Hike #1005; Blackwell Mills to Davidson's Mill Pond Park

Hike#1005; Blackwell Mills to Davidson’s Mill Pond Park

1/17/17 Blackwell Mills to Davidson's Mill Pond Park with Jas Kumpikevicius, Jennifer Berndt, David Gorsky, Serious Sean Dougherty, and Dan Asnis

The group crossing Six Mile Run

Our next hike would be an opportunistic point to point I put together between Davidson’s Mill Pond Park and Blackwell Mills on the Delaware and Raritan Canal, because I had the day off for Martin Luther King Day.
I figured, since MLK is all about celebrating diversity, I might as well celebrate some diversity in nature as well, by posting a hike where every leg of the way is entirely different than the last. I’d had a good time doing this with the Staten Island hike we did on MLK day in the past, so why not do it again?

The old loop at Six Mile Run

Six Mile Run is another of the examples of trails being closed off that never should have been, although we have gained a ton more.
I had led two hikes in Six Mile Run in the past. One of them was for a trip between that point and Carnegie Road in Trenton. We would do some of the trails there, and then take the Delaware and Raritan Canal to Carnegie Road, Trenton. The other time was Hike #200,where we took the other trails there, and then D&R Canal to New Brunswick. At the time, there was a full loop officially between the road along the Millstone River and D&R Canal and a point further out, maybe four or five miles tops.

Current Six Mile Run trails

Now, the western end of the Red Trail, and arguably some of the most beautiful sections of trail along the Six Mile Run, have been apparently closed, or at least removed to the map. An orange trail that made a shorter loop with the blue trail was also closed. I don’t think the section closed was any more dangerous than the existing sections. It’s a huge loss to having a nice full loop with no road walking.
When I first hiked the park, it had barely any board walks or puncheons, but this time it was far different. We started at Blackwell Mills at the parking area, which Dan drove us all to from Davidson’s Mill Pond Park, and we started walking the south side of the creek after a short road walk to the south.

Bridge on the red trail

Every little tributary to Six Mile Run had some sort of lovely little arched wooden bridge, or a boardwalk, or something. Even in the closed sections, erosion devices had been put in place to help maintain it. It was great. When I had last hiked this, we even had to hop over the creek mid way out because no bridge had ever been constructed.
Six Mile Run State Park has in the past been referred to as Six Mile Run Reservoir site. It was acquired in 1970 as one of the properties for a water supply reservoir, but in 1993 they found alternative water solutions and transferred the property to DEP.
We soon got to where the red trail is currently aligned, and followed it to the east.

Workers quarters?

The trail weaves around quite a lot, and there seems to be a straighter old road route that parallels the circuitous paths that the cyclist group JORBA (Jersey Off Road Biking Association, maintainers) constructed. We remained on the better marked and maintained, yet much longer trail route.
We soon came out to an abandoned farm area off of South Middlebush Road. The original trail loop turned back just before the road crossing, but we continued ahead on the route toward the road. We first checked out the abandoned farmstead whhich consisted of a beautiful old home, and then several barns and silos. One of the buildings might have been a workers’ quarters.

Old house

I had to have a look in it to see what it looked like. I had gone in this house in the past while wandering through the property, but never connected it to a hike until this time. I actually feel amazed that I’ve never utilized this part of Six Mile Run before, since it’s so close and such a substantial trail system.
The place was sadly looking pretty rough. I wish these structures could be chiseled away from open space and taken over by someone who could enjoy them appropriately.

Abandoned

They are simply being demolished by neglect, and it’s painful to see.
We continued from here along the red trail, which someone had put a tuxedo cat sticker on the blaze for.
We crossed the road and made our way through more woods, which weaved around intimately through a beautiful grove of Eastern Red Cedars in former field lands.
In this area, we were passed by a courteous group of cyclists. When I saw them, I told everyone to get off the trail so they coudl get by. The first guy slowed off, and I told him we were all off the trail, he didn’t need to slow up. He thanked us for giving them space, and told us to have a nice day. He and all of his cohorts were very friendly and courteous toward us, which was refreshing coming from cyclists on trails like this because many times we’ve had snarky comments coming from people on bikes having to slow down because of hikers in the trail.
The trail made it’s way out of this, then went down onto a lower flood plain on a very amazing long board walk section. I was really impressed by this section, and how it was constructed so high off of the surface.

