Hike #1010; Hopewell Area Loop

Hike #1010; Hopewell Area Loop

2/2/17 Hopewell NJ loop with Snoop Dougie K (Doug Kiovsky), Sue Bennett, Kralc Leahcim (Lerch), and Cory Salvesen

Our next hike would be a very nice loop out of Hopewell NJ. We had done a few of them parked on the side street or passing near the Hopewell House, as both point to points and loops. I had two more scaled off and ready to go from this point, and I have still been trying to do only the best hikes available in the area while I am still assigned to Washington’s Crossing State Park.
I had gotten word that my time working down there might just be up. I’m wanted back at Spruce Run, but I cannot go back there. I thought about it for a few minutes, but it didn’t take long to realize that this can never happen in current conditions.
Another opportunity if I did not stay put at Washington’s Crossing could potentially be the northern bit of Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park. This would be at least fifteen minutes shorter drive time twice per day for me, and as far as the night hikes go it would open up many more opportunities, though I cannot make that any reason to really make a move like this.

Hopewell Borough Park

I met immediately with Snoop Dougie K (Doug Kiovsky), a very nice surprise when I arrived to start the hike. Sue showed up shortly after, and both Cory and Lerch were planning to meet late. It was nice to see that people were still showing up for these things. I’d been feeling quite worthless lately, and several turns of events were making me feel even more out of place than normal.
A bit earlier in the week, while cutting down a punky old rotten tree, my chain saw blade ignited a small flame on the bark. It was so dry that this little spark started to spread a bit. I told my co workers that I would like to get a bucket for it, because it could easily spread if allowed to continue. I dropped the tree and was told not to worry about it. While cutting other trees I saw more smoke coming up. I again brought up that a water bucket might be in order, but I was again ignored. Soon, we had an all out forest fire. Over a hundred feet of an entire understory was up in flames and I was getting hollered at. I wanted to call forest fire service but was again hollered at and told to leave them out of it.
If I had been taken seriously when I first brought up the danger of the situation, this would never have gotten so bad. Instead, what happened was I got lots of comments on how “This is why you have a reputation..”. I’d been barred from using the computer for work related items, and the negativity of my old assignment was carrying over. “You’re already in enough trouble...” would precede comments because everyone seems to think I was sent to the Crossing as a punishment, not as a protective measure. I need badly to be in a place where I feel appreciated and I have something to contribute.
Things started taking a turn this week, and I could already see the difference in how I was being treated when word started getting around independent of me.
Everything had seemed so unbalanced, or at least something was off.
Turmoil had been the main condiment of my life, and it’s main ingredients were apathy and incompetence. They’ve been yin and yang lately, a karmic wheel with a negative tilt.
I get depressed and I convince myself not to do anything. Most everyone close to me knows this is why I need to run the hikes. Still, there are many other levels to this.
I do not fit in anywhere; in social situations I am unable to function, to engage in conversation or to just enjoy some simple things that other people seem to find easy. On the hikes, I can impart the history I am so enamored with, or reminisce about some other crazy situation that’s happened in the past. It a completely manufactured conversation piece for which I will never be an outcast. I feel completely isolated in social situations until I add an extra layer of entertainment, which often times only I can appreciate.
Even at my good friend DJ Ray’s wedding, I dealt with the awkward displaced feeling by “shit bagging” it (that is when I bring a sack full of random weird trash and hide the items all over the place. I do this at most parties I attend). I feel thoroughly entertained and get other friends to join me with the ridiculousness.
I don’t need to be the center of attention. I’m quite content sitting back and quietly observing oddities without taking any credit. All I really need is to feel like I belong, and the only real selfish wish I have for myself is to have someone be happy to see me every day.

Along Beden Brook

Although I can’t hike every day, at least it’s a place where I’m depended on, and where I feel wanted. The way work has been, it’s been more necessary than ever.
We started walking through town and picked up the borough park trail entrance I’d never used before off of Prospect Street and Lawyers Lane. We turned right on the trail that paralleled Lawyers Lane heading to the south. It was called the John Hart Loop, a mowed field edge pathway that looped around a field section. We passed a rather large gate and continued to the south, and the trail turned left along fields which soon headed to the east. We entered the woods and got to a very lovely bit of Beden’s Brook, with a foot bridge and benches.

