Hike #1110; High Bridge Area Loop
2/28/18 High Bridge Loop with Red Sean (Patrick Ó Ríoghbhardáin)Reardon and Celeste Fondaco Martin
This hike would be the first night hike I’d posted in about two months or so. I had wanted to post more of them, but one thing or another would keep me from doing it. This one almost didn’t happen, and I tried posting it at the last minute. Only hours before hand.
New trail in High Bridge
I felt like absolute garbage and I knew I needed to be out more seeing new things. I’d done some trail work recently and had some really positive meetings regarding Warren Highlands Trail, but the solo work was wearing me down physically. I realized that I needed the balance of relaxation of the woods as well as the exercise. The hikes were really the only way to do it.
I decided to post a night hike on the old High Bridge Branch between Flanders and High Bridge, because it was easy and I could post on a last minute notice.
Celeste and Red Sean showed up (Red Sean slightly late), and I decided to change the route somewhat to accomodate Sean’s meeting up easier.
We had met in the High Bridge Commons lot where the High Bridge Branch joined with the main line of the Central Railroad of New Jersey. Rather than shuttle to Flanders, I figured we could loop right from there, and we’d start by checking out the new trail that allegedly went in from the lot and into the piece of township property to the north.
Old road, now trail...
I had received a message a year ago from one of the guys saying that the trail had been established in the property adjacent to the Commons lot, but when I went to look for it I couldn’t see it. This time, I decided we’d have a look around while waiting for Sean.
Sure enough, right from next to where we parked, the trail went off from the lot, crossed a tiny stream on laid railroad ties, skirted a fence, and climbed up into the property, following the trace of an old woods road that became more obvious the more we went in.
I had followed this once before, but not this exact route, on one of the holiday hikes.
Old woods road
There was nothing in place at all when we’d followed through this preserve before. Just a mess of invasive briar species that were unpleasant to walk through.
Now, the trail skirted the east side of it and avoided most of that. There was an alternate access point we passed along the way, which came out near the end of Liberty Street in town. We continued to the north, as the woods road skirted the hillside to the right of a little gully with some springs in it. The area just below this path was wet, and Celeste pointed out that there was some Skunk Cabbage starting to bud.
Party spot
We took a little side trip to the left to check out some chairs and such we saw. There was a little fire pit, as well as some beer cans that were placed to the side in a container, ready to be removed from the site. This was someone’s party spot obviously, but at least they were taking care of it. They actually had some nice wooden chairs sat out there.
We made our way back up to the main trail on the woods road and headed further north. There was more trail work done on the north section, because the rerouted the trail route form the old woods road away from wet areas to the sides.
Old woods road
We continued up the road, which seemed to dissipate. The trail did continue on, but there was no marking anywhere along the way, except occasional cut things into the trees which look sloppy and unprofessional. Apart from that it was all nice.
The trail left the woods road and made it’s way over another little wash, to emerge on a little side street off of Cregar Ave, which is off of Cregar Road.
Once we got to the end, we started heading back down hill the way we came. Red Sean called me, and I directed him to the Commons lot, where we’d pick up the old High Bridge Branch and walk it a bit toward the junction with the main line.
High Bridge Branch
There were some other trails going off to the west, but they were kind of obscure and not from what I could see part of the official system.
Sean was in the lot when we got there, and we headed to the south side where the tracks are still in place for the High Bridge Branch’s eastbound connector to the main line.
There were a few things out there I wanted to have a better look at, and so it was a good way to start out. The first thing I wanted to see was the condition of the old coal trestle that broke off of it. Needless to say, it was deplorable, but standing.
High Bridge Branch
The second thing I wanted to see was the old overpass where the spur line went to Taylor Wharton. Rail fans find this little line fascinating because it was so weirdly tucked away between the buildings in downtown High Bridge, and it had a trestle over an intersection of substantial construction. When I was little, the tracks were still in place and could be seen going across the road and between buildings. The parking lot to the west of the main street now covered over the tracks, but they are reportedly still beneath them. The trestle remained in place until reportedly 1991.
