Hike #1128; Hackettstown to Chester

Hike #1128; Hackettstown to Chester

5/17/18 Hackettstown to Chester with Daniel Trump, Stephen Argentina, Ellie Zabeth, and Ken Zaruni

This was an interesting night hike in that it continued to grow during the course of it!

Hastings Square

I never tire of hiking the Hackettstown to Chester area. There are fantastic trails, and still always plenty of routes I want to get around to following.
There are lists of things I want to get back to explore that I hadn’t gotten to yet, and in this stretch, although I’ve covered just about every inch of other trails, there is still more up there I want to do.
I slapped several of these together all into one hike. I’ll describe them and why they were included as I go on to describe the hike.

Dan at Hastings Square

I made the ending/meeting point Chester Hill Mall, a pretty popular and typical meet spot for my hikes. We’d shuttle from there to our beginning point, the former Hackettstown Mall lot near the Wendy’s.
Only Dan Trump showed up at the meeting point, but that didn’t matter. I was just happy that anyone would show up at all, and I knew we would have a good time. We headed to Hackettstown and started our walk, which was a bit of reminiscence right from the start point.
The Hackettstown Mall has been gone since about 2002, and I ran a couple of hikes through it while it was still standing. It’s weird to go through there now and see Lowes.

Hackettstown Mall

There was for many years an abandoned, incomplete mall on the other side of it, adjacent to the Applebees location today, which was somewhat recently finally torn down. The foundation was still there when we arrived this time.

Hackettstown Mall on our hike in 2002

Dan and I walked right through the foundation, and I remembered going inside the building and goofing off with friends. We headed off the construction site to Mounain Avenue, which becomes Schooleys Mountain Road, and turned left past the golf course, across the Musconetcong River. This led us to Hastings Square.

Foundations behind Hastings

Hastings Square is a development that I had many friends in, and that I’d dated girls in. When I did my retail tour of Hackettstown and Mansfield (I actually worked in two of the mall stores, Radio Shak and JoAnn Fabrics, and also the nearby Shop Rite, A&P, and Walmart), I would be at Hastings hanging out with friends or girls I was dating pretty regularly. When I started doing a lot of hikes around Hackettstown, around 2002, and I the Patriot’s Path was not yet complete, we ended up walking out the back of Hastings Square and used their development paths to get into Hackettstown.

Hiking Hastings in 2002

In those earlier days before the phone GPS, we used to wander all over the place. As much as people like to tease me about hikes going longer than they’re supposed to, back then it was a more common and worse experience. We once had a 15 mile hike turn into 27. Wandering into the back of someplace like Hastings Square, where we at least knew where we were, was like a godsend.
Dan and I made our way into Hastings, cut across the first couple of development roads, and then got on the paths that went up hill between the buildings.

Stream behind Hastings

The trees through the place are so much larger than they were when I first wandered through with my brother and my friend Bode years ago.
We passed through a playground area, and another sidewalk path led us through to Knob Hill Road. Near that point, another sidewalk path led from this point between houses and out to the upper part of Knob Hill Road.
From here, my plan had been to go to the left and pick up the abandoned route of Reservoir Road, which the Patriot’s Path connects to, and then follow it up hill to the south, but we turned right instead.

Some old mines I found

Near the bend in Knob Hll Road, there was a road called Whitehouse Road. It was a dead end that went directly to someone’s house. By walking just a piece of that, we were able to cut directly into the woods. I knew from the past hikes, even though it had been a long time, that I could get in to the trails behind the Heath Village, a retirement community.
My friend Bob Moss, who built and laid out most of the Highlands Trail in northern NJ before my friend Glenn took over helped his father, a Heath Village resident, build the trail system back there.

Old mine area

Also around 2002, we spent a good deal of time exploring all of these woods. My brother Tea Biscuit was on probation for breaking into the local Acme and had community service at Common Sense for Animals on Sundays, and so for the short time he was doing that, we did local hikes that would start later so he could go.
Dan and I headed through woods in the swath of trees, and then followed a pretty little brook up hill for a little bit. This took us to an old road crossing.

Old iron mines

We turned right on the old road, which was part of the “Nature Trail”, the easiest of the trails associated with Heath Village. We went along the back of the village briefly, and then started seeing the old blazes for the trail system.
The system wasn’t maintained for a long time we could tell. Each trail start used to have the signature tree of Heath Village, with the name of the trail on it, but they were getting rotten and beaten up. We reached some of the blazes for the Knoll Trail I think it was, which went to a seasonal overlook, and then continued on the road up toward the giant blue water tank.

Soup can trail

We had hiked to this and behind it on the Iron Mine Trail in the past, but some of the trail turn offs were not visible at all any more.
Even the water tank area was much more overgrown than it ever used to be. We continued past the tank to it’s access road, and there was one of the trail heads on the other side. This I think used to be the “Cataract Trail”. There was a teal blazed trail, probably using the same paint Bob used on the Highlands Trail, which went to the top of the falls in Cataract Park, but it never formally connected with the trails on the lower end of it.

