Hike #1003; Hopewell to Mercer Mall

Hike #1003; Hopewell to Mercer Mall

11/12/17 Hopewell to Mercer Mall with Jason W. Briggs, James Quinn, Stephen Argentina, and Dan Asnis

This next hike would be another point to point, this time between Hopewell and Quaker Bridge/Mercer Mall area. We met at Mercer Mall and I shuttled Jason and Dan to Hopewell in my car to start.
There’s so much to see in this area, and so many different great trails to connect everything, I could continued for over a year and still cover new stuff every time.
We started walking from near the liquor store, and Dan couldn’t believe I didn’t go into that one or the one at the meeting point.

Hopewell Borough Park

We walked the main street a bit, then went down South Greenwich Avenue to get to a trail system that leaves from the corner. There was a nice pavilion and a couple of different routes to pick from.
We first walked down by the playground, and then got on another trail that went left, and parallel with a woods line, with Beden Brook off to the right. I wasn’t sure if the trail would have a way across it if we tried to go any other way, so I decided to forego that this time. On a future hike I have another idea of which way we’ll turn. We continued south along the tree line.

Hopewell Borough Park map

We continued through a slightly wooded area and could then see the trails connected to the field sections to the west. That will have to be a future hike. My plan called for too much extra stuff to be adding on this early.
It’s amazing to me that there are still so many trails I have never done before. We started the hike right where we had passed by on so many others, and this was a trail system only a few blocks away that I had never been on at all. They’ve probably been there a very long time too, just never bothered with it.
They were wide and easy, with a crushed stone surface and area around the outside of that further mowed.
We walked the thing south, and there were connections to the other side of the Beden Brook for the rest of the trail system through the fields on the southwest side of town in the township properties.

Hopewell Borough Park

We passed by a lovely building shown on the maps as a pump house, which had an historic look, but is probably just made to look historic. It’s probably some fancy restroom or sewage ejector pit.
We continued along the east side of some fields in a line of trees, and when we got to the south side of the local school’s ball fields, we turned left into an opening to skirt their south side. The rest of the Hopewell trails still continued south, but I didn’t know if there was a way we could get through had we gone that way. It was fortunate we didn’t attempt, because we would have had to backtrack.

Historic looking pump house

We continued across the school field which was really wet from the recent rains and snow. I was wearing my sneakers, and ended up getting them quite wet.
We came out of the school property onto Hopewell Princeton Road. This was the road we would later meet James and Stephen on.

St. Michael's Farm Preserve Map

We soon turned left into the St. Michael’s Farm Preserve. This was yet another trail system I had never been on.
The preserve was formerly the site of St. Michael’s Orphanage and Industrial School which was operated by the Catholic Diocese of Trenton from 1896 until 1973. After the orphanage was closed the building where they lived and went to school was torn down and most of the land was leased to a local farmer. Despite plans to develop the land, D&R Greenways eventually purchased it to turn it into the preserve.
We entered at the road, although I found later that we could have gone in from across from the school another way. There was a guy working on the gate when we walked, who greeted us warmly as we made our way along the northern section of fields. We could have gone further to another northern loop, but it’s probably good we didn’t try that this time. There’s so much more to see really.

St. Michael's entrance

We saw the access trail to the north, and then an inviting one with some puncheons on it, but we continued going to the east, to emerge on more fields again.
We were below a slope following the north side of the fields, and when we looked back the sun was starting to set beautifully. We continued to the east end of the fields, and the rail turned to the right heading to the south. It was here that we came much closer to a northern branch of Beden Brook, one of the tributaries of the Millstone River, which was quite beautiful. I had been thinking this was a tributary to the Stony Brook, but I was incorrect. It’s quite interesting to see Beden Brook takes an east route, and I’d like to trace more of it.

Beden Brook

We continued to the south along the fields, and at the next end we turned to head east for a bit. This took us to another access road that still had some farm building on it. There were a couple of people walking this section as we went by.

Sunset at St. Michael's

The sun was setting beautifully over the structures, and we had to stop for a break to figure out exactly where we were heading. I had downloaded the map of the preserve to my phone to compare with the aerial images as we went, and that worked out rather well.
We turned to the left to cross over Beden Brook on a farm bridge, then turned left, heading east again along the edge of more fields. This took us to another edge where we once again turned south. Many of the fields have deer fencing and such around them, and the trails were extremely wet around the edges. We tried carefully to stay off of the wet areas, but it was inevitable that our feet were not staying dry.

