Hike #1126; Whitehouse to Lebanon

Hike #1126; Whitehouse to Lebanon

5/9/18 Whitehouse to Lebanon with Joe Tag, Jason W. Briggs, and Sue Bennett

This next hike would be a point to point, an almost loop, that would involve a few different park areas I’d never done before based on recent exploration.

New sampling...

I had done almost versions of part of this hike in the past, going back to I think 2005, but Tewksbury Township in Hunterdon County has long been one of the worst municipalities for open space. There seems to be outside entities coming in to preserve land where the township falls short.
I had recently taken a trip out there with Jillane to look around because there were new preserves. The first one I had never seen was Hell Mountain Preserve.
Foreboding name aside, there wasn’t a lot to it. I could somehow include this in one of the hikes though. Adjacent to it, directly across the road and for much more acreage was the Hill and Dale Preserve. These were both not too far from the Hunterdon County park, Cold Brook Reserve, where I actually worked for some time (I marked the trail system and did a lot of clearing in 2008, as well as painted the front sign). That preserve is not too far from the Whittemore Sanctuary.

Along the trail

When Jillane and I explored, we took some backroads toward Whitehouse. I found one that went along and across the Rockaway Creek that was outstanding, and I knew I wanted to walk it. After that, we explored the Rockaway Creek Preserve, a Readington Township park, in East Whitehouse.
All of these parks I figured could fit together with short, pretty road walks to make for a good hike. I scaled off a route that would include them all, as well as other back roads to return us to Lebanon, where we’d finished some other hikes recently. It looked like I had a winner.

Along Rockaway Creek

We met at a strip mall area in Lebanon and then moved cars to another lot OMG I don’t recall which one.
We then got in my van and headed to Whitehouse, where we parked near the firehouse to start out.
I’d stopped and gotten a new drink, an American Pale Ale by Weyerbacher known as “Day Wrecker”. It was kind of like an IPA. Not bad, but better with a meal.
We started walking behind the firehouse, through an open field area that’s mowed, and then into the woods.

Rockaway Creek

We kept to the right at trail intersections to be sure we were heading down to the Rockaway Creek.

Rockaway Creek

When we got to beside it, there are lovely little Piedmont bluffs along it’s edge, which one wouldn’t expect in this part of the state, and from such a small creek.
We headed west along it, over the highest bluff, and descended to a nice spot along the creek where we can see the magnitude of it all.
There is a creek that flows down into the Rockaway which was used as a sort of farm dump. Jillane had spent some considerable time there digging for bottles. Jason had a look around a bit here, but we didn’t take the time to dig anything.

Cemetery in Whitehouse

We crossed the tributary, and soon the trail started turning back to the south again. It passes by probably the most obnoxiously posted private property I have ever seen. Every single tree along an entire stretch of the trail has bright “posted” and “no trespassing” signs along it. There are ropes hanging from trees to keep people out, and even cameras pointing at the trail where it turns. Each tree had a minimum of four or five signs affixed to it. Someone said something about a meth lab or something must be back there.

Mill Road Bridge

The trail headed up hill and joined one of the shorter loop routes. We then went up and down over some rolling hills before emerging back in Whitehouse.

Rockaway Creek

We turned to the right and started walking down the road shortly. Jason was telling me all about his awesome experience in a movie he just had a part in called “The Irishman”, where he got to meet Al Pacino and Martin Scorcese.
He had some great stories to tell about the takes, how he got into the bit part, and things that Al Pacino, who portrays Jimmy Hoffa in the film, had said. It sounded like it was a really interesting experience.
We turned right into a cemetery along the way. This one worked out perfect.

Rockaway Creek

It was called Rural Hill Cemetery, and it led down hill very gradually in a pleasant setting. We followed the paths and between tomb stones heading to the northeast.

Mill Road

We emerged from the cemetery on Mill Road adjacent to the Readington Farms plant. I had decided to use this road after driving it with Jillane. It was too beautiful, I had to walk it.