Coal trestle with rails
Red Sean said that when he was a teenager, he and his friends used to drive around and search for televisions that were sat along side the road, and bring them to the bridge we were crossing to throw them off, not knowing at the time what it was.
We descended from the line and down to the spur line at a path behind the buildings. A NJ Transit commuter train was pulling up within sight to the station ahead. It moved on along the tracks parallel with where we were standing as we headed down the slope. We then made our way out to Main Street and I pointed out where the tracks went.
High Bridge Branch
We crossed the street, and heading to where the trestle used to be, there was flower bedding and such. We continued ahead to the edge of the yard for a better look and to see if we could see any more rails, but there was nothing. We returned to the main street, and turned to the south on it shortly, then went left on McDonald Street toward the old trestle site.
In the later years of this bridge, it was painted light blue in color, but in earlier days it was a regular looking metal bridge.
My grandfather walked me across it when I was little, before the bridge was removed.
Old Taylor Wharton spur with trackage in place
A lot of folks seemed to think that this bridge was the one High Bridge takes it’s name from, but that is false.
The “High Bridge” that was referred to in it’s name was actually the Central Railraod of NJ’s main line, at the point where the culverts are today on Arch Street. The original High Bridge was a multi span wooden deck trestle over the valley of the South Branch of the Raritan. The piers may have been made too far apart, and the trestle reportedly sagged when the heavy engines would go across it. Workers refused to take trains over, and so for safety, the bridge was back filled and replaced by the double culvert carrying Arch Street and the South Branch.
The name “High Bridge” stuck and it was kept for the town’s name, but prior to that it was known as “Solitude”, an affectionate name given to it by Pennsylvania Governor John Penn as well as Benjamin Chew.
Taylor Wharton spur with trackage in place
Penn and Chew were held at the Solitude House outside of town during the American Revolution to keep them from stirring up political trouble.
I took some photos for my “then and now” compilations for Metrotrails, and we reached Washington Avenue. From there, we turned to the right and followed it past Union Forge Park, as well as Huskies Field (built on the old cooling pond), and former Taylor Wharton itself, now mostly part of Custom Alloy.
We continued ahead and crossed the South Branch of the Raritan, then turned to the right up Dewey Avenue.
I had made a mistake with this turn; we should have continued a bit further to East Main Street, but I goofed.
We headed up hill on the sidewalk, which was interestingly a bit higher than the road, and I realized when we got near the top that this was not the way we should have gone.
Former junction with the High Bridge Branch and main line
We did try taking a side path that went up hill just a bit further to the cul de sac at the end of Wharton Way, but we could see it didn’t go through, so we had to turn back.
We came back down hill and turned to the right past a few apartment buildings, then took Colonia Court back to Washington Ave, and we turned right for just a short distance to Main Street.
We turned right on Main Street and started following it with more sidewalks at a higher level than the rest of the street. These ones were much older than the previous one and had some character to them.
Taylor Wharton spur where it passed beneath HB Branch
While walking this stretch of road, Red Sean and I were having some sort of deplorable conversation, probably about defecating in our pants or performing some deeply immoral act. Celeste tried changing the subject to something else, which resulted in some awkward silence we joked further about. Like “Well now what do we talk about”?
The hill on this road was a little tough to get up, but it leveled off when we got to the intersection with Highland Ave. We continued along up the road, past Springside Drive and Wooley Drive, and around some ninety degree bends.
Where Taylro Wharton spur passed
We had now left High Bridge Boro and were now in Clinton Township. We continued along the road just a little bit further when I noticed an entrance to the parkland to the left, which I was not expecting to find. I was originally planning to go a bit further south and to cut into the Foran Fields, where we could access Springside Farm and it’s trails. This other access would very likely do the same thing.
We walked on an old farm lane back into the former fields, which are in rapid succession, becoming forest again. The route was obviously not very well traveled, but not unclear.
