Hike #473; Belvidere/Riverton Area Loop

Hike #473 3/14/10

3/14/10 Belvidere/Riverton Area Loop with "Action Adam" Stevens, Chris Kroschinski, and Jillane Becker

Along abandoned roads just north of Belvidere NJ

For my next hike, I think I had the day off for some reason, like a government holiday or something. Either way, I of course wanted to do a hike, and so I asked my old buddy Action Adam to join me.

The two of us headed to Belvidere NJ to wander around and explore a bit. We parked in town and I believe our first step was to walk into Pennsylvania on the Belvidere-Riverton Bridge. We crossed and then headed toward the Lower Mt. Bethel Township Park where I usually would use the connector trail to access the Tekening Preserve, but this time there was something new, a nice new visitor's center above the site. We went to check it out, but it was closed. There was, however, a map of some new trails in the area I took a picture of.

We headed out from the center onto the connector trail and then into the Tekening Preserve where we took the right fork through the farmlands and high above the river. Our friend Chris "Cupcake" Kroschinski was going to meet us at the other side of Tekening, and I believe he was there when we arrived, or if not he didn't take long.

Along connector trail heading south from Tekening Preserve near Riverton PA

From here, the new trails led parallel with Depue Ferrry Road, then crossed and paralleled Depue Road I guess shortly. I'd seen these trails for the first time during the previous Summer when I canoed Foul Rift. The trail then descended for a bit to a river, but it was flowing like crazy and we weren't going to be able to get across to get up the other side, so we had to turn back to Tekening.

No crossing here...

This time, we followed the trail closer to the river, of course the more scenic route.

We continued on to the Lower Mt Bethel connector trail down into the park which had tons of water held in a puddle in it. We walked from here across the Belvidere-Riverton Bridge yet again and to the area of Skoogy's Deli (but not the one I'd been visiting for years; they now had two locations in town, and this one was on the main street about a half mile from the bridge).

Here, my girlfriend Jillane met up with us to hike for a while. Our next step was to head up onto the former Belvidere and Delaware Railroad toward tne Hoffman LaRoche facility. We walked this track, which I hadn't walked in a few years, and came to where there was a tanker car parked on the left siding where I believe there'd often been one before.

Cupcake said he had a friend who knew how to release the brakes on these, and so he called him. Next thing we know, we hear a giant air noise as Cupcake released the air brakes! He then turned the wheel to release the manual brakes! I remember on hike #1 in 1997 Conrad had asked me how many people it would take to push a rail car if the brakes weren't on...so...the answer is three! The three of us pushed the rail car for a bit, and Cupcake pulled the brake again once we'd moved it a bit.

The rail car we pushed, Belvidere NJ

We had quite a laugh and contiued on. The tracks went into the fence at the plant ahead, so we turned to the left into the woods. Since the last time I walked this stretch there was a little fence installed. We ignored it and wandered on through. Everything seemed the same after we reached the abandoned system of roads parallel with the Delaware. We followed them to the left.

Abandoned roads in vicinity of what used to be Hercules in Belvidere NJ

When we got to the fork, usually I took the right and skirted another fence line to get back out to the ball fields in Belvidere, but this time we kept with the left fork. We came to where the paved road continued straight ahead but a more open one continued to left. I know there was once a regualr road through this area, and I assumed this must have been it. I once followed the road straight and go lost with my buddy Ron Short back in 2000, but we never went left.

We came to some old foundations, probably leftovers from the Hercules Powder Plant, and then came to some step ruins probably of a former farm house. A lime kiln was in the area as well, in very nice shape and covered with lovely moss.

Lime kiln on abandoned road north of Belvidere

Just north of Belvidere in the old Hercules area

Also, we found another old fire hydrant like I'd done on previous trips.

The road we were following turned out to be the one that we'd have come out on after following the edge of the fenceline had we followed the route closer to the river from the first fork. We came to the chain link fence we had to get though to get back into Belvidere, and I was very happy to see I could still squeeze through the tight fence posts as I'd done when I was twenty.