Scene on Mill Road

We headed down hill and after a short distance reached the Rockaway Creek again. The road crossed over it in a very pleasant spot, by way of a through pony truss bridge. It was an old one, not a widened refurbished deal, which I love.
The creek was beautiful in both directions, as was the farm land and twisted trees around.
We continued along the road, and soon crossed a second tributary to the creek with cows pastures. One was cooling off in the waters of the creek.

Moo cow

We continued north along the road to the intersection with Cedar Road, to the right, and New Bromley Road continues to the left. At this intersection was the former crossing of the Rockaway Valley Railroad, one of my favorite obscure old railroad lines.
The line was built when railroads became a craze, in 1888, to haul peaches. At the time, Hunterdon County was the peach capital of the United States. Unfortunately, the peaches died off in the blight of 1890, and the railroad struggled after, suffering bankruptcies.

Rockaway Valley Railroad bed

The line was abandoned a couple of times. It struggled to keep going, and was extended to Watnong Station on the west side of Morristown, with the intention of making connections there. It came close to connecting with the Lackawanna Railroad there, but even though grading and bridges were constructed, it was abandoned in 1913. An attempt to rebuild the line in 1916 was halted, and soon after it was sold off for World War I scrap.

New Bromley Road

Much later, it was under serious consideration for use by the Black River and Western Railroad as an excursion line from Whitehouse Station, but Interstate 78 came along and crossed the right of way at grade, which squashed the idea. The area we crossed over is part of what would have been used if this had come to fruition.
Today, most of the line in Morris County is preserved as part of Patriot’s Path, the section in Somerset County is partially preserved in Rockabye Meadows Preserve, and a short bit is a park in Readington.

Whittemore Sanctuary

It’s not too surprising to me that Tewksbury, with it’s history of not having many parks, is the only municipality along the way I believe that has not preserved any of the right of way.
We continued on along New Bromley Road. The next point of interest was on the left, the former site of the Colonel John Mehelm House.
When General George Washington and his army marched through in July of 1777, from Philadelphia to Morristown, they camped between Whitehouse and New Bromley.

In Whiteemore Sanctuary

Washington slept at the house that used to occupy the site, which burned down some time in the 1960s. I don’t know of any photos of the house to exist.
We continued down New Bromley Road to the west, and came out to Oldwick Road, route 523, where we turned to the right. This was the crappiest part of the hike, as we walked the busier road north and under interstate 78. It didn’t take all that long though, because soon on the other side we came to the border of the Whittemore Sanctuary, where we’d bushwhack in.

Whittemore Sanctuary

Jason, Sue, and I bushwhacked on in after we got past the last house before the sanctuary on 523. Joe opted to just follow the road to Rockaway Road, where he could intercept us and skip the bushwhack. In retrospect, that was probably the smarter idea, because the distance really was negligible.
The property I understand was bequeathed to a group or something to be preserved by a woman who requested the deer be fed and such, but now it seems the township owns it.

Old federal in Oldwick

We made our way through rather thick multi flora rose, and could see another hiker passing by on one of the trails well before we got to it. They were probably wondering what the hell we were doing out in the mess.
We managed to get through, and then turned right on a trail called Bluebird Flight. We continued on this to Rockaway Road where we met back up with Joe. From there, at the parking area, we turned left through somewhat overgrown field, and then back onto Rockaway Road. The map was poor, and I didn’t know where the trail was going to be. Eventually, we came to it on the right.

Big tree, I think a Copper Beech, in Oldwick

This trail was called Half Back Trail. We followed it north and passed the intersection with Tree Stump Trail, and then reached the northern border of the property. We turned right here briefly on Northeast Pass, and then reached the Christi Trail, a side trail into township lands along the edge of a field.
The trail took us out to parallel with Oldwick Road again and then continued to the north. On the right, there is a beautiful old Federal style building back off the road that is quite nice. I’m glad it wasn’t torn down.

