Hike #1006; Readington and Flemington

Hike #1006; Readington and Flemington

1/20/17 Readington/Flemington Area with Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell, Jessica Anne, and Russell Lord Byron Rapp.

This next hike would be another point to point, this time in the Flemington area, and another rehash of two other previous ones that were really cool. I had stated in the past that the Readington Trail System is so huge, I could do several versions of the same hike again and again and not cover the same ground the whole time. I figured I’d try another one of these.

Holland Brook School connector trail

We met at Taco Bell in Flemington as we’d done for several recent hikes here, and when I gave Uncle Soup and Jess hugs, the guy working at the place, who was very friendly and helpful, said “Hey where’s my hug?”. I gave him a big hug, which was so ridiculously nice. Such a nice guy probably not getting a fraction of the money he deserves for the good job he’s doing, checking on all of the customers, making sure we’re happy with our stuff. We then shuttled up to Readington, to Barkelew Road where we could immediately take the connection trail to Holland Brook School.
I had texted Uncle Soup earlier in the day to tell him we missed him, just because I happened to think about him and his absence since moving to Virginia. He responded right away “Well then I’ll have to come on tonight’s hike!”
I didn’t know it earlier, but he was back in NJ for the week, and would be on this as well as the hike the following Saturday!
We started walking at the connector trail and skirted the walking track at Holland Brook School. We then followed the access road out across Readington Road on Roosevelt Road. On previous hikes, we had turned left on Heath Road, but this time we went straight just a little more, then left into a parking area for the trail system. This is probably a much better route, with less road walking than the way we’d done it before. There was a car that appeared to be a possible police car above us, who saw us go in. It was still light, but thought it might look sketchy.
The trail went through woods then came out into some old pastures and such. We connected with where we had been before in an open area next to a to a retention pond. At the east end of the pond, we followed a trail straight through the woods I’d never done before, which weaved past a few houses, then came back around to the west again to the other side of the retention pond. I thought there’d be a connection earlier, but there wasn’t.

Lachenmeyer tract

We turned onto the trail heading to the south, and soon crossed over the Holland Brook’s north branch. We then headed up hill, and found another trail going off to the right. I’m not sure where this one went as it is not shown on the maps yet.
Since my first time walking this section a couple of months ago, the trails have already changed. The trail connection at the end of Heath Road no longer exists, not officially anyway, and there is a new connector near the start of the road we’ll have to do another time. The trail I was uncertain of probably connects with another development, and other connections are shown at the south end of the Lachenmayer Tract. We headed along the field edges heading to the south, and after passing a couple of houses, took to the left turn through fields, and found more pathways through a section of woods on the north side of the final field. A new trail also now connects with Casper Berger Road.
We weaved around the fields, and then made our way back to the main trail out to Pine Bank Road. I was a little nervous coming out because there were two white SUVs parked there. They were just hunters and didn’t seem to care that we were there. I only saw one, and said hello.
The map now showed to walk along Pine Bank Road to connect with the Cole Road Greenway trailhead, which was what we were doing on past hikes anyway.

Crossing Holland Brook

Lord Byron met up with us when we got to that trail head and parked his car there. He had brought us some drinks which was nice, and we all headed into the woods to cross the Holland Brook on large concrete cylinders.
We headed up hill steeply on the other side on the route we had followed in the past. There are other trails through here we have not yet used as well, so there are other versions of this same hike we can do again through this part as well.
We came near to some houses, went down over a small brook and back up, past the huge house with windows all facing the trail, then passed through the narrow area near Morning Star Road. The trail also now has a connection out to Smith Road I did not know about.
We turned right shortly after Morningstar on a trail not yet shown on the maps, which makes it’s way out to the power lines just to the north. We had followed the power lines south in the past hikes to Hillcrest Road, but this time we’d follow it to the right, northwest.

Cole Road Greenway muddiness

We went under a big power line tower after a bit, then crossed a branch of Hollow Brook. The trail went along the edge of fields, then through a section of woods to more fields. Several trails follow the borders of these, but we tried to stay on the more obvious ones since it was getting dark.
The fields were insanely muddy, and it’s a good thing it wasn’t too cold because my feet were soaked after passing through. I’m sure everyone else’s were as well. We eventually made it up to a parking area on Cole Road.
We jogged to the right briefly on Cole Road, then the trail went to the left up a gravel driveway. Everyone was still talking, and so dogs started barking at the last house up this road. Fortunately we didn’t have a problem, but I’m rather sure the lady that came out of the house knew we were there.
The trail remained really nice and hard packed, which was a good break from the muddy mess earlier, to the north side of some fields. We turned left at the end of the fields to follow the northwest side, and other trails went right into the woods. One goes to an access point on Edgewood Road. We tried to remain on the more obvious path since I’d never been on any of these trails at all.
We continued along, and came to more intersections, but many were posted with private property. That helped us to determine which was the official trail.
The official route became another hard packed road yet again, and descended pleasantly to reach Cole Road near it’s intersection with Pleasant Run Road. We turned right on Cole, then left on Pleasant Run.

