Hike #1078; Mendham to Mt Tabor

Hike #1078; Mendham to Mt. Tabor

10/5/17 Mendham to Mt. Tabor with Kralc Leahcim (Lerch), Galya, Jason W. Briggs, Sue Bennett, Jessica Anne, and Celeste Fondaco Martin

Our next hike would be an odd point to point between Mt. Tabor and Mendham. I’d had some ideas on how to do this one for a while and never really had a reason to throw it together until maybe a week or so before.
Lerch asked me out of the blue if I had anything that could end at Morris Plains. It wasn’t the Morris Plains I was thinking of; when I got the address he referred to, it was more like Mt. Tabor. I immediately had an idea for a hike I’d been looking at.
Of course, Lerch wanted me to do this because Mark Moran’s band, Poor Man’s Opera was playing at Hoover’s Tavern right there. I like ending hikes at his shows, so it was a go.

Patriot's Path in Mendham

We met at Hoover’s which had a big lot, and then shuttled in Sue’s car down to Mendham, where we parked at King’s Supermarket.
Jason met up with us there, as he just did another long hike earlier in the day and ran late due to car shuttle.
We started walking simply from the store, up Rt 24 to the west, then went right on Dean Road.
The road led us through a development shortly to a trail to the right. It leads in a short distance to the blue blazed branch of the Patriot’s path. When we reached that, we turned left, heading to the west.
This section is a deviation from the old railroad bed that much of the trail follows between Ralston and Morristown. After a short bit, the trail emerged on the railroad bed.

Map of the historic line

I’ve always been fascinated by the Rockaway Valley Railroad, known locally as the “Rockabye Baby” because it was so poorly graded, and they tracks would rock and lift up and down while going around corners. It was notorious for derailments.

Rockaway Valley line

The line never saw it’s anticipated success.
Rockaway Valley Railroad was built in 1888 predominantly to haul peaches that ended up getting killed off by the blight in 1890. The line struggled to get by, and it was bankrupt and re-organized a few times. It was abandoned in 1913, and attempts were made to bring it back up until 1916. At that point, it was decided to give up on the line, and it’s rails and metal were sold for World War I scrap. In later years, rights of way such as fiber optics used it, thereby preserving it. It was then turned into part of Patriot’s Path.

Mountain Valley Park

We continued along the grade parallel with the North Branch of the Raritan River for a bit, and passed through Mountain Valley Park before we crossed Mountain Avenue. There was a sort of stone chimney or something to the right I don’t recall seeing in the past.
We passed the lovely pond and crossed over Mountain Avenue heading to the west. As we passed through some nice woods, we came to a spot where the trail crosses over the North Branch of the Raritan. There is no bridge today, but rather concrete cylinders that allow for stepping across without getting wet, as long as they don’t fall over.

Pond at the park

We continued along the trail on the other side for just a bit more, and there was another concrete cylinder crossing, this time of the India Brook.
We crossed over, then turned right on the unblazed bit of the India Brook Trail. The trail weaved between trees, over a stone wall, then emerged into an open field area. We continued along the driveway access here, which took us slightly north and to where we could cross Mountainside Road. Once here, we continued on a white blazed footpath heading north.

Trail crossing!

As I recall, it was Sue’s father, trail planner Al Kent that first blazed the trail in India Brook. The original plan for the Patriot’s Path was to have it follow the Rockaway Valley line all the way to Willowood Arboretum, then head north through Black River Park. There were some problems with this route, and so it was decided to head up toward Chester instead. At one time I believe the India Brook was considered for the corridor, but that never came to be. Still, it makes for an outstanding connection.
We continued walking along the trail gradually up hill. There was an interpretive sign on the left on the way up, at an old sawmill site.

Along India Brook

David Bockoven established the mill at the site in the early to mid 1800s. By the late 1800s, the operation was taken over by his son, Abram.
A 700 yard long raceway existed to power the mill, and it is said to likely have used a turbine rather than a overshot or undershot water wheel. The business probably lasted no later than around 1910 when the road just to the north was abandoned. Only abutments remain of that.
As we walked the trail, the former bridge site was the next point of interest.

Old road bridge site

The bridge was an iron truss that carried a road known as Steep Hill Road, which connected Mountainside Road and Ironia Road.
The next point of interest we came to was the Rush Forge site. It was built in 1786, and abandoned by 1920. As we walked ahead a bit more on the trail, the tail race from the industry was still apparent along the brook. The trail followed it rather closely for a little bit. There was at one time a dam and a mill pond associated with this industry, now all gone.

Trail following old mill race

This was a charcoal fired bloomery forge, and the pond associated with it was apparently just to the west of India Brook.
We continued to walk up stream until the trail turned right to cross the brook.
This is a bridge-less crossing, which some have problems with when I’ve brought them here. This group had no problem whatsoever, and we were quickly to the other side. The trail then continued on that bank, but I managed to get off of it where it went further up hill. It’s easy to sort of stay right along the water, while the trail actually gains some elevation in there.

