on the quiet south side streets. I'm not going to argue with that.

The short version

Park at Cuthbert or 101 Park Boulevard, walk the 3.8-mile loop, wave at the Hopkins House, and stop on the boathouse deck to watch a crew go by. Cooper River Park was built in the Depression to give the county somewhere to breathe, and it still does that job better than anywhere else around here.