Stop Demolition!

Someone on the corner, with a nice old historic house, had a nice sign saying to “Stop Demolition of Flemington’s Historic Main Street”. There is an initiative to tear down the iconic Union Hotel, which was closely involved in the Lindberg trial, in favor of new buildings and a college. A wealthy investor is baiting the town with promises of money and success, and many downtown businesses see the historic hotel as a symbol of past failure to redevelop positively. I’d rather see the hotel saved, because it is a defining characteristic of downtown Flemington. It’s a beautiful building, and I’ve always loved it. I used to get drinks after work with the tree service I used to work for there.
We turned left on Pleasant Run only briefly, then went right on Barley Sheaf Road.
This was one of those roads I’d always loved because it’s so little used, but I was surprised at this time that we saw a surprising amount of traffic. It still was not a lot, and it’s a beautiful back road.
We turned left on Locust Road, then right on Lazy Brook Road to the south. We had hiked this section of road in the past on another version of this hike, but going the other direction. This time, we’d turn right a little ways down to cross the Lazy brook itself, at a yard skirting South Branch Wildlife Management Area. We then went through a sparse woods with a path that leads to the WMA fields.
Once in the fields, this time we turned to the left to skirt them heading to the south. The edge of the field turned left, and we reached another farm lane. This one was a bit more overgrown. We turned right to follow it back to the north, as there was really no good route to go another way, and reached the boundary of the WMA land where private fields are cultivated. We turned left along the boundary, then left again on the main access road from this land though the state land.
Soon, we came to the abandoned house and barns at the end of the drive-able section. I noted the red lights that were on cameras affixed to both the house and the barns this time. They could be fake, but I wasn’t prepared to go and walk by them either.
We started following the dirt road to the south.
As we walked, we could see a light in the fields to the left of us. As we got closer, they were flashing them to us. I ducked down. There were people walking in the field and it seemed to be in our direction. The dirt road descended a bit to where we were below where they could see us with the lights, but it was a bit unnerving. As we walked a bit further, the lights seemed to stop, but we passed a pickup truck pulled off to the left. We hurried by it, and when we were up hill from it a bit more, the lights went on in the truck. We moved along quickly on the access road, which reaches River Ave, another dirt road, but a regular through public one we were allowed to walk. We continued straight ahead here. The lights of the truck were still on, but not moving our way yet.
We descended a bit, crossed a small stream, and then passed beneath the former Lehigh Valley Railroad tracks. Uncle Soup and I were in front, and as we reached the other side and the crossing of the parallel former Central Railroad of NJ tracks, the truck came upon us. They stopped to talk to Jess and Lord Byron, and they asked if they were alright. They didn’t stop when they got to Uncle Soup and I and continued driving River Ave around the corner. It seemed kind of suspect that there were two guys out there after dark on the state land, in the middle of the fields. They had NY plates as well. We joked that it could have been some mob activity and that we were all witnesses. Of course, there is no such thing as organized crime in NJ, right?
We also took the ninety degree bend in River Ave, then turned left on Rockafellows Mills Road to cross the South Branch of the Raritan on the scenic through truss bridge. On the other side, we walked River Road, which was very busy and probably the most dangerous part, to Case Blvd. We then turned left to follow that road up hill. I consider that to be the worst part of this hike.
Once up on Case, we turned left into the lot of an ice rink, and followed along the wood line. I announced to everyone that this was where the character of the hike changes dramatically. The first segments were easy to plan because they were trails and rural stuff, but the part from here to Flemington took some planning that involved some detailed study of the aerial images to find the best route.
From the ice rink area, a sort of road goes from the corner up a hill to a clean fill dirt pile area. A path continued when vehicle accessible stuff ended, and we were at the top of a crazy slope with a view of lighted buildings on the outskirts of Flemington.
We steeply descended the slope to emerge on a short development road known as Ridge Road. It turned ninety degrees to the right, and passed many houses. At the cul de sac at the endo ft he road, we cut into trees.

