Hike #1084; Hope to Washington

Hike #1084; Hope to Washington

10/26/17 Hope to Washington with Jennifer Berndt, Justin Gurbisz, Brittany Audrey, Sue Bennett, Jason W. Briggs, and James Quinn

This next hike would be a point to point between Hope and Washington, and the last night hike before the dreaded time change shortens the days.
This was the first hike where I realized I’d have to try to be less ambitious because the days are just getting too short to do the kind of terrain we were doing before.

Beaver Brook outside of Hope

I met the group at our end point in Washington, across from the Krauszers, at the town lot. We’d be able to get there from the old Warren Railroad line pretty easily. We then shuttled north to our starting point in downtown Hope NJ.
We started walking from in front of one of the stores near the main intersection; Justin and Brittany had met us there and parked nearby at the school. Together, we all headed along Rt 519 back away from town toward the entrance to Jenny Jump State Forest.
The connecting trail is to connect Jenny Jump Trail, which will be part of the Warren Highlands Trail, with the access and parking area on 519. I’d done this route before, but it wasn’t yet completed. I figured since it’s on the maps, it should be fine by now.
As we walked along the street past the historic Moravian stone houses in Hope, Cristina Van Houten drove by and hollered out to us. She pulled over and talked to us briefly; she had to go shopping otherwise she’d have joined the hike with us for a while.
We walked along the road and then across a bit of a church yard before getting to the access lane with it’s little bridge into Jenny Jump.
There was a trailhead sign with a blue blaze on it this time, but as soon as we got walking it was obvious there was no trail. Not only that, the state signs that showed that this was blue blazed were incorrect because the trail it leads to is teal.
When we reached the open farm fields, much of which were still planted in tall dead corn, we simply walked through the stalks as best we could, either around or through, to the direction we needed to go to reach the main trail. It took a little bit of time extra, but not by much and we were able to reach the trail.

On the trail

The trail led past a little waterfall on the left, skirting the bottom of the Jenny Jump ridge. It then started to gain some elevation.
It started out easily, and switched from footpath to some old woods roads, but then became more difficult and steep. This section ended up seeming a lot longer than it had to me in the past. As soon as we got to the top of one switchback and I’d thought we were done, we were going up another one. As we neared the top, we saw two guys walking our way with a giant barrel. I guess they were baiting deer stands or something. We continued on the trail to where it took us out at Hissum Road.

On the trail

James met up with us at Hissum, where he was able to pull his car over at a pull off parking spot. From there, we all continued across directly on the foot path, which soon got into some rather deep and secluded feeling woods. We skirted the edge of a small meadow after reaching the height of the land, and then started descending somewhat steeply on the other side. There were a lot of leaves down which was starting to make it pretty slippery.
Just after things started to even out a bit again, we reached an old woods road.

Jenny Jump Trail

I’ve always known this old road to be called Buzzard’s Glory Road. Today, Google Maps shows this side as being called Otto Lane, but I do believe it is part of the same road.
We turned to the right and followed the road through woods, and it soon opened up to a wider route.
This section is kind of weird as far as the trail is concerned, because it’s kind of still on private land. The road is a “paper street” I think, which means it’s a township right of way or something, but it’s not state owned yet.

Crest of the ridge

Near where the road comes out to Lake Just-It Road, it reaches the lake actually known as Lake Just-It. I have no clue where that weird name comes from either. We took a break here, because Jen was going to meet up with us at that point.
Brittany and Justin sat on the dock at the lake, which was now adorned with state park signs. It seems like not long ago the land was still in private ownership, and DEP didn’t want to buy it because of the liability that comes along with owning a dam. Apparently they ended up with it somehow anyway.

Buzzard's Glory

There was a smaller pond below the main one (Lake Just NOT it?). I checked out the scenery for a while, and soon Jen arrived.
We all got together and walked out to Lake Just-It Road to make a plan as to what to do next.
Originally, my plan was to cut through woods on the future Warren Highlands Trail route to High Rock, the beautiful vista overlooking Mountain Lake, but at this point it would be totally dark trying to do this bushwhack, and it would take us forever. I wasn’t up for doing that, so I talked to the others about an easier route, which still had good terrain, but would take less time.

Buzzard's Glory

Pretty much everyone agreed I guess, and so we followed Lake Just-It Road, which is the trail route, up hill just a bit to where the trail cut back in on the left. We then followed it through the last swaths of Jenny Jump State Forest. We passed the connecting trail to the parking lot at Mountain Lake, and then made our way further up the ridge.
There are a ton of side trails up in this area, so it’s important to follow the blazes closely. It’s fortunate I knew where to look for these blazes, because someone who didn’t know could get seriously lost. The others made wrong turns a couple of times, but I knew the way.

Lake Just-It

The trail passed through a saddle in the Jenny Jump Ridge, then left one of the obvious woods roads to head slightly down hill. We reached another wider woods road, which headed gradually down the mountain after a hairpin switch back, and passed behind a few people’s homes. We tried to keep quiet and move out of that section as quickly as we could.
The trail emerged at Green Pond Road just away from Mountain Lake. From there, rather than go the route I was originally intending from Mountain Lake, we followed Green Pond Road to the west and then south to get back to Buttsville.

At Lake Just-It

At Buttsville, we were able to get on the old Lackawanna Railroad main line and follow it south. I had wanted to see this section badly anyway because Matt Davis told me he saw that they severed and destroyed access to the Pequest Viaduct, the three arch concrete span that takes the rail line over the Pequest River. If the area were closed off, we would lose our easiest access for Warren Highlands Trail when we develop it through there. I had made calls to Department of Transportation and talked to one guy, but then never heard back from them. I wanted to see for myself before I made any other moves.