Sunset at St. Michael's

After the trail turned to the right heading south again, there was a very nice overlook of the fields with an even better view of the sunset. I got a call in this area from Stephen, followed by James. I had told them both where about to meet us, then swapped calls and tried to get them to meet up with each other.

Sunset in St. Michael's Preserve

The other three of us continued around the fields to the spot where there is another access in from Aunt Molly Road to the east. There are more trails there and to the east of that road, but we wouldn’t even try to do any of that this time. That will be yet another future hike (in addition to Aunt Molly Road, a better route than what we’d end up using).
We crossed a weird metal open grate farm bridge and continued along more fields heading south, and when we got to the south side of that field a trail went into the woods with green D&R Greenways markers. We followed that trail for a ways, and continued around a very nice loop complete with footbridges and puncheons.
While in the woods, Stephen and James were able to park and started walking Hopewell Princeton Road to meet up with us. I figured they’d probably catch up with us by the time we got to the same road.
When we emerged from the woods, we turned left along the edge and out to the same road. After about ten minutes Stephen and James arrived. We all continued to walk the road to the south.
This was the worst part of the hike as far as actual hiking goes. It was extremely busy, more so than I thought it would be, and the shoulder was deathly narrow. I won’t ever attempt to use that stretch of road on a hike again.
We continued north to where Crusher Road joined from the right. Beyond that we had the safety of a few yards to walk in, then cut into a wooded area to the right with a large gravel parking area.

Weird informal trails, yay

We were able to take a very vague path, probably just an animal trail, down hill from the gravel area and to a fenced in power station. We then turned right to skirt the fence line.
We made the corner along the fence, and a path led out ot the access road to the power station. We followed this down hill a bit, and then turned to the right onto some kind of utility clearing that followed along the east side of Pennington-Rocky Hill Road. We only followed this for a short bit until I could see where we needed to cut across to get on the newly developed section of the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail.
We had followed this bit on a previous hike and ended up having the crazy experience with the car. I figured that was a one in a thousand shot and we could do it again.
At first, we ran the wrong way and ended up in someone’s back yard trails. We went back out to the road and made our way to the paved Lawrence-Hopewell Trail route.

Full moon over the trail

The moon was rising amazingly in this area. It was what Jason called a “Wolf Moon”. It was full and seemed enormous. As we walked the trail, it seemed to look even bigger. It provided just enough light that flashlights weren’t even necessary.
I took a few photos of it, and then went for a final photo of it with my phone. This, or possibly texting Russell Lord Byron Rapp was the last time I recall seeing my phone before I lost it on this hike, only the third time I had lost my phone in my life (the first was after a hike in 2007, the second was on the anniversary hike in 2016).
I recall putting my pack down in this area, and we waited for Dan to catch up, but I’m not sure exactly where it might have fallen at this point.
We came out of the trail onto Carter Road, then dashed across onto the same commercial property that we went across previously. We skirted the north side, then turned to the south along the edge until we got to the paved trail connecting the next facility on the other side.
We waited in the woods for a bit because there was a guy outside the second building. When we couldnt see anyone any more, we continued on along the edge of the land on the grass as well as a maintenance access road. After we came out behind a building to a parking lot, I noticed my phone was missing. James went with me to try to recover it, but it must have been a bit further back. I was rather confident I would come back later and find it because it was still ringing. We continued on and then cut through a line of horrible brush and woods to reach Pretty Brook Road. The road is also the route of Lawrence-Hopewell Trail.

LHT Map

We followed the very pleasant road to Province Line Road, which once made up the Province Line between the colonies of East and West NJ. We turned right at this point and followed the road down hill to cross the historic triple pony truss bridge over the Stony Brook.
It’s a really great spot, and I really never tire of using that particular route. It’s so beautiful.
Once on the other side, we climbed up hill a bit to the crest, then turned right onto the Laura Chauncey Trail int the ETS facility.