Church, now store

The trail came to an end along the road where we could pick up the sidewalk and continue into the center of the little village of Oldwick
Oldwick is a beautiful little village, and quite historic. In fact, it’s preserved through a special legislation.
Originally, it was named New Germantown. I would assume it was probably changed around the time places like German Valley (today’s Long Valley) was changed due to anti-German sentiment.
Among the historic tidbits, it is the location of the first Lutheran parish in the state of New Jersey, founded in 1714. Justus Falkner, the first of their clergymen ordained in America, led the first service. The Lutheran church is still in use as a church today, and a second church is now a storefront a bit south in town, among other Victorian, British, Georgian, and other style homes and businesses through the town, with giant trees and quite side roads.

Downtown Oldwick

I had considered stopping by one of the stores for food and refreshments, but it seemed pretty busy in one of them, and the other place that had sandwiches was already closed for the day, so we just continued on.
Just on the outside of town, we reached the entrance to Hunterdon County’s Cold Brook Reserve. I pointed out the sign that stands out front of it, which I painted myself one day, with a step ladder and a detail brush for the routed lettering, probably back in 2008 or 9.

Cold Brook Reserve

The trail from here is just a farm lane, heading up hill a bit, to where there is a really nice view of surrounding farm lands. I had not put a hike together that passed through here in years, but very little had changed.
When we got further up near the top height of the land, we turned right on a side trail that went down toward a small tributary on a farm lane.
While we walked, I was somewhat shocked to see painted trail blazes I had done maybe ten years prior still in place.

View in Cold Brook Reserve

I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised; I thought of Sue’s father, Al Kent, and how I’d followed blazes he had done that didn’t need touch ups for maybe twenty years.

Cold Brook Reserve

The trail turned right through a lane of trees, and then left to emerge at another field area. Here, I could see my old turn blaze on a tree ahead, somewhat grown over with vines and such. I was trying to get trail marker posts in place in all of these open field areas, but there was never enough time, and very few of the Hunterdon Park employees were willing to look at the trails really seriously.
When I did this particular section, I recall spending most of the time out with my old buddy Adam Johnson, who we call “Bandit”, doing trail work.

Field view

Bandit wasn’t too keen on doing trail work when I first started at Hunterdon, but as time went by, we started getting along really well, busting each others balls, and having a good time with the projects. When we did this one, I was blazing and helping him remove branches from the trail, splitting time between this and doing body work on the park trucks (I’d had some experience with this stuff both from my dad and from working at Taylor Rental). Bandit and I had some fun with those projects, and he and I would work later than the other guys, quietly building bridges out of pallets and such.

Cold Brook Reserve

We followed the field edge to the left, and came to another line of trees where the trail enters more woods. There were several trees down in this area, but my old trail blazes were still visible.
I hadn’t thought about any of this work for a long time until seeing it still holding up. I really appreciated working for Ed McCaffrey, the supervisor, who told me from my first day that the job is what I make it. A lot of the guys butted heads with him, but he never really treated any of us unfairly that I thought. There were times he and I disagreed on things, but it was always respectful and we moved on very professionally. I always liked the guy and even told later bosses he’d excel as a state supervisor. I to this day don’t believe the guys knew how good they had it with him.

My old blazes in Cold Brook Reserve

It’s a bit disheartening to see that the trail there wasn’t really taken care of any more. Several trees were blocking the way that we had to climb over. When I was hired, I cleared trees from trails that had been blocking them since 2004, at least five years.
Bandit still works for Hunterdon today, and only a couple of my former co workers are still working in parks, but doing a good job with what little time and materials they can to get the work done. Bandit is working for the county again, after getting laid off the same as me for a bit, but they don’t keep him doing park work always.

More of my old blazes

We reached one of the trail intersections, and my end of trail blazes too were still standing out. We turned to the right here, to reach another field section briefly, then back into the woods. At another intersection, we followed an unblazed trail to the right, which leads out to Hill and Dale Road.
We turned left on the road, and passed some lovely farm lands, homes, a barn, a pond, and some rural views.
I had probably not walked this section of road since a hike with my buddy Kyle Zalinsky back in 2009 or 10.
We continued along, and along the right side of the road was soon a property that didn’t fit in with the other ones. There was stuff strewn about, lots of weeds. Among the stuff along the road, there was an adorable young calf eating hay from a heap close to the road.