Sunset on Lake Just-It

We got on the railroad bed at the cemetery off Green Pond Road in Buttsville. Just as we stepped on from the road, a dog walker was going up the road. He stopped as we walked and pointed his flashlight into the cemetery.
The guy was apparently wondering what we were up to and thought we went into the cemetery, when actually the railroad bed is only parallel with it. I figured we’d better get out of there because it seemed weird. We followed the railroad bed on to where the rail line used to cross Rt 46, and utilized the ATV paths to the north where development had badly obliterated the rail bed.

Lake Just-It

I was very happy to see when we reached Rt 46 that the ATV path back up to where the bridge crossed had not been obliterated at all. It looked actually almost the same as it ever had. Some other construction at the site must have made it look like it was ruined, and they’d completely blocked it. It was fine as of this writing.
We followed the rail bed up over the bridge, and then through the lovely section of Pequest Wildlife Management Area heading to the east and south.
The section was really quiet and peaceful, and we had no problems. We passed through Pequest Cut and made our way out to cross Pequest Road.
The temperature outside was absolutely great. This fall had been the warmest I could remember. We were in tee shirts, and as soon as I would put my jacket on, it would feel too hot and I’d be taking it back off. It was more like a Summer night than fall.

Lake Just-It

One thing different this time was that we did not walk the rail bed and paved trail south from Pequest Road. There was that idiot guy who came out and tried the run the group down with his truck last year at the end of it, and I didn’t want to chance having a problem, so we just walked nearby Pequest Road instead.
It sucked having to walk the road knowing there was a good clear path there. We probably would have been fine to follow it as long as we didn’t have flashlights out, and we were quiet going by, but oh well.
We stopped for a pit stop at the store in Oxford, and then headed from the Busy Bee (or former Busy Bee, it had changed hands and names this year), and cut across the school lot.

Lake Just-It sunset

We took Church Street up from the school on Kent Street, and then got on Mine Hill Road back into Washington.
Even though it was up hill on the road, it felt brutal to me at the time. I was pretty tired.
Once at the top, it was a nice slope down to the Fairway Greens apartments and golf course.
The new route for me this time was to cut to the left, and then go across the golf course directly toward Pohatcong Creek Natural Area. No one is around at night, and it’s a pleasant walk to get over there.

Sunset at Lake Just-It

Many times I had used the trail that connected the swimming pool at Fairway to the Pohatcong Creek Natural area at the foot bridge over Pohatcong Creek. In more recent years, that connector trail has grown over, but it was still something I could follow. The main route through Pohatcong was now a loop trail.
We went across the course rather directly, and then made our way toward the tennis courts. We went around those to the left, and then skirted the woods where I searched for where the trail should take us in to the foot bridge area.
We walked into the woods looking around for where the path should be.

Church in Buttsville

I told everyone else to hang back while I went looking for where the trail was. It was harder to locate than I’d remembered. I thought I got to the edge of the creek, but it was actually a muddy wetland. I skirted it and walked over a pile of junk back there, and then came to where there was a path toward someone’s back yard. I definitely was going the wrong way, and probably should have tried going a bit further to the east to the creek.
Even when I used to walk this section before, the old connecting trail I’d used since high school was starting to get overgrown, so I realized I wasn’t going to find it.

Walking the old trail and bridge on one of our hikes in July 2002

I made my way out to the rest of the group again, and we all headed past the pool area so we could get over to Old Mine Road again. We turned left when we reached it and crossed Pohatcong Creek on the road bridge.
I had wanted to continue along the creek on the other side by going left, and it would eliminate some road walking and be an interesting route to the end, but most everyone wanted to just head back to the cars on roads to be quick.
I was disappointed, but figured we could do my planned route another time. We headed up hill on Mine Hill Road to the intersection with Jackson Valley, and then just continued straight on Belvidere Ave. Both that and Mine Hill Road were part of the original Spruce Run Turnpike.
When we got to Green Street, we turned to the left. Although I agreed to follow roads some of the time, it was still quicker to get back on the old Lackawanna main from this point to the end because it cuts a good corner.
We had to very steeply descend from Green Street, but made it down with no problem. We then simply followed the old line, which has only recently been put out of service as an industrial spur, recently.
When we reached Jackson Avenue, we turned right and headed down to the cars, which were right across from Jackson’s intersection with 57, right next to the Krauszers.
When we got to the parking lot, two police officers were there. They were parked opposite one another talking, so I couldn’t exit the parking lot. Actually, I could get out and go the wrong way, or I could go to the stop sign out the wrong direction. I’d done that before when the police were blocking the exit, and got pulled over for it. I never got a ticket for it, since they were blocking the way, but I figured I’d see if they’d move over for me this time too.
When I got to the car to talk to the guys, one of them turns his phone to me and says “Hey, I’m checking out your website!”
We ended up getting into a discussion about the railroad bed and how it’s state park land, and how it should be connected with the High School and police station, which both sit on either side of it. I still consider that the most important pedestrian connection in the county for practicality, safety, management, and recreation. Unfortunately the plan stagnates and someone else will likely get it going and take credit for it. But oh well, as long as it happens.
The officers moved off so I could head home and rest up. Work and the morning comes all too quickly on days after night hikes.