Hike #1094; Lyons to Far Hills

Hike #1094; Lyons to Far Hills

11/29/17 Lyons to Far Hills with Joe Tag, Justin Gurbisz, Brittany Audrey, Sue Bennett, Dan Asnis, and Celeste Fondaco Martin

Our next hike would be another point to point night hike, again keeping with the theme of trying new and odd things I’d never done before, but still connected with stuff that I had.
This one was really a bit more exciting to me because it involved so much more new stuff than usual.
I think that something changed a bit during my time at Washington’s Crossing last year; I didn’t give up on anything I was doing normally, including the night hikes, and being farther away from stuff I was familiar with forced me to come up with new hikes that were appropriate for the seasons.
Not only do I have to be concerned with the amount of available daylight, I have to watch for what we’ll be able to do if there’s snow on the ground, I have to avoid heavy hunting areas, and make sure it’s something we can do without being out too insanely late. We want a bit of challenge, but not too much to have it not be enjoyable (like some of the Stephens State Park BS over the Summer).
I hurried to Far Hills train station right after work, where everyone but Celeste met, since she had to meet up late. Cars had to be left on Dumont Road because Far Hills Station doesn’t have free parking on week days.We shuttled from there easily to Lyons, which is another station stop on the same railroad line we met at. We parked our cars near the station at the Lions Mall.
I forgot that I’d run a hike through to this mall in October of 2007, and we used the train to shuttle. I knew I’d been to Lyons Station, but it didn’t occur to me that this hike connected with anything I’d previously done until we reached Bedminster.

Civic Center Park

The group dispersed when we arrived to use restrooms and get food. The pizza place was right there, as well as Subway and whatever else. I waited outside for everyone to get together to go.
When we started, we simply walked south and into the woods into what is called Civic Center Park. This is a mostly undeveloped tract of land, but it looks like it used to have trails running through it.
As we walked through the woods, I could see the indentations in the ground of where trails used to run, and where trees had fallen over them. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure until we saw a nice bench out in the middle of the mess, pretty much inaccessible to public.

Civic Center Park

We kept heading to the south as best we could, but at one point I hit a wall of multi flora rose, which was awful. We had to cut back to the east a little bit to keep going south, and even then we had a lot of fallen trees we had to climb over. It’s really amazing that in this urbanized area, there are absolutely no good paths or access to this nice piece of property.
Eventually, we emerged into a wide open grassy area, part of a retention pond associated with a development to the south and west. We turned right to skirt the retention pond heading sort of southwest for a little bit.
The pond area had a grassy path access to Linden Drive, which we were able to get through on. We turned left on Linden for a short while, then right on Summit Drive gradually up hill.

Civic Center Park

We walked Summit down hill on the other side, and came to the intersection with Knollcroft Road where we turned left.
This section of the hike was a bit of a gamble. Looking at Google bicycling map option, it looks like there is a bike trail that comes out at the northwest corner of the Veterans Hospital (VA) at Lyons. If we could get through on that, it would be great, but I wasn’t completely counting on it.
Still, I was feeling brave enough to try. We passed Manor Drive, and I was able to walk into the wide grassy lawns in front of some of the buildings owned by the VA. Justin was happy to see there was one nice old vacant building he was unaware of there.
We turned to the right when the grassy area opened up far behind the VA. There were no signs saying not to walk through, and so we followed it to the west. I tried to stay off the road, but there was no point for a bit. When we got out behind the bigger buildings, I cut further to the right into the grass to avoid talking to anyone. It was already dark by this point.

Retention thingy behind Civic Center Park

The access road was called Orchard Drive, and it cut to the left to a United States Postal Service building to the south, and we kept going straight along a chain link fences that skirted the north border of the property. When I saw the fences, I knew we might have a problem.
When we got to the northwest corner and I checked my GPS, I could see that it showed we were on the bicycle trail. That moment was proof that what we were coming up on was likely not the type of trail system I was hoping for. Still, on the other side of the fence was Pleasant Valley Park, so we wouldn’t be too far off from an open public area.
A little bit back from where the corner was, I had watched the fence and saw a spot that was sort of collapsed down, where we could sit on the chain linke and slide over. I didn’t know if it’d work, so I went ahead of the group to look.
When I got across and out to the other side, the north/south oriented chain link fence continued to an open field, which was probably the back yards of houses. I turned to the left and saw a good enough opening to sparsely brushy woods. I called everyone to join me.