Cold Brook Reserve

It was quite friendly and certainly enjoyed attention. I went up and pet it, and it had no fear to run away.
After petting it a bit, and the others continud ahead, I turned to follow, and the calf started following me. It didn’t chase for too long, but it was quite a cute experience.
The house was an old one, just a little further ahead on the right.
We continued past a little tributary on the left, and then headed slightly up hill to the intersection with Parsonage Lot Road. It was a bit up hill, on a rather new looking development road.

An old double corn crib

We followed it up hill for just a bit, past one house on the right, and the entrance to the Hell Mountain Preserve was on the right. Across the street from it, the entrance to the Hill and Dale Preserve was right there.
My plan was to hike the loop in Hell Mountain, then return to follow the Hill and Dale Trails which connect to the east.
Joe decided to take a break and sit by the sign while Sue, Jason and I did the loop.

Pond on Hill and Dale Road

When I explored this with Jillane, it was kind of hard to figure out where we were going. There’s a kiosk, but not much else. It just seems to be in the edge of a field. We walked through woods and such but found nothing. We needed to walk along the fields ahead, which is unmarked, and then cut to the left into an old farm or logging road, which takes us up onto Hell Mountain. It’s easy to miss, and has junk dumped at the start of it.

Along Hill and Dale Road

The trail is also not marked well at all, and it’s not marked to any standard. They have numbers marking the way, which they want you to follow consecutively.

Pond on Hill and Dale Road

The main trail up is kind of a muddy mess that ascents a bit. We followed this for a bit. The first part of the loop goes off to the right soon, but it’s rather grown over.

Cow friend

Jillane and I had walked that way when we were there before. This time, we continued north for a bit, then turned to the right on the next bit of the loop trails.

Cow friend

The trail led across a small brook, then started heading gradually up hill, with the numbers high up in the trees. We continued on this until I recognized where the trail had come back in on the right. We then turned to the left to continue up hill. The small stream has two branches, an east and a west, with the larger one being to the west.
The trail led up hill and to a small pond on the border with private land. It’s a pretty little spot, and a weird place for a pond based on the topography.
We went around the pond, and then cut to the left, which led us back to an old woods road, where it heads gradually back down hill and to the larger of the two brooks. We crossed this to get back on the return route.
This upper area we were in was Hell Mountain, and the top of the loop has houses on it.

Moo calf

Jillane and I had gone all the way to the top, but we didn’t need to go that far this time. It was starting to get dark, and I wanted to see this part of it before then, because the markings are so bad and we wouldn’t be able to get out too easily.
We headed back down hill gradually, and reached the more clear old woods road section back out to the fields. We headed back out to meet Joe at the Parsonage Lot Road parking area, and then we all continued across and into the Hill and Dale Preserve, where a little kiosk marks the entrance.
Unlike the other trail, these ones all had standard markings and good trail blazes.
It was already getting pretty dark by this time, but we could still see pretty much well enough. Joe left behind his walking pole at this sign, but we didn’t realize it until a bit later.

Moo friend

The Hill and Dale Preserve is pat of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, and the farm lands are still farmed by the same family that has had it for over fifty years.
We continued along the top of the first field section, and then dipped down a bit. There were some outstanding views, even though it was getting so dark, out across the landscape through these field sections. For the most part, markings were all pretty good and easy to follow.
Still, at one point, we ended up getting off of the trail I believe and following the lower end of the field instead of the upper. We could see down to the farm house and barns, and a car was leaving one of them. I didn’t want to have lights on to arouse suspicion in anyone, so we just kept going. I looked at my phone and realized we should have been higher up, so we headed direct across the field up hill and found the more obvious route we needed to be on.

Moo friend

We continud along the top, and I think we might have gotten off of the red trail at some point, and instead followed one of the lower ones, which would have been purple or something. I can’t quite remember, but it didn’t seem like we went as far north as the red trail would have gone.
We got to a good foot path section in the woods, with a nice steeper farm land view ahead, and started to descend. The trail switched back a couple of times and then came out to a small field at the bottom. We cut to the left a bit, and soon came out onto Rockaway Road near the intersection with Meadow Lane.