The spur bridge in 1991
The route was also very muddy, so we had to go out and around the outside of the wet areas. We soon came upon an old farm pond on the right, and skirted it heading east.
Spur bridge site today
The most amazing part was that the Spring Peepers were out so audibly. It was still February, and they were out like it was the spring time, and it felt very warm out.
Spur bridge site historic image
I had started the hike with my jacket on, but I soon opted to remove it because it was unseasonably warm. I’d end up not putting it back on for the entire hike.
Old spur bridge site today
We followed the path all the way to the ends of the fields, and the Autumn Olives and whatever else was growing in there continued to get thicker as we walked.
Old trestle site
We came to a sot of boundary where there was an open field ahead, and an ATV path passing out of it. Another continued directly to the left. The slope ahead below the field was that of the valley of the Beaver Brook, which flows to the east side of Springside Farm.
We walked along atop the slopes, and soon passed by an old stone wall and fence line. There was an enormous what appeared to be a White Oak growing out of the wall on the end, with old metal fence collapsed beside it. It had some dead branches on it, but it was still quite a monster of a tree.
Old trestle site
We continued on the slope just a little bit further, and then descended to the flood plain much closer to the creek. There was a spring flowing in from the left that made it look as though it was a large island on a tiny brook.
An ATV path soon became prominent along the edge of the stream. We followed the property line beside it to the north. Clinton township park land signs were on our left, and private property signs continued on the right. I’d never followed the Beaver Brook this far south. I’d always taken it from the Springside Farm trails to the north, and never tried to connect this way.
Old trestle site
Just up stream from where we’d be turning, the brook goes beneath Herman Thau Road, and then to Amesbury Furnace ruins, which I love exploring, but we wouldn’t have time to go up there on this hike. There was far too much to see that I’d never done within the Springside Farm and Nassau Tracts.
The ATV path only continued for a bit, then sort of disappeared. It probably accesses a hunting camp area, as we saw a building through the trees on the far side of the brook.
When we got to the slope at the corner of the Springside trails, we headed up.
Old trestle site
There are occasional yellow arrow markers on this section, but the yellow blazes of the Taylor Steelworkers Historic Greenway that I put in when I was helping Bill Honachefsky and Mike Gronsky with their project were never put in on this section. We discussed what to do and where to extend the trail on this site, but we never got to it. We’re all so busy with our projects and work, it’s hard to get things like this done, and it can get downright disheartening when you have even the town against the project, for no other reason other than it wasn’t their own ideas to begin with.
View off of Wharton Way
The original loop trail at Springside farm when Bill was working on it was just sort of an old woods road loop, but when the mountain biking community came in, they went wild on it.
They incorporated some of the original trail route, but they also made it twist and turn like crazy. Mountain biking trails like this are circuitous and you can normally see the next bend in the trails before even getting to it. You can easily walk five miles of mountain biking trails in only a tiny area, depending on how it’s all laid out. Although they can be annoying to walk, I wanted to explore some of them.
View to former Taylor Wharton
We got to the edge of the loop, and made a right turn, which is the north side of the loop. It was pretty straightforward at first, keeping to the higher land, but then it started doing that stuff where it was back and forth, up and down.
This upper trail wasn’t as tough as some of the stuff up ahead. We managed to weave around, and when Celeste was behind, she’d take shortcuts to get over to where Red Sean and I had already been. This continued until it seemed to close in on the original trail on the outside again. We then turned to the west to continue on more new stuff.
Clinton Twp land
I don’t recall the name of the tract or the trail we took from one section to the other. The east side of Springside Farm loop is in Clinton Township, while the western edge is in High Bridge Boro. We crossed back over into the Boro, and there were caution tapes up over the trail. We weren’t going to go back at this time, so we just went around them and headed east, which took us out to woods behind the next house off of Nassau Road. We pretty much kept to the right on the trail system, which took us all over zizgagging in this tiny piece of property. Both Red Sean and Celeste were cutting corners at this point because it seemed to go on forever.