ETS trails

The trail wraps all the way around the ETS facility and is very beautiful along Stony Brook. The trail isn’t too hard which makes it great for a night hike.
Just as we entered the woods, Stephen was showing us a video of a depiction of the end of life on Earth when an asteroid hits. He was particularly amused by the film’s soundtrack, which used Pink Floyd’s “The Great Gig in the Sky”.
Just as we were watching this, we heard the screech of tires as a car came to a fast halt on Province Line Road (this part of the road was open to traffic obviously, but the part around the bridge is now pedestrian route only).
We didn’t know what was going on at first, but then the car backed up and went into the previous driveway. We figured we’d better get away from there before watching any more videos.
We continued along Stony brook until the trail turned up hill, then crossed the ETS entrance. From there, Dan got behind us again and we waited, because there are now a ton of trails in there not shown on maps. I didn’t even know which ones to use. I opted intentionally to follow a straight one I had never used before, to add just another level of interesting stuff. It of course led us back to the main trail, out to the south side of ETS, and then it was only a short distance to get to Lawrence-Hopewell Trail leaving the facility to the south.
Another trail from this area does connect in with the LHT, but I’m not sure which one it is or where it connects. I’ll have to follow it while walking from the other way some time.
We went across Rosedale Road, and the route of the LHT goes down Mya Drive, then right on Benekek Drive which becomes Belleview Terrace, right about where the Johnson Trolley line would have crossed.
We followed this for a short distance, and the trail turned right into Carson Road Woods.

Carson Rd Woods map

Carson Road woods is barely any woods at all. It’s mostly just fields. I had followed the LHT route through the property once before, but at the time it was not yet developed. This would be my first time all the way through the property on the finished trail.
It weaved around through sections of fields to the south to make it’s way to Carson Road. It was a nice and peaceful section, and we could see the moon from time to time coming through the clouds like a lamp shade effect.
At Carson Road, the trail goes straight across to skirt the outside of the property of Bristol-Myers Squibb. I had also walked this section once before, back in the Fall of 2009, following partially the same route, when the trail was staked out but not yet completed. This again would be my first time walking this section since the thing had been paved.
We wandered along this path which was nice and easy to where it ended, at the intersection of Province Line Road and Rt 206, just to the north.

Before Lawrence Hopewell was completed in 2009

From here, the Lawrence Hopewell Trail follows an on road route, and probably the worst part of the entire trail. I had hoped maybe we’d find a new bit of it here, but no such luck.
We walked down Province Line Road, then turned right on Bannister Road. This took us to Foxcroft Road where we turned left. We came out to Princeton Pike, and the trail goes directly into the woods across, to the Dyson Tract. It’s a nice section that I also had never gotten around to walking. We followed it parallel with some fields heading to the south for a bit, and then into some nice woods near a brook in Maidenhead Meadows Park.

Group on the LHT

I don’t know what I was thinking at this point, but somehow we turned back the way we came when we should have gone straight ahead. The trail would have led us out to Princeton Pike, where another short road walk would lead us to the next section and we’d soon be on the Delaware and Raritan Canal heading to the shopping center.
Everyone was pretty much like “What are you doing? Where are we going?”. I didn’t get it that the turn I made was back the way we had come from. I was using James’ phone for GPS maps since I no longer had mine. My thought was that we were turning right from a trail that would likely dead end, or was uncertain either way. I don’t know how I came to that thought, but I did, and we ended up back at the parking area.
By this point, I wasn’t going to go back and follow that same way again. We would instead walk Princeton Pike, then turn right on Province Line Road. Some of that has path along it. It would take us across D&R Canal where I was planning to come out anyway.
We did just that, and on the other side of the bridge over the canal, we took to a paved path that went into an apartment complex. Another path connected between more buildings, and eventually we were on the south side of the complex.
Unfortunately, the entire shopping center was separated from the community by a giant fence! This misfortune was short lived because Jason I think it was found a hole in the fence where we just shimmied through and got behind the stores. It was only a short walk around to the front where Jason and Dan’s cars were parked. Jason had to drive all the way to Ringwood, and was stuck taking us back since Dan didn’t want to go. He was good enough to stop at the parking area so I could look for my phone.
I couldn’t believe that I couldn’t find it. Even after Jason dropped me off, I went back and scoured almost the entire area where I could have lost it, and didn’t find it. My flashlight ended up going dead, and so I had nothing to see it with. James was calling it regularly to see if it’d help, but I heard no ringing. It’d have been audible because the sound was on, and it was the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotauge” as a ringer.
The last photo I took with the phone was around 6:25 pm, because I took it just after taking my camera ones. The last text message I sent was to Lord Byron at 6:22. I figured It’s likely that the phone might be just off the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail in the weeds where I might have stopped.
I went back later in the week to have a look around for the phone again. I scoured the area along Lawrence-Hopewell Trail and found nothing. I suppose it could be along the trail bit between Bristol Myers Squibb and the other corporate area, but can’t be sure.
Overall it was a good hike though, and a nice night to be out. I had another phone I could hook up immediately, and the only big loss is the SD card inside it, which is of course replaceable.