Hill and Dale ROad

It was the perfect spot, because my next plan was to turn onto Meadow Lane.
To make matters even better, Meadow Lane was at this time closed to through traffic! The old bridge that crossed the Rockaway Creek almost immediately at the intersection, another old through pony truss structure, was closed to traffic. Hopefully they don’t plan on tearing it out altogether, but at least for now it provided us with a walking route with little to no traffic at all. We turned and crossed the creek here.

Scene on Hill and Dale ROad

I don’t remember ever having driven this road before, although I don’t imagine it’s possible I haven’t, but it ended up being even better yet, because the pavement soon ended. There’s not much else better than walking a pleasant dirt road.
The road left some of the open farm land and entered pleasant woods with the sound of night time critters. I was totally happy with how this road walk section worked out.

Hell Mountain Preserve

Meadow Road continued through the woods with few homes for a while, and then became more lightly residential. The pavement started back up I believe before we came to the next intersection, which I believe. This was Bissel Road, which was a sort of old corner. The houses situated here were some historic farmsteads.
I’m not sure the history of this spot or what it was historically known, but it was pretty. We continued to the right on Bissel for only a short distance, and then turned to the left on Welch Road.

Hell Mountain Preserve

Bissel was a busier road, and we saw a few cars, but once we turned on Welch it was not nearly as busy at all. Although it was paved, and had many more houses, barely any cars went by.
The road was interspersed with some farm land, and middle to upper class homes throughout the distance.
We continued to a left turn on Deer Hill Road, and continud a short distance to a right turn on Blossom Hill Road.

Old road in Hell Mountain Preserve

These roads were also not all that busy. It was also getting late, and so most people had probably turned in for the night anyway. We continued to follow this road to the intersection with Bernard Court, and I accidentally started walking down that. Fortunately I caught it before going too far.
We continued on Blossom Hill to the south, and used the road to get across interstate 78. Once on the other side, I turned immediately right into the parking lot for Crown Veterinary Specialists. I skirted the south side through grass.

On Hell Mountain

I passed through a line of trees from the veterinary place to the lot for Sahara Pools I think it was. They had lounge chairs and such out front. We passed by these and then passed through the parking lot parallel with Route 22.
We cut through the lots for Round Valley Animal Hospital, and then Bourbon Street Wine and Spirits where I had bought the Daywrecker drink earlier, and then continued along Rt 22 a bit further. Near the entrance to the Merck property, we dashed across the not so busy lanes of 22 to the south side.

Pond on Hell Mountain

We passed by a Shell station, a dance place, and then to an Exxon station. We were almost done at that point, and so I went in to get a drink and a snack to keep me going for the ride back. They had my favorite Arizona RX Energy, as well as Reece’s Fast Breaks as I recall, and then I got my group photo using the lights at the fuel fill area, because my regular camera had died out. We then moved on down along 22 the last leg to the Lebanon Plaza.

Pond on Hell Mountain

We got done within pretty reasonable time, and I offered to go with Joe back to look for his walking stick that he had dropped along the way. He told me the story of how this stick had traveled with him and Irina K to a lot of places, and how he had to hold onto this one, so I wanted to help him find it, then he’d take me back to my van at Whitehouse.
When we got to Hell Mountain, we looked around but couldn’t find it. I decided to run across the street to the entrance to the Hill and Dale Preserve, and thankfully I found it sitting up against the kiosk there, and we headed back.

View in Hill and Dale Preserve by Jason Briggs

I really particularly enjoyed this one because there was a lot of stuff I’d never included on one of the hikes before, and I want to do Hill and Dale again during daylight hours to really see the views better.
These days, Tewksbury is doing a lot more in terms of trails, and they have a plan for a “Ten Mile Trail” they call it with the preservation of several more properties that will connect to other places. The trail may not even include Whittemore or places I utilized, so it may soon justify a re-visit or two or three. Most places do, there’s just not enough time in a lifetime.