The board walk went on for quite a long way, and eventually led out to a strange old concrete bridge across the Six Mile Run.
The bridge didn’t appear to be a dam, but it was very low to the creek like one. It must have been an old farm bridge of sorts. The trail crossed it directly, then had some built up stuff where the water was inundating the north side so that people could step off of it. This end of the trail was right along someone’s east side of their yard. We didn’t hang out here too long as not to disturb them, and turned right where the trail took us through woods out of the flood plain, and to higher elevation on the north side of the creek heading east.

Nice boardwalk

Along this section, we soon passed by an old house site. All that remained was a large chimney with a sort of rubble rock construction, and brick facade. It didn’t look to be one of the houses from the nineteenth century, probably early twentieth. There was some sort of old chest beyond the chimney, but nothing much else to see there. The trail continued along the hillside, sort of parallel with some farm fields to the south, right where the slope of the hill drops off suddenly toward Six Mile Run.

Six Mile Run boardwalk

The trail headed north for a bit along a substantial tributary to the Six Mile Run, then descended and crossed it on a smaller footbridge. We then continued through more woods and saw the orange blazed trail go off to the right. Serious Sean told us later that the orange trail is one of his favorites, but I could not at the time get my bearings and didn’t want to get lost. It was a good thing, because it turns out that even though the orange trail goes where we were going, it weaves all over the place like crazy and could have added over another hour onto the time of our hike, which might have caused an issue.

The trail returned to and followed above the main branch of the six Mile Run again heading to the east. It became a slightly more direct route with a steeper slope to the water as we neared the eastern terminus. A woman walking her two dogs was coming the other way when we went by, and the dogs went all spastic and started running around like nuts. One even jumped into the creek. She knew she couldn’t control their excitement with anyone else around, so she just turned around and walked with us back to he parking lot rather than lose them trying to stay with us.
When we came out to the parking area, we found lots of bags of trash had been dumped. It’s really sad when people feel so entitled that they think others are obligated to pick up their mess.

Hidden Lake

The trail ended at this lot off of Rt 27. The lady that was following us with her two dogs could not keep them under control. She got one into her car, but the other wouldn’t come when she called, and just wanted to keep running around with us. We had to sit still and wait for a while so that the dog wouldn’t follow us across the busy road. When the dog went back onto the trail system, we used the opportunity to dash across the road directly. From there, we didn’t take any roads, but rather went directly through some brush and into a grassy area of the Hidden Lake Apartments.
We ended up skirting the backs of the apartment son nice little access roads that are just up the slope from the Six Mile Run. It’s amazing no one has ever tried extending the trail system into this development for the benefit of it’s residents, because it would be just so easy to do.
We continued along the backs of these apartments and town houses along the Six Mile Run, which has concrete pathways and such, and headed out to Hidden Lake Drive. From there, we turned right, crossed a branch of Six Mile Run on the road bridge, then turned right on Parkside Drive. This took us across another branch of Six Mile Run, at the outlet of Hidden Lake.
The lake was nothing hugely special. It was small, and seemed rather insignificant for an entire development to be named after. It also had almost no access save for the few private houses on it. On the other side of the bridge however, we found a small path going down to the edge with signs saying “no dumping”. Google maps seemed to show it as park land, so down we went.
We followed the narrow path along the shore, which soon went right by people’s back yards We managed to slip by without anyone saying anything, and then reached one of the inlets to it. I thought this might be tough to cross, but there was a good rocky base we could step right over.
We continued through woods in what maps show as “Hidden Lake Park”, but there were no trails of any kind other than basic animal trails. We followed the high land above the end of the lake to it’s inlet on the branch of Sixmile Run, and continued to follow the stream to the south.
We eventually had to cross the stream when the right side of it was coming too close to houses. We were almost out and I didn’t want to end up having a problem. We crossed on some logs at a bend in the run, and then came out to Hidden Lake Drive again. At this end, there were “no trespassing” signs pointed to the woods. Oh well, they weren’t where we went in.
We turned right on Hidden Lake Drive and followed it to a right turn on Willowbrook Drive. There were a couple of people around cautiously watching what we were doing. It probably looked odd with a guy in a suit coming out of the woods (me).
From the very beginning of Willowbrook Drive, we turned right on a grassy swath that paralleled Hidden Lake Drive behind the homes, and then picked up a gas utility right of way behind more buildings. The well mowed, wide and clear path took us between more town houses, and then emerged onto an access road known as Hartland Commons, across from a retention pond. We turned left past the retention pond, and then entered the parking lot for the CVS. I went in and got a drink and snack, then we walked further along at the retail section parallel with Rt 1.
For our lunch break, we stopped in at Buffalo Wild Wings. I had never eaten at this chain before, and Dan was talking about it quite a lot, so I suppose that’s where we had to go for lunch.
I didn’t really want wings for lunch, so I got a burger, which I thought was quite good. Jen said hers wasn’t that great. Dan let me have one of his boneless wings, which was good because I really should sample a wing at such an establishment. Not bad.
We left here, and Dan left us to go to work. His father was to pick him up somewhere nearby. That was a help because then we didn’t have to shuttle back to his car at the end.
We followed along Rt 1 past the retail places until we reached Adams Lane where we turned right. We crossed Rt 1, then headed gradually up hill to cross the railroad tracks. They were a whopping six tracks wide, which is pretty cool. The line is used by NJ Transit and Amtrack, as well as Norfolk Southern, and probably CSX. The four tracks in the middle had concrete ties and welded rails, and two on the outsides were rather obviously for slower moving freight. The route was the former route of the Camden and Amboy Railroad which was the first civilian passenger railroad in the US. That line later became part of Pennsylvania Railroad, which was known for being four tracks wide. So, it was cool to see that there were still four heavily active tracks in the middle.