We walked backinto town, and Jillane admired some of the nice huge trees. When we reached Skoogy's Deli (the lower one) we stopped for a food break. Jillane and Action Adam cut out here, but Cupcake and I continued on. We crossed the trestle over the Pequest for the views, and then I believe we went through my grandfather's lot at some point.

We then made our way back across the river on the bridge and we walked the field section of the Tekening Preserve to get back to Cupcake's car.

Hike #472; Long Valley to Stephens State Park

 Hike #472 3/6/10

3/6/10 Long Valley to Stephens State Park with Jason Itell, Al Maclennan, Jen ?, Kyle Zalinsky, "Major Tom" Conroy, Amanda Rosenblatt, Laura Kroon, Beth Styler Berry, ?, ?, ?, ?, and Wayne Meiner.

The group on Patriot's Path/Highlands Trail on old Mission Road, Schooley's Mt area

3/6/10 Long Valley to Stephens State Park with Jason Itell, Al Maclennan, Jen ?, Kyle Zalinsky, "Major Tom" Conroy, Amanda Rosenblatt, Laura Kroon, Beth Styler Berry, ?, ?, ?, ?, and Wayne Meiner.

My next hike would be a repeat of a past classic, but this time in a very much different way.

In the preceding months, I had the pleasure through work to lead a hike for the Musconetcong River Watershed Association where I'd met Beth Styler Berry. Beth was running programs along the river and it's watershed regularly and offered to pay me to do another hike for the group outside of Hunterdon Parks. I was happy to lead another hike for free because I of course believe in their cause.

 

I framed a hike around the desired mileage for Beth's group, and had my own group start earlier and finish later. This hike would be along the Patriot's Path and Highlands Trail between Long Valley and Stephens State Park.

After meeting in Stephens, we shuttled cars to Long Valley. I decided to try to do a suit and tie theme, but no one really got with it. I lent Kyle one of my jackets but it just wasn't the same.

Columbia Trail in Long Valley

I wanted to do something a bit different for this one, and so when we started at first on the Columbia Trail in Long Valley, we turned off of it on the former Chester Branch of the CNJ Railroad to see what was left. It was pretty overgrown so we didn't get too far. We then went to the gas pipeline bridge after the steel yard and I brought the group across that, which is always enjoyable.

I believe we came back around on the Patriot's Path by walking through the orchard and back to the Columbia Trail. Since I always like it better we then turned onto the abandoned older portion of the Patriots Path out to the parking area on Fairview Ave. Wayne was hurting bad from the weird walking we were doing in the snow so he turned back here before he hurt himself too much.

We crossed Fairview and turned left following the Patriot's Path/HT up hill steeply.

Giant tree on Patriot's Path, Schooley's Mt. Park

We ascended to the viewpoint over Long Valley which was nice and clear.

At the overlook on Schooley's Mountain into Long Valley

From this point I believe I gave everyone the option of either staying on Patriot's Path or descending into the valley to see the two waterfalls on the Electric Brook. I think only Jason, Major Tom, Kyle and I went down for it. Maybe Jen went...I can't remember. The falls were running strong and we were glad we made the side trip.

Electric Brook Falls, Schooley's Mt.

We regrouped at Lake George in Schooley's Mountain Park and continued on along the Patriot's Path northbound after crossing the famous floating bridge.

Amanda and Kyle classic shot, Schooley's Mt Park

After crossing Springtown Road, we went back into the woods and I was surprised to see a new footbridge had been installed over Electric Brook where one had been missing for so long. We continued from here north to Rock Road. There were still no blazes on the section along the access road to Harrington Field as I recall, but we were able to go ahead to the next section in the narrow tree line east of Falcon Court, now all blazed since my last visit.

We crossed Flocktown Road and then the yard of Flocktown Kossman School and headed through another section that was difficult to walk or find blazes until we reached the power lines. We continued on and crossed two roads on the power line section. The second road had signs saying to go right to continue on Patriot's Path, but we followed the abandoned route along the power line, then cut over to the left trying to find the tape marked trail to the Cataracts. We found something marked with can lids or something instead as I recall, then followed the trail to the top of the falls.