The group near Civic Center Park

Everyone made their way through the mess, probably the worst section of the entire hike, and to the back yards. We walked maybe fifty feet, and then cut into an opening where lawn refuse had been dumped. The woods were easy to walk through here, and by cutting to the right we soon reached one of the trails within Pleasant Valley Park.
Dan was behind, shouting every time he touched a briar or something, so I had to shoosh him up because we didn’t want to disturb any adjacent private land owners. When we were all on the trail, which was like an old roadway, we turned left heading south.

The VA

As we walked south on this wide and easy trail, it seemed to come to an abrupt end. I think it must have at one time gone through to the activity fields just barely to the south, but a tree had fallen over it and no one ever got around to clearing it.
We cut into the weeds to the left, and then to the south a little bit more to emerge behind some old Soccar goals that had been placed at the northeast side of the fields.
We headed directly into these fields, and slightly to the right until we skirted the parking area, then reached a paved pathway that continued to the west side of the park. We intersected a paved trail that went north and south, and went to the left, south.
The trail took us into a very nice wooded area. We skirted some ball fields, then headed into a wooded section where we turned right on an unpaved trail. The paved trail continued to the left out by a pond, but we descended slightly to go across a pleasant little stream over some sort of bridge. The trail ascended on the other side back to the paved trail, where we turned to the right.
We continued to the south for just a bit more, and then took a right turn on a trail that led out to Lurline Drive. Brittany dropped her phone somewhere in this vicinity, but fortunately Justin was able to locate it well enough that they could come back later and grab it up (and they did).
Lurline Drive makes a sort of confusing loop. It’s all the same road, but we turned right on it, then immediately left. We continued around part of this loop until we came to the intersection with Hessian Street, then turned left. This took us out to the busy Mount Airy Road, Route 525. We followed that north for a bit until we came to a left turn on Newell Drive, which was much more pleasant.
Newell Drive took us to Route 640, Lyons Drive. We turned left on that, which was another busy and narrow road. The ones like this were the worst on the hike. Fortunately, a spot I’d located on the aerial images worked out well after not too far. Just past a house, there was a utility clearing off to the right. We were able to easily walk this up hill and came out in the parking lot for Liberty Corner Presbyterian Church.

Liberty Corners School

We walked along the back of the church, and then cut over to the Liberty Corners Elementary School. This is mostly a modern school building, but when we walked around the front, the original frame is obviously an historic structure. The building was completed in 1905, and has a handsome masonry facade.
We continued from here along the sidewalk to the east in the little settlement of Liberty Corners. When we reached the intersection with Old Mine Brook Road, we were able to cut away from the road just a little bit and walk along the edges of the fields just before reaching their fire department.

Historic image of Liberty Corner NJ

We continued across and soon entered the parking lot for the fire department. It was quite a prestigious building with multiple bays. I saw a classic fire engine parked within one of them; most departments seem to withhold at least one of these for parade pieces.
We continued out to the road again, and crossed when we got to the intersection with Somerville Road, where Liberty Corner Road becomes Church Street. At this corner, the paved trail enters the lands of Dunham Park.
Once we were all together, we followed the paved path into Harry Dunham Park. We crossed a parking lot and reached another paved trail on the other side, where we turned left.
This took us out to a nice circle area that was I think a Veterans Memorial, but I couldn’t see all that well to tell for sure. It had a nice American flag flying, which cast a lovely shadow with the nearly full moon overhead.
Justin and Brittany had fallen behind, and I jumped out from behind the Cedar trees to scare them.
From here, we cut to the south, and turned right into the woods on an unpaved trail parallel with the outside of the park. It led us out close to the Dead River, where Joe recalled there was some sort of trail following. Unfortunately, we did not come across such a trail and had to turn back. We did however get to see a very nice large tree while back there.
When we got back to the fields, we made our way out to the paved pathway along Somerville Road heading to the south. We had to climb across a plastic, white fence, which Justin joked is one of those “recycling can fences” or “time capsule fences” because the tops come off the post and things can be hidden in them.
We continued for a while on Somerville Road. It was a nice enough path, and it wasn’t too busy, but I wanted to get off of the paved road. When we reached the intersection with Allen Road, we turned to the right and headed gradually up hill.
After two intersections to the right on Allen Road, we cut through some weeds and up hill to the golf course green. From there, we were able to follow the course for a ways to the west.