Impaled

I was powering on ahead, in the front of the group ready to cool off in the waters below Buttermilk Falls up ahead, but kept looking back for the group to see who was close behind me.
My lack of attention to the trail found me impaling my lower left shin on a stick pretty badly. This was a very deep puncture that went in and to the left. It didn’t immediately bleed very much, so I could see just how deep it was. I’ve had some deep cuts before, but this one was pretty bad.
Everyone was very supportive and all started scrambling to find all sorts of first aid kids and such, but I didn’t want to stop until we got to the waterfall.
It really hurt pretty bad, but I ignored it, and actually tried to downplay just how bad it was so no one would panic or try to give me more first aid than I wanted.
When I got to Buttermilk Falls, I went immediately into the water to clean the thing out, as well as to cool off. I was already sweating, but after the injury it got so much worse.
When I was refreshed enough, I got out, and Jess (who’s got nurse training) wrapped my leg up.
We were soon on our way up stream. I kept a pretty good pace despite having the injury. We continued across a good foot bridge over India Brook after the falls, then came to where the yellow blazed trail, which was co-aligned for a time, turned left and white went right. We turned to the right and continued on a much less used section of trail out to Combs Hollow Road.
We turned right on the road over the little bridge over India Brook, then left onto a much wider trail to continue up hill. As we were walking up, Lerch came walking toward us the other way. It was pretty good timing; he explained that the map was such garbage, even on google, that he must have passed by the correct area several times before getting it.

Buttermilk Falls

We followed the trail up hill, and it was beginning to get kind of dark. Once we reached the crest of the rise, we intersected with the Patriot’s Path, which at this point follows another very wide path on a former road.
We turned right on Patriot’s Path and followed it to the east.
We came to the southern end of Dolly Bridge Road, which continues but is used as a trail to the right. We quietly made our way past this intersection, then continued on Patriot’s Path east, to the uploads north of Clyde Potts Reservoir.
The Patriot’s Path turned off to the right, onto a footpath down toward Clyde Potts, but we went ahead on the Randolph Township trail system, which turned to start heading north.
The trail surface switched back and forth between pavement and gravel, and was kind of rough on the feet in the long term.
I was moving along fast, and had to regularly stop to let everyone catch up. We came to an intersection where a trail to the right led down to an end, but we had to continue to the left to stay on the northbound trail system.
This section of trail continued north and emerged on the Sussex Turnpike between Mama’s Caterina and Devonshire Drive. We crossed the road rather quickly, and the trail continued to the north immediately parallel with Church Road. We continued on this until the trail itself cut into the woods to the north. It was a pretty nice stretch of woods to where it connected near Carrel Road to a sort of retention pond. The surface was a narrow pavement, so we followed it to the right, and soon found the connection out to the road.
We crossed the road pretty directly, and were back into the woods again on the other side.
I’d done this section of trail before at about the same time of year with Cupcake and Jamie a few years back, but it was still light at this point. I’d also done it with Shelly the day I met her.
The trail took us to another intersection close to Freedom Park. We hung a right, and then followed the path out to the park area directly. There was a ball game going on, a lot of people, and lots of lights here. We took a little break near the restrooms.

The group in Freedom Park

When we were ready to get on our way, we cut to the woods first chance we got. The trail closely paralleled the rest of the open part of the park before continuing to the north through deep open woods, soon connecting to James Andrews Memorial County Park.
We crossed a power line and descended through quite lovely woods to cross over a tributary of Den Brook on a foot bridge. Once on the other side, we turned to the right. This led us through more pleasant woods, to Hidden Valley Park area.
Everything we did from Freedom Park to the north to Hidden Valley Park was new to me.