We eventually seemed to break free of this tight trail system, and started heading on a switch back gradually down hill a bit, where we could see cars down on Herman Thau Road.
Farm lands in Clinton Twp.
Herman Thau Road becomes Wilson Avenue as it enters High Bridge. The trail we were following was doing some really wide switch backs as we headed further down hill. Eventually, it got so annoying that even I started cutting some corners.
While on the way down, I totally missed out on an abandoned barn just off the trail to the left. Sean and Celeste saw it, and so did I when they pointed it out, so of course we had to go and check it out. It was maybe one hundred feet off of the blazed trail, which was likely intentionally routed around this, and not close to it.
Giant tree at Springside
At first glance, the barn looked like it’d be quite historic. When we got up to it, we could see that it had a base completely constructed of cinder blocks, and it didn’t bear nearly as historic an ambiance as it had from further away.
The lower level was open and could be walked right into the under cover section. The upper level was locked off, but didn’t really have anything inside from what we could see through the windows. It was getting pretty dark at this point anyway, and we had just enough light to be able to see. The full moon really helped out in this particular property.
Big tree
We returned from the barn to the trail we had been following. This continued to give us switchbacks down the hill, as if we were going to come out on Wilson Ave. However, just before it looked like that was where we were going, the trail took a turn to the left and went into a lovely grove of evergreens and descended on a weaving route. This had a very different but welcome character from the rest of the trail.
We continued to follow it, and came out to another yellow flagging just before the trail emerged onto Nassau Road, where the Taylor Steelworkers Historic Greenway does too.
Along Beaver Brook
From that point, we turned to the right down hill on Nassau Road, which took us over to the intersection with Wilson Ave and Washington Ave.
The trail crosses from the short road walk on Nassau into the former Taylor Wharton property, on the easement granted to Union Forge Heritage Association by Custom Alloy. There’s a trail that goes to the left and cuts a corner toward the bridge over the South Branch, but that’s illegal. The trail is a granted easement that’s supposed to be where it is, and the trail people in town are just using it as they will. At one point they put a “Nassau Trail” sign up on it, and it has nothing to do with that tract at all.
Beaver Brook
We followed the actual trail route, which I blazed with Bill Honachefsky in 2010 in this area, and continued down to the former bloomery forge site, built around 1760, where there’s an interpretive sign.
From here, there’s a spur to the right that goes to the Solitude House, the former UFHA museum until the town basically shut them down, and we turned to the left on the main trail route.
We paused when we got to my old buddy Kyle Zalinsky’s grave, on the left side of the trail.
Kyle tragically took his own life in the Spring of 2010 after going through a rough patch.
Beaver Brook
Kyle, along with Matt Davis, Shelly Janes, as well as her daughter Dana and her boyfriend, joined with UFHA’s Bill Honachefsky and Mike Gronsky to help establish the greenway by removing the old decking and replacing with new on the circa 1890 Carnegie Truss Bridge over the South Branch of the Raritan. It was an outstanding, fun volunteer project we all loved.
When Kyle passed, we put some of his ashes near the bloomery forge site, which seemed kind of fitting since he was a Revolutionary War re-enactor himself. His friends and family got together to create the little memorial site beside the trail, and I carried the 250 lb stone for him across the bridge.
Bike in a tree on Springside tract
We stopped for a few moments and I sat on one of his memorial benches before we moved on.
From here, we followed the greenway along the edge of the Custom Alloy property. There was bright light coming from it, and we made our way across the Carnegie Truss with no problem to reach the open field with the old Taylor Wharton shop building to the right, and the old Taylor Iron and Steel Company building, oldest office building in the state of New Jersey, just to the right up ahead. The main section of it with it’s stone facade is the original from Revolutionary days, but it was added on quite extensively. Still, it retains much of it’s historic character. It’s a shame the town isn’t doing anything to restore this very historic building.