Development lights

We simply followed the contours of the course and stayed near the middle as we headed mostly to the northwest. It was really very pleasant walking, and the most we had ever done like this. Joe pointed out to us as we walked where Mount Prospect Road used to go through, but that now it's a dead end on both sides.
We continued past a pond area an very close to Layton Road on the paved cart path, and then headed back up hill onto the green some more. This took us out behind houses for a while until we got to the western end, where it gives way to a retention pond. From there, we followed the south side of the retention pond to the west. At the end of the retention, an access path went down to Douglas Road, just a short distance from it's intersection with Schley Mountain Road, which is the western continuation of Allen Road. We headed out and started following the road gradually down hill.
The road was pretty busy, but at least we only had to worry about traffic coming from behind us, because the east and westbound were both quite separate from one another.

Group

We continued down hill until we got to the intersectino with Long Meadow Road and turned to the left. Celeste met up with us on this road; she had parked down in Pluckemin and walked north to the Bedminster Hike and Bike Trail to meet up with us, but she got to the point before us and decided to intercept.
Together, we all continued down hill, and turned left when we got to the intersection with Bradford Road. We continued toward the intersection with Roberson Drive, and took a break near the bottom when we got to a well lit community building of some sort. It was a good opportunity to get a lit up group photo.
From here, we crossed directly over Robertson Drive, and made our way through a low retention pond area to get directly to the east base of the foot bridge that carries the Bedminster Hike and Bike Trail across Schley Mountain Road and the Route 287 on ramp.

Group shot

We crossed over and made our way through a section of woods and open area, then passed beneath Route 287 using the Route 202 underpass. I ran ahead and up the side of the concrete slope beneath the bridge for fun along the way. I'm not used to doing that and having no one following me, it was feeling kind of weird.

Blurry group

We crossed another bridge soon over a Route 287 off ramp, and then again came back over to Rt 202 in order to cross the North Branch of the Raritan River. Once we were on the other side, we passed beneath a culvert, and the side trail to River Road Park emerged. There's another new connection that goes from this point to Burnt Mills Park, which I walked to some degree before it was fully developed, but we weren't doing that this time.
We continued to the north under the second bridge, then had a pond on our left. It was much more of a nature trail at this point, even though it was paved.
We continued to the north, and eventually passed by the parking area behind the police department. We continued across the open area, and then into a bit more woods until we got to the Bedminster Elementary School. There are these signs at beginning and end of the trail here that read "Another 2000 miles" which I think at some point was an old trail grant.
We walked around the front of the school, and then turned to the right along the sidewalk. A lighted bollard path continues off the north side to Elm Street, where we turned right.
Leaving the school, there were other cars that seemed to come out of nowhere going by us. I thought it might be a problem, but it wasn't.
Elm Street took us directly out to Rt 202, where we turned to the right. We crossed the North Branch of the Raritan again, and wree soon at Peapack Road in Far Hills. We turned left, then right on Dumont to get us back to our cars.
Joe took Dan and I back to our cars, and Sue took Celeste to finish out the night.
This really went quite well. I was happy that the route was almost totally as planned, and I finished with pretty high energy.
This was a good final realization for this hike; I have been finishing these nights with a greater amount of energy than I was several months back. I typically find it difficult to get home, and have to take a "power nap" before I get there. In the past I was also drinking more, like four or so Weyerbachers or similar drink. Now I barely finish two myself. I credit all of this to being in a better place with work and with life in general. I still have stress, but it's not as deep and debilitating. In fact, I'd spent full days doing very difficult chain saw work, and even popped my back to the degree that I had to fill out an accident report, but it's still not as bad as what I was going through before.
Everything could change come March, but I still have a few months to try to figure things out, and that feels good.