Former Patriot's Path on the power line

That trail is now abandoned for the most part, except for the far end of it which the local volunteers have incorporated into their new trail system connecting Patriot’s Path with Cataract Park formally.
We saw some blazes here and there for the old trails, but somehow in this section we got on a trail that was more recently blazed, and to standard with good turns, with soup can lids.
I think it was Matt Davis told me later that this was the “soup can trail” which was not necessarily legally blazed, but was done by a local bike shop that may have abandoned it now.

Patriot's Path near Flocktown

I had been on segments of this before, but not this part. It started going up hill, at times following an old woods road. I noticed while going up that it passed by an old iron mining site. I just had to take the opportunity to go up and look around. There were mine tailings all over the area and a few pits, but no openings as big as Young’s Mine in Cataract Park.
I climbed back down, and the Soup Can Trail took us near a private home, but then turned to the right. This might have been the former route of Patriot’s Path. That trail follows a couple blocks of road walk just up hill now, but it used to be blazed along a power line to a dead end point, and then was flagged with orange ribbon heading east out toward the top of the Knoll Trail at Heath Village. From there, it led via flags to the current route at the end of the road walk, but that blazed section abruptly ended too.

Electric Brook

Stephen had called me while we were starting to walk up hill, because he wanted to meet up with us. He wasn’t too far from where we’d started, so I gave him instructions on how to meet up with us at the point where Patriot’s Path hits a road known as Quail Run. We would emerge on the former Patriot’s Path on the power line there.
We eventually reached that power line and turned to the left, further up hill, with some nice views back toward Mansfield. From where we started up, it was a pretty good climb. I needed the workout anyway.
We met up with Stephen at the intersection, and then continued on the Patriot’s Path, which follows along the power line to the east for a bit, along some back yards.

Lake George at Schooleys Mountain Park

The section ahead had been in place for some time. We followed the trail from Quail Run out across Hunter Drive. Shortly afteru, it turned to the right through the swath of woods toward the Flocktown-Kossman School.
We arrived at the school yard, and followed the trail south to cross Flocktown Road. From here, it was much more pleasant than it’s been in a very long time.
Land owners adjacent to the trail, which follows a narrow swath from Flocktown Road out to Harrington Field, had put shit all over it from their yards, blocking it badly.

1920s view of Schooleys Mountain Road and Camp Washington Road

We followed the trail, which got a little muddy at one point, and emerged at Harrington Field. The trail then follows the access road from that out to Rock Road, and enters Schooleys Mountain Park lands, and follows the Electric Brook from it’s head waters down stream.

Schooleys Mountain Park, in it’s main section was YMCA Camp Washington from the 1920s through 1960s, after which it became a county park.
We followed the trail over Electric Brook twice, then crossed over Springtown Road.

Historic image at Lorree Chapel

The trail took us past the playground, pavilion, and parking lots, but we turned off to the right ot Lake George to take a different route. There is a floating bridge across the lake I like, and we opted to go that way, then turned left to the lodge building.

Loree Chapel

There used to be trails on both sides of the Boulder Gorge, through with the Electric Brook passes, but now only the one on the east side goes through. A bridge apparently washed out at the lower end, severing the connection, plus it goes right by a private house along the way, deep up in the gorge. I wanted to follow this route again, because I probably haven’t been on it since 2002, like the previous things.

Bridge on Boulder Gorge Trail

It was so much nicer than I’d remembered it. We went to the Loree Chapel, which is the outdoor church down below the lodge, where they still have services and weddings and such. We then moved further down hill talong the edge of the gorge, and above the two waterfalls.
Actually this might have been Falling Waters Trail. I forget which one is which.
Anyway, it gave us good views of the falls below us to the right, much different and from higher vantage points than the main trail across the brook. We continued down stream from here.

Electric Brook

The trail continued officially only to just below the waterfalls. The blazes then abruptly ended, but the last time I had been out this way the trail still went through.
We continued walking, and the former trail was still somewhat evident, but there were spots that the edge of the brook had gotten badly washed out. We had to edge our way along carefully as not to slip.
We soon passed the house along the edge of the brook. My friend Bode used to be friends with a woman who lived there.

Falls on Electric Brook

I don’t know that anyone lives there any more. There were no cars at the house and no apparent activity. We quietly went by, and there was a nice little waterfall right next to it. I’d forgotten that there was another one out there at all.
After we were a ways below the falls, I spotted where the trail used to cross. There was a sign on the other side of the brook reading that the trail was closed. We headed over and rock hopped across (well they did, I ended up just walking through it).

Weird roots in Boulder Gorge

Dan went up and down stream I think it was, and tried to find a better spot to cross.
We all got over, and then the trail was obvious on the other side. It was even blazed at the crossing to the driveway to the house and back up to the Patriot’s Path.
Here, the trail would have required us to climb back up nearly to the top of Schooleys Mountain and then come back down on Patriot’s Path. I really didn’t want to do that, and there were only three of us at this point, so I figured it would make more sense for us to just follow the driveway. Also, I realized something else.