Bushwhack at 202

We went over a brief slope and descended through annoyingly dense saplings to reach the edge of Rt 202. We dashed across here, which had barely any traffic this time of night, and then cut the corner back to more of Case Blvd. It looke don the maps that there was a trail parallel with the road to the left, but it was kind of overgrown. We didn’t get on it right away, but it didn’t take long. The path led us to the north side of a wide soccer field. We picked up a wide trail on the south side of that which led us to a crushed stone parking area turn around and more ball courts. We followed that out to Woodside Lane, crossed, and then turned left on Case again.

Abandoned farm

There was a sidewalk on the other side along Case, which we followed for only a short time. We soon reached the north fields of the JP Case Middle School, and turned right. These fields were nice and mowed at first, but then there was a sort of crushed stone narrow trail that skirted it’s edge to the west. We remained on this, skirted a chain link fence, then came to the corner where I wanted to check out an abandoned farm that I had found using the aerial images. I had high hopes to find a cool old abandoned farm house or something of the sort.

Abandoned farm

We went north just a bit, then cut to the left to pick up the old farm road that accessed the area. I knew from aerial images that around 2002 and I think even later, the farm was still lived in and being worked.
There was a sort of coop building on the right, and some other farm structures, possibly collapsed stuff on the left as we headed east into the place. There was a good corn crib in nice condition, and then a couple of other old farm buildings to the right. I was however not seeing the farm house I hoped to find. We walked a bit further along the access road and then found the sad truth that the farm house had been burned down.

Old house site

It had also happened some time ago. Only the chimney stood in a weird turning manner that surprised me it had not yet collapsed. It seemed obvious that there were charred wood bits in the foundation of the building to show that this was done by fire.
Disappointed, we headed back the way we came, and checked out the coop building along the way.
We headed back to the path at the corner of the school property, then followed it to the left, heading south along the edge. The path continued very nicely, and soon crossed over a small tributary as we got closer to the school building. It then went left and up a really steep hill to the edge of a retention pond. We climbed up, turned right and then left to continue to the south along the school.
When the path started to turn to the left more, to go east along the property, we went stright to cross over Voorhees Corner Road. Rather than take to the roads, we went perfectly straight across a town house development.

Mirror group s hot

We crossed the grass, crossed a parking area, followed a short bit of road called Dogwood Circle, then crossed another grassy area to reach Case Blvd and Mulberry Lane. We crossed to follow Mulberry Lane for just a bit, then turned right from that onto a trail through a small park area which headed south past tennis courts and eventually to the local pool. It was a really nice section I’d used once before from the other direction. Not really the kind of place that would be very enjoyable to hike in the daylight, but in the night it’s something really pretty special.
We headed across Sunridge Drive where there was a small tributary. We went to the right to stay on the west side of the tributary, then walked through wide mowed fields heading to the southwest. This was another great little spot, with the stars looking so incredibly bright one would think we were in upstate NY. The Little Dipper and Orion’s belt were very visible, but tiny little clusters of starts I do not usually see were everywhere. Lord Byron told us those were other galaxies. I don’t know how we were able to see so much with all of the town’s light.

Mirror group

We headed across the field to a tiny pathway that went to David Drive at another town house area. We walked ahead on David, then turned left through a driveway section between the buildings. It seemed really solitary and quiet, and we cut across grass next to a Hart Blvd. We went straight on that road to the west, which had homes to the right but undeveloped to the left.
We turned right when we got to Liverpool Lane, a short road, and turned left onto Aberdeen Circle. All of the roads in this area had British style names to them. We followed the road for a short bit and turned right on a paved path which led us to Devonshire Court. We walked Devonshire up to Londonderry Drive, turned briefly left, then right onto another paved trail heading north. This took us out to Wellington Avenue which we cut across to the right to Penny Lane. At that point we started singing “Penny Lane”. Another paved path from here led out across Manchester Road and continued to the right, but we went left through grass to emerge behind the Shop Rite. I grabbed the first shopping cart I saw to push my pack in it for a bit around the front of the store.
It was just a short bit across the parking area to the Taco Bell where we got some delicious stuff before heading out.
When I got Lord Byron to his car, there was a police cruiser with the lights on, and the officer out and in the woods near the car. I was prepared for some trouble.
The officer came over and I told him it was my friend’s car, and that we’d been doing a night hike, ending in Flemington, and that he’d met late and parked there. The officer was really nice, and said it was all good as long as he was okay. I was actually impressed that he was out and looking around for the safety of a hiker. When I told him we’d been hiking, he asked “In a suit???”. I think that sort of broke the ice and we had a nice little discussion.
It was a slightly humorous and nice end to a very interesting and diverse evening spent entirely walking.