Map of the Borough Park

We soon reached the Teacher’s Path which parallels the local school property, and then cut to the right along the south side of the school fields, which was where we turned on the previous hike out of Hopewell. This took us out to Hopewell-Princeton Road. There were still plenty moe trails in this section we’d never done, but we’d have to save those for yet another time.

Old entrance road

We turned right on Hopewell-Princeton Road very briefly, and then turned left into the entrance of the St. Michael’s Farm Preserve, which used to be the orphanage property I’d written about on the previous hike journal of the area. Doug said he remembered when the buildings were still standing there on the property.
There was an old entrance road to the right of the cleared one that we walked in. A couple with some dogs showed up behind us and asked if we minded if they let them run off leash, which we didn’t mind. It’s nice to not have to take a land manager position like I would at work. Doug, having been a ranger in the past, probably enjoys being relinquished of the duties the same. We chatted extensively about our days in Hunterdon County Parks, about building puncheons together in Wescott Nature Center, GPSing and scouting out new trail routes, and the good community outreach.

St. Michael's map

Before I got laid off and Doug retired, the parks allowed us to do more outreach stuff. Doug wrote the history book for Hunterdon County’s park system, which our previous Director supported.
I was sent at times to lead hikes for other groups, and had to do so with schedule flex and very secretly because if my co workers had found out that I was leading hikes on county time, on the clock, they’d have filed some sort of Union grievances against me. On one occasion, I attended an evening meeting about a new trail plan, and one of the other park employees made a huge deal that I had attended it on the clock, because it was not written specifically into my title. Doug had the title of Assistant Park Planner, but officially on the pay scale, he was always still a ranger. It was nice when we had the leeway to do other things. Sue’s father, Al Kent, was also in a similar situation, as a park planner, but his title was something else (I’m not sure what), but Morris County was always supportive of trails across the board where it was just about the last thing on Hunterdon’s agenda in recent years.

Historic barn!

We continued along the west side of the preserve, and eventually came to a couple of old barns. I had though they’d always been there, but Doug told us that these barns were saved from another farmstead, dismantled and re-assembled in this park to store equipment. They looked as though they’d belonged there!

Sun setting at St. Michael's

The sun was setting very nicely, and we continued along the west side of the preserve, heading to the south. I’d already covered most of the east side on the previous hike we’d done here, so my goal was to hit almost all of the west side. We crossed a bridge over Beden’s Brook where we had crossed on the previous hike, but then headed west and south again.
We reached a gated area, and it looked as though it was intended to be opened up, but there was a lock on it. We had to cut through a swath of woods to the right, then continued along the edges of the fields without having to bushwhack through anything else.

View in St. Michael's

We ended up in a very nice area on a hillside with a bit of a view back to the old barns. We were along the edge of a field well to the east of where I thought we would end up. A trail through the woods goes over a small Bedens Brook tributary, and I thought we would end up on that, but we somehow ended up in the middle of the preserve. We did however get to one of the foot path sections, and went the wrong way for a short while. We had to backtrack on this, a blue trail, and then headed west on a yellow blazed trail. This took us back out to the edges of more fields, which took us to the east, back to where we had been on the previous hike in the area.

St. Michael's field trails

Cory had gotten to Hopewell and parked. He used on street parking and then headed into the preserve the way we went in, except when he got to the barns he continued to the east where we went south. He just cut the corner so he could catch us much more quickly. At the same time, Lerch was showing up, but he was on Aunt Molly Road just to the east of us.
We headed to the south further until we crossed a weird metal grate farm equipment bridge, and the farm road trail that led down to Aunt Molly Road. Lerch had his car in the shop, and so was driving a blue Honda or something. I saw him as he went by, and was on the phone with him at the time so he knew where to stop.

Sunset at St. Michael's

The sun was setting nicely, and there was a nice roofed overlook area at the top of one of the fields, which we had missed on our previous hike through the area. Cory called me back at this point, and described a bridge which I didn’t think he should have crossed. He started running back, and I think Sue spotted him across the field. I put the phone down and called his name, and he looked back. My voice must have thrown, because he paused, looked in my direction, then started running the other way again. The second yell made him realize it was coming from behind him, and he soon caught up with us at the overlook.

