Today I was hiking in the 1700 acre Atlantic County Park at Estell Manor and found the largest Pitch Pine I've ever seen, bar none. With no measuring tape with me (I will have to buy one), I estimate that it was a good 30 inches in diamater, and quite tall.
 
Estell Manor is technically a city, but is in reality nothing but a large rural township. The south end of the park contains ball fields, picnic areas, children's play areas, a veteran's cemetery, a small historic family cemetery, a nature center, and the ruins of an 1830s glass factory complex. The rest of the park is forest, which contains dozens of ruins and other building remains, from back when there was a World War I shell-loading complex on the site. From viewing old photographs from 1917-18 I noticed that some of the mature trees already on site were left there and never removed. Therefore it follows that there should be a few very old and large trees scattered around the forest. I found one of them!
 
Enclosed are three photos of this tree. I was very impressed with it. I've never seen a Pitch Pine like it. Because of its size, the first thing I did was look on the ground for Loblolly Pine cones, but there weren't any. There's no reason to believe that any Loblollies were ever planted there. This tree must be a Pitch Pine. There's no other possibility.
 
So this was a great find today. And I was hiking with temperatures in the single digits. Quite bracing! But later in the day it went up to 20, so it felt quite warm. I think it's still at 20 now.
Barry
P.S. In the south end of the park near the veterans cemetery there are some pretty large Willow Oaks, which are quite beautiful. I did not photograph them because as I drove on the one-way loop road, past these trees, the sun was shining toward me. I would have had to park in the veterans cemetery lot, and find a better vantage point for pictures. I really didn't feel like it at the time.

ENTS,
 
I measured the CBH of this monster today. This is down in Estell Manor, as I previously mentioned.
This is far and away the largest Pitch Pine I've ever seen, but not a champion!
It is 6'10".
Barry