Historic image of TISCO building
We turned to the right to follow the greenway across the yard behind the TISCO building, and then into the woods heading up hill toward the old High Bridge Branch line.
TISCO building as it appears today
When we reached the top, Celeste decided she was going to take an early out and head back and see her husband, while Red Sean and I turned to the right to follow the railroad bed off into Ken Lockwood Gorge.
We passed by the former mayor’s house, and I had been told that his son was shot on this stretch of the trail just about a week before, but heard nothing more about it.
Full moon in the gorge
The moon was incredibly bright, so much so that it cast our shadow as we walked. It was amazing walking beyond Lake Solitude and into the gorge. It remained pretty warm and comfortable all the way through Readingsburg across the little bridge, and into the deepest part of the gorge.
The waterfall along the left side was flowing pretty strong, and the river was loud with rushing water below. I managed to find where the Highlands Trail broke off to the left pretty easily, and we followed it up hill away from the rail bed. I broke a sweat on the steep slope; when I stopped part way up and looked back, the dark but discernible mountains across the gorge looked amazing.
We continued up the side hill slopes, and I thought I’d lost the trail at some point when it joined a woods road. The blazes weren’t that obvious, and I had to get my phone out and shine it on the trees to be sure where they were.
The trail continued up hill and soon joined the driveway to the abandoned house to the south. We didn’t take the side trip to visit it this time, and instead headed along the road out to Route 513. We followed this to Bunnvale where we made a brief stop at the little mini mart there. We got some snacks to continue with, and then moved on along 513 past the church.
Jesus loves you...and to the right I see "Bun Ass We Like you"
Soon, the Highlands Trail cut to the right into Voorhees State Park. I crossed the railing into the fields near the barn, but Sean wanted to get back more directly.
We parted ways here, and he followed Rt 513 the rest of the way back, while I went parallel with him through Buffalo Hollow. I’d imagine I probably didn’t get back to the High Bridge Commons too much later than him either.
If Sean had stayed with me, I probably would have continued across on the Highlands Trail or something, but I wasnt’ going to try to navigate all of the woods myself. I changed my trajectory and went to the Gold Trail, across the bridge made with the former dock and then directly out to Buffalo Hollow Road. There is an old farm pond there that we’d cleared out around at work, which I skirted on the way out to Buffalo Hollow Road.
I turned left on the road, and there were two guys in a truck doing something at one of the field edges. The one guy was walking backwards out of the field access when I came quietly down the road. When I said hello, I startled him pretty good. No one expects anyone to be walking down the road in the dark alone.
I continued down the road, across the bridge over Willoughby Brook, where the older bridge is off in the weeds to the right of the road.
The old Willoughby Run bridge
I first noticed that old stone bridge one day when I was on my way to Hacklebarney passing Voorhees State Park.
The old bridge is barely visible except in the Winter, just off to the north of current Buffalo Hollow Road. The flood plain is wider there, and it seems obvious that at some point, the Willoughby Brook flooded, and it’s course changed dramatically. The new bridge was necessary, and the old stone arch remained in place, somewhat silted in from the flood conditions. Hunterdon County is home to more of those little stone arch bridges than anywhere else in North America, with over two hundred examples noted.
I continued past where Buffalo Hollow Road turns right and heads up hill, and Poplar Lane continues straight (and becomes another Buffalo Hollow Road further up). I followed that on part of the Highlands Trail route for a bit, passed the mean lawyer’s house that gives us problems at Spruce Run, and then cut to the right onto the former Central Railroad of New Jersey trackage. I followed the tracks back into High Bridge, and turned to the left when I got to where the former westbound junction with the High Bridge Branch used to be.
I walked out toward my car, and noticed another new mountain bike trail cutting into the woods to the left. This is another one I’ll have to get out there and explore on a future hike.
I was quite happy to have gotten out and explored a bit. There was so much more to see, and I had a rather peaceful easy feeling from the unseasonably warm night.
No comments:
Post a Comment