Trail off Aunt Molly Road

Once he caught his breath (or maybe not) we headed to the trail down to Aunt Molly Road. Lerch was walking up to us by the time we reached the road. Together, we all turned to the left on the road briefly to reach a spur trail that went for a loop to the east. I had been wanting to do this section, and there was just enough daylight left to enjoy some of it.
It went high above the Beden’s Brook with some nice little foot bridges. We followed it to the end, and then the loop back to where we had started on Aunt Molly Road. The road was dirt, which made for a really nice hiking route. Barely anyone went by, and when they did they were going very slowly.

Along Bedens Brook

There was another short field loop trail that went off to the left as well from the road, as we walked south. It was short enough that we could have done it, but we would not have seen very much at this point, so we just continued on along the road heading to the south.
The very nice road came out to Cherry Valley Road next to a nice old house. This road was much busier, but we’d only be on it for a short time. We turned to the right here, and then went left when we got to Carter Road.
We followed Carter to the south for a while, until we got to the incomplete new section of the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail. This section was the area I’d lost my cell phone on the previous night hike, though I probably lost it on the properties to the southeast of here. We were now turning to the west.

Lawrence-Hopewell Trail map. It does not show the new section which connects Carter Road at the very top.

The little parking lot off of Carter Road had been a large rock ballast surface the last times we walked through it. Within the previous month, a much smaller rock surface had been added to it. We began walking through this section with no problems all the way out to Pennington-Rocky Hill Road. Here, the trail simply paralleled the road for a bit heading south.
Along the way, we passed the Mt. Rose Distillery, which we’d seen on a previous hike. Doug told us that this was indeed an historic brick distillery, and that the township and historic group had gotten together and restored the thing, repaired it, and then repainted the lettering on it.
The trail crosses over the road at the entrance to a development called Hopewell Hunt, at Bailey Court. That goes to a cul de sac where the trail is incomplete, so we instead turned onto Baily and walked through the more pleasant development.
There was light traffic, almost no one went by. We followed Bailey Court to a left turn on Morris Drive heading south. There was a girl jogging by that I think was wondering what the hell these people were doing out there.

Group shot at Hopewell Hunt

We posed for a group shot at the entrance to the development on Morris Court and Bayberry Road. I wonder if anyone looks into the Metrotrails stuff and sees “Hey, that’s my development!”
We walked from here on Bayberry to Pennington-Rocky Hill Road south a little bit. When we got to the intersection with Titus Mill Road, we cut across the intersection diagonally and picked up another piece of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail parallel with Titus Mill Road heading to the west.
When the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail turned to the right to parallel Wargo Road, we continued straight on Titus Mill Road to the entrance to the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association and walked back the entrance. We went by the main buildings, where something was going on because lots of cars were around, and we followed the main through trail to the north.

Stony Brook-Millstone Main Reserve and Mt. Rose map

We got slightly separated at the start of this part, but then were soon back together with no problems. The trails were wide and easy heading north, and had had some good puncheons added to the sections that were seasonally wet.
Soon, we reached the pond where the access trail came out from Wargo Road. We turned around a barn here to follow the trail heading north along the pond and then into the woods.

Puncheon

The puncheons in this section are sometimes not necessary, like the first time I walked the section, and other times absolutely necessary. This time it was good to have them because the surface of the trail was somewhat wet.
We followed the trail north, and found that there were quite a few blow downs since the last time we had walked it.
Still, we managed to get out to and cross Moore’s Mill-Mt. Rose Road. There are other trails parallel with the main one on the property north of this point, but we didn’t have the time to get through all of that, and I would want more light to try to pull that off anyway. There is also the Elks Preserve which would be great to go through, but again I would want there to be plenty of light to attempt this. I would like to do another version of this hike in the opposite direction to try to attempt these other trails in the future depending on how long I end up staying at the Crossing.
We crossed over Crusher Road and made our way onto more rocky trail gradually ascending Mt. Rose. The lights around seen through the leafless trees were rather nice up there. I thankfully made it through this section without twisting an ankle this time, and we gradually descended down to Broad Street in Pennington. From there, it was only a short distance back to the Hopewell House where we were parked on street. Sue got Cory back to his car I think, and I got Lerch back to his quite quickly.
January’s hikes had been absolutely great, and February was off to the right start with this one. I finished not feeling too tired, and actually rather rejuvinated with some potential positive stuff coming up for the rest of my life in the near future.