I think I asked Jason and Kyle to get everyone together and bring them to the old iron mine near the falls while I ran to meet up with Beth's group at the pull off parking on Schooley's Mountain Road.

I ran as hard as I could quickly down the steep hill to the parking area. It must've been quite a sight to see a lunatic in a full three piece suit barreling down the hill toward them.

In the group was my co worker, Naturalist Laura Kroon, but other than her I don't know the names of any of the other participants, but there were at least four more.

I took the entire group to the mine, then to Cataract Falls.

Cataract Falls

Everyone made the climb to the top and we walked the Cataract Trail out along the steep rim of the gorge and then to the big water tank behind Heath Village. From here we came to the Knoll Trail and ascended to it's peak. After taking a break here we climbed the unmaintained trail connector (which still had a few ribbons remaining) up hill to near a yard. We continued through the woods until we came to the blazed section of Patriot's Path.

We followed the trail along the berm as I'd done in the past, then descended along switchbacks to the abandoned section of Mission Road. Kyle was at first apprehensive, but I got him to lead everyone on in dolphin impersonation. Of course it was funny to see a group of people yelling "ECKECKECKECKECKECK!".

We turned right on old Mission Road under the power lines, then past the lime kiln and up hill. Someone was building some sort of outlandish new deck into the trees directly above the trail along the way.

We soon reached the corner of Mission, Resevoir, and Spring Roads and turned left.

Interesting hiking attire on both parts

Just after passing the entrance to a developement we turned left again into the woods following the flagged off trail that had not been blazed yet. We continued gradually down hill and came out behind the developement along Rt 46 where it came down from Mt. Olive.

We walked the paths through the developement and then out toward the old A&P where I had Beth meet her group and park cars. On the way I missed the turn to bring everyone onto the abandoned farm road that would've been a great trail. Everyone in Beth's group except for Laura cut out at the old A&P, now abandoned.

The rest of us continued across Rt 46; I ran into an abandoned building that stood there to have a look around before it got torn down. Jillane once went into this building and got me a bunch of old books and newspapers. I'm glad in retrospect I gave so many of them away to Doug at work or they'd have all been lost in the fire.

After exploring the house I ran to meet up with the others at the new Target. We had a sit down at the little eatery inside before moving on.

Lunch break in Target, Hackettstown

Kyle and I annoyed Amanda with our antics, and when Kyle asked why she didn't say anything to me she said "Well I can't control him!".

Target, Hackettstown

We continued out of Target onto a former through road that was now abandoned that led out to East Ave.

Abandoned road near Target, Hackettstown

Once there, to my surprise Kyle said he couldn't go on along the trail and was going to walk the roads back to Stephens State Park. It was possibly more distance doing that, and I didn't understand at the time why Kyle couldn't handle the elevation. He had not been himself lately, losing energy and not being as much fun. I suspected he was taking some drugs from work, but I wasn't sure exactly which ones or the combinations...

The rest of us continued on along the road until we reached Mine Hill Road which was soon abandoned.

Jason and a tree, East Ave Hackettstown

We made our way steeply up, then turned left on the Highlands Trail/Patriot's Path.

Highlands Trail/Patriot's Path on Mine Hill Road abandonment, Hackettstown area

This took us down into Stephens State Park along the river where we finished our hike. I think Kyle and Amanda were waiting there for us.

Giant tree on Patriot's Path, Schooley's Mt. Park

At the overlook on Schooley's Mountain into Long Valley

Electric Brook Falls, Schooley's Mt.

Amanda and Kyle classic shot, Schooley's Mt Park

Cataract Falls

Interesting hiking attire on both parts

Lunch break in Target, Hackettstown

Target, Hackettstown

Abandoned road near Target, Hackettstown

Jason and a tree, East Ave Hackettstown

Highlands Trail/Patriot's Path on Mine Hill Road abandonment, Hackettstown area

Columbia Trail in Long Valley