Boulder Gorge falls

This wasn’t just a driveway, this was a railroad bed.
I knew that the High Bridge Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey (now Columbia Trail, which I hate because it’s named after the gas line) had a spur that served a quarry in Schooleys Mountain area. The overlook at the top along the trail is actually a former quarry wall. I had assumed the driveway had followed the railroad grade at some point, but never really had a better look at it. This time, I was just about 100% sure looking at it.

Falls in Boulder Gorge

Knowing this, I wanted to follow the driveway even more. It really wasn’t that far to go to the south before we were back on regular public road.
The driveway took us down hill on an almost unnoticeable grade. I figure the house in the gorge is probably built at the former terminus of the rail spur.
The driveway came out on Scenic Falls Road, a rather new development road. This road too was built over the railroad grade. We continued to follow it down hill to Fairview Avenue.

Cascades

The road cut hard right before the intersection, and I knew the railroad would have gone straight on. We turned left briefly on Fairview Ave, and then I spotted where the grade continued on. It was rather obvious because it passed through a small cut, then after that a small fill. I had walked the bit on the fill further ahead on past hikes, but never followed it from the road, so this time we would do it.
There was a bit of an old farm dump out there I have to remind Jillane to go back to. I found some stuff made in occupied China, which is supposed to be more valuable I think.

Where the foot bridge used to be

We got out to the fill section, and then it started to get overgrown with multi flora rose, so we cut off to the right. This took us to another former section of Patriot’s Path. This part was rerouted when the larger parking lot was cleared for Gillette Trail, a segment of the blue Patriot’s Path that connects to Rt 513 to the south.
We soon arrived onto the former High Bridge Branch, and then followed it to the right, to where the Gillette Trail section breaks off to the left. This section too had been rerouted.

The rail bed, now driveway

There used to be a house adjacent to the rail bed in this area, but the county acquired it and tore it down, after which the trail was rerouted onto the old driveway. I somehow ended up on the old trail which was muddy and overgrown for a short distance.
We reached the regular trail, which then crosses over the South Branch of the Raritan via an old farm bridge. We crossed here, and then I took the opportunity to take a dip. It’s a really nice and deep spot, and we’d worked as sweat up on the previous bits.

Rail bed, now driveway

Before we got too far, I heard from Elizabeth, and she wanted to meet up. I figured it would be best to meet near the Kruaszers in Long Valley, because we’d be coming off the Gillette Trail near there, and it would be fine after dark.
We continued walking from the river through the orchard lands, then to the open fields leading up hill to Rt 513. We turned right to reach the lot, and I figured it was a good opportunity to get some snacks or something. I went into the Krauszers and got some cheese because I’d been craving it badly, and the others all went into Phil’s Pizza in the strip mall.

Scenic Falls Road is built on the rail bed

I wasn’t planning on eating pizza, but they got me a slice anyway. I ended up feeling pretty stuffed because I’d also already loaded up on cheese, but it was all good.
Once we were finished here, we headed to the east, back along 513 where the blue branch of Patriot’s Path follows the road for a short bit. We turned left as it followed Bartley Road, and soon we came to the former Chester Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, which the trail follows across the Ort Farm to the right. One could never tell this was a former railroad crossing unless told so specifically.

Scenic Falls Road on the old rail bed

We skirted the south side of the farm, and I had everyone stay quiet because it was starting to get a bit dark. I didn’t want anyone to be suspicious of what we were doing.
The trail reached the wood line, and paralleled the rail bed for a bit, just to the right of it to avoid farm functions, then rejoined it just to the east a bit.
We continued through some nice woods on it, which follows a shelf all the way out to Coleman Road. I hear the trail has been developed through from Coleman Road for a bit, but I haven’t been on it yet. I’ll have to look back later on.

The quarry spur cut

When we reached Coleman, we turned left and started walking down hill. Just then, I got a call from Ken, who was done with a meeting and wanted to meet up with us. I told him we were heading back to the High Bridge Branch, then to the Patriot’s Path route, and he could meet up with us there.
We continued down hill, and turned right into the the old cemetery. We followed through this until it ended, then returned to Coleman Road, out to Naughright, the corner where Naughright Road continues ahead across Bartley Road. We went straight.

The quarry spur

When we got to the High Bridge Branch crossing site, Ken was there waiting. He parked his car on street in a nearby development. We all turned right, to head east on the High Bridge Branch.
We crossed a decked bridge over the South Branch of the Raritan, followed shortly by Elizabeth Lane. Just after that, the Patriot’s Path turns off to the right, but we couldn’t find it.
We walked back and forth, and each time, we could not see the white blazes leading off.

The old quarry spur

After a few times looking, we had had enough with it, and we just backtracked to Elizabeth Lane, and used that to get back to Bartley Road. We turned left on Bartley for a short bit, and then cut to the right through a line of trees leading out to Palmer Park.

An old cup I found

We didn’t get back on the Patriot’s Path just yet. This was the next point I wanted to get to that I’d never done.
Palmer Park is a big field, and Patriot’s Path skirts the one side of it, but it’s surrounded by a golf course, which did some kind of land swap in order to create the park and expand the course.
In the past couple of years, I’ve really gotten into hiking golf courses at night, because they’re open