North Brunswich Community Park

Once on the other side, we turned right on the access road into the North Brunswick Community Park. A crushed stone surface trail departed to the left, and runs the entire length of the park. We turned on this to head to the southeast.
The route took us almost to Rt 130. We cut through a swath of woods just before reaching that point. We then followed 130 to the left for a bit, cut across to the other side, then followed the edge of the road to the northeast. We used some of the older alignment of the road, which now has the businesses on it, cut across a section that was closed off and grassed over, passed a community garden area, then turned right onto Wood Avenue. We then turned left on Miriam Street and right on Harndenburg Lane.

Former trolley route across Farrington Lake

Soon, we reached the bridge over Farrington Lake. We could see our next leg of the trip clearly from here. The former trolley line used to cross over the lake at the road. The bridge is missing today, but the causeway on either side is very identifiable.

Newark-Trenton fast line map

The trolley line was called the Newark-Trenton Fast Line, operated by the Public Service Railroad, a subsidiary of the Public Service Corporation of New Jersey.
This was an amazing interurban trolley between the two cities, which first opened for regular service in 1904 as the Newark and Trenton Railroad. Public Service Railroad consolodated and extended on it offering lots of service around New Brunswick and through from Jersey City to Trenton, and more.
Unlike many first impressions of trolleys that come to mind, the Newark-Trenton Fast Line was mostly “cross country”, meaning it was not a street car, but rather it’s own electric railroad right of way. The trolleys overcame elevations a bit more than regular railroads because their light weight would allow for such. It makes walking the lines a bit different but as interesting.
Like most of the lines, trolley mania only lasted a few years, and by the end of World War I in 1919, it was already on fast decline. It limited service for several years before the main route discontinued service entirely in January of 1936. The last section in New Brunswick closed in 1937. Shortly after, high tension wires were placed on the right of way, and later a gas line utilized more of it.

Newark Trenton Fast Line Trolley

This would not be my first time tracing some of this old right of way. The first time I’d hiked some of it was from Mercer County Central Park northbound to Davidson’s Mil Pond Park a few years ago. It makes for a very nice hike on that side, and only a few short sections were inaccessible. I assumed the same would be true of these sections ot the north.
It ended up being a bit more difficult than I’d imagined. The power line section had “no trespassing” signs on it, so instead we headed to the gas line section parallel with it, which was not posted, and followed that.

Old trolley bed

We followed the right of way to the south, and soon came to an access road to an Elks Lodge. We followed that briefly, then got on the former trolley bed more closely. Some of the places showed the grade more clearly than others, with slight cuts and fills.
We made our way out to Riva Avenue, near where there was a guy messing with his fire wood at an adjacent house. I greeted him warmly, but could tell he was wondering what we were up to walking through on the power line. We continued across the road, or I did anyway because I was ahead, and found that there was a bridge missing over Beaverdam Brook. We went back and had to go around.