Near Freedom Park

This extensive trail system has been on my “to do” list for quite a long time, but I didn’t really have a time I wanted to do it until this one.
When we got to Hidden Valley park, we came out to an open area. There were three options from here. First, I could go north and follow Everdale Road to the east. Second, I could take another trail to the south, which led to Radke Road, and follow that to the east. The final option was the long shot: we could follow the second option to the power line and see if we’d be able to walk it. That seemed like a nice option, so we decided to go for it.
The trail took us down hill, and while we walked Lerch pointed out that it was probably going to rain...soon. I thought it was to be a totally clear evening, or at the very least minimal chance of precipitation. I didn’t even bring my umbrella or a coat.
When we got to the power line, it was an obviously quicker looking route, and it wasn’t a road. So, we went for it. It stayed really nice and clear for quie a while, until the ATV path on it came out to lawns that had been extended across it near David Drive. I had to keep reminding people not to have flashlights on while we went across people’s lawns.
We continued until the power line opened up to a driveway Another path led down hill and emerged us on Bagman Road near the intersection with Shongum Road. We followed Shongum Road to Openaki Road, and turned left. This took us to the power line crossing again.
If I had this section to do again, we would have gone straight on Farm Road, then right on Arnold Drive, which is a cul de sac with an ATV path at the end, which goes down to Openaki.
There was the Den Brook just down below on the power line from here, so we were not going down to cross. Instead, we turned left on the road, and made our way to the next intersection with Casterline Road. We turned rigth there.
A cop had driving right by us when we were walking up hill to Casterline. I thought for sure he would want to stop us and see what we were up to, but he didn’t.
It had started raining, and it was quite cold and annoying to walk around in. Fortunately, it wasn’t that cold out. We continued on the road to Mabro Drive where we turned right.
When we reached the power line, we turned to the left and had another good climb on them again. It wasn’t too bad, but with the adverse weather I’m sure it made it seem worse. Fortunately, the rain tapered off soon.
We continued on along the power line, and then came to a trailer parked out on it, and accesses to buildings. An ATV path went to the right, away from the houses, to the top of a steep hill. This looked like the best option, so we made our way up there. Some of the area was known as Toft Hill Park.
We came out to Union Hill Road, and then headed to the power line to see what our options were on the other side. Lerch was ready to go down hill and bushwhack to the next bit of clear path, which we could see from our vantage point, but I knew down there was the north branch of the Whippany River. It’d probably be a mud bath.
I figured it wouldn't be a good idea, so instead we headed to the left from the crossing, on Union Hill Road to a right turn on Zeek Road. Then, we turned right into an area with fenced in power conduits. We skirted the fence line to the left, and got hitchhikers all over us, and got to a path on the other side. We went to the right on the other side of the fence, but found that it ended and we still had the Whippany branch to cross.
When we realized it was a dead end, we back tracked only to the northeast corner of the fences, and then cut along another power line, then it’s access road out to Zeek Road. We turned right there for a short time, then walked to the right into Veterans Memorial Park.
At first, we walked on the wrong side of tall fences and had to turn back. After that we went across ball fields and such heading to the east.
There were some kind of tennis courts or something on the east side, and so we cut around the back of those. There was a path that led out from there directly to the back of town houses or something off of Summerhill Drive. It worked well.
From here, my plan was to return to the power line and continue to follow it to the east for a bit, but then I realized it was a huge up hill, and we needed to try to get to Mark’s show before he was gone.
Instead, we followed Old Dove Road to a right turn on Mountain Way. I almost took us too far, and caught it in time to turn on Powder Mill Road. This also took us up hill, but not for too long. We followed this to a strip mall on the right, just off of Rt 10.
From this point on, the hike was a lot of creative mish mash by Lerch and myself.

We walked along the edge of the strip mall heading to the east, parallel with Rt 10. We walked to the east through the first set of strip malls, and could see the next industrial building or whatever it was had a retention pond on the front of it. We figured we might walk across it, so we headed over.
The thing was deep, and too steep to get down to. It had a tall wall on the south side of it, but it was like a path behind it, so we were able to walk behind the trees for a bit parallel with it.
When we got to the end of that complex, we cut into the woods, and had to climb somewhat steeply down the wall, but there was like a step at the corner. Minimal plants were in our way, and we came right out at the next business lot.
We walked directly across from there, and went through woods again briefly to emerge at an apartment complex. We walked along the sidewalks at the fronts of buildings, along an exit road and out to the edge of a retention pond. We skirted the pond, and at the far side of it cut through a short bit of woods to yet another lot.
Basically, we paralleled Rt 10 by following our own interesting little hike route that was among the more interesting things on the hike! We finally ended up along Watnong Terrace beside Route 10, and then reached the overpass over the former Lackawanna Railroad tracks. We came out to actually walk along Rt 10 from here, and then reached the next bridge over Tabor Road, which was our planned route.
Rather than walk all the way to the next jughandle to go down, I decided to just climb down next to the abutment. All of us but Celeste and Sue did that, and it really was fine, although at first it looked like it might be tough.
We headed down, and then along Tabor Road north. It was a long road walk for the end, but not that terrible, only an eighth of a mile. It seemed to drag on though.

Poor Man's Opera live

Lerch got back to the place first. Mark was kind of surprised to see us. We had not told him we were coming, and his set on this occasion started a bit earlier. On some of his shows, they go on later and therefore end later, but this was the first time we saw him at this place. We ended up doing more miles than I thought we would, and so it took more time. We also got a later start.
Still, we got to see them do three songs, and they closed with a greater version of Tom Petty's "Refugee", because Petty passed away during the week.
I'd seen Petty live, and he was great, so despite the fact that Poor Man's Opera had never played it live before, they still pulled it off really well, with Mark taking the high Petty vocals.
The others showed up, but not everyone came in. It was a tiring night and I can't blame everyone for wanting to get home. I had over an hour drive home myself for this one.
Still, it went pretty well, and I saw several places I'd never been before, as well as some old favorites.
My leg was hurting really bad by the end of the night. It's actually still hurting and feeling tight all these weeks later, but at this point I'm rather confident it will heal fully.
I also realized on this hike how quickly I can get to certain places. I think I really opened the door to other night hikes I can do with this one, just through the attempt to get to the meeting point on time. It's nice how these lead to more positive things, and there's guarunteed to be more.

Ham