Beaverdam Brook bridge site

We took Riva Drive to the right, which paralleled a nice looking section of Farrington Lake, and then turned right onto Henry Street, back up hill to the trolley right of way. There was a guy there on the corner throwing out sticks and leaves from his yard onto the power line. He asked us if we were looking for birds. It’s kind of funny how often people assume that must be what we’re doing, because of course why would anyone be walking a power line otherwise? We turned onto Hillcrest Avenue here, which parallels closely the power line and trolley bed.

Tamarack Hollow Preserve

Serious Sean called me up at this point ready to meet up with us, so I gave him the location, and he was able to rather quickly reach us at the Tamarack Hollow Preserve.
Hillcrest reaches a parking area for this county park that I’d never been to before. Since it would be a little bit before Sean could meet up, and because we found a map at the kiosk at the parking area, we opted to do some of the trails in the preserve. They roughly paralleled the power line anyway, so it seemed like a good option to give Sean a few minutes.
We followed a white blazed trail up into the woods, then turned right onto an orange blazed one that weaved us around to where we could see the parking lot again.

Giant tree tumor in Tamarack Hollow

Sean dashed up through the woods to meet up with us, and we followed the trail past an enormous tree tumor, one of the largest I’d ever seen. Burls like that are quite uncommon. It sort of looked otherworldly.
The orange trail led back to the white trail, and we turned right to regain the power line and trolley bed. We soon reached and crossed Church Lane, then continued gradually down hill toward Ireland Brook. This was another section of county park land known as the Ireland Brook Preserve.
When we reached Ireland Brook itself, it looked quite deep, and of course the trolley bridge is long gone. One of the official trails is off in the woods to the right, so we went out there and found a tree that we could use to get across the brook on.

Crossing Ireland Brook

Once across, we returned to the old rail right of way and followed it gradually up hill. There was then a parking area for Ireland Brook Preserve and a kiosk with a map. The map even said that there were no bridges at stream crossings. I was surprised at just how many trails there were in this park system. I would certainly have to come back and explore more. I was also happy to see that the trails were well marked with standard blazes. So many other park systems do such a terrible job marking, but these were done excellent.
An access road went along some of the trolley bed from here, and then returned to it directly. We continued to walk out to Davidson Mill Road.

Sunset in Davidson's Mill Pond Park

We jogged right slightly, then to the left along another road parallel with the power line. After a short bit, the access road on the line started back up, and we followed it along the line heading south again.
It had a horrible ballast surface for a little while, until that road turned of into a power substation to the left. We continued until we began to skirt the Davidson’s Mill Pond Park property. I spotted a trail of sorts going into the woods to the right. We followed it maybe a hundred feet and were soon on a blazed trail within the park. It was mostly a woods road at this point, which went by a scenic pond behind which the sun was setting beautifully.

Yellow Trail at Davidson's Mill Pond Park

We followed the wide path for a bit, and then a lesser access road was the route of the yellow blazed trail to the right. We turned here as it seemed to be going the way we wanted to go to get back to the parking area.
I thought the trail would just be a woods road leading back, or a field edge, but it cut to the right as a foot path, and then traversed an uncharacteristically rocky area for this part of the state, as well as a very impressive long system of simple two plank puncheons through a wet area. It was certainly a bit longer than I had anticipated, but it was stunningly pretty.

Yellow Trail at Davidson's Mill Pond Park

The trail emerged at an open area with yet another pond, which was also very pretty, and followed around it’s side to the access road into the park.
We walked the short distance past the first parking area to the one closest ot the road where we had met in the morning to conclude the hike.
The last time here, I had had to dash across a messy swamp because there was potentially not a way through on the trolley bed. I ended up running it to get there before dark, then went back to pick up the other hikers waiting at the cemetery on the south side.
I took Sean back to his car and we nearly got stuck in the crazy mud, and listened to some good music. Even though he joined late, he got to do some of the coolest stuff on the hike.
It was really interesting to tie together hikes that I’d done in 2005 and a whole decade later and have a frame of reference for what is between.
I feel as though I’ve gained more of the world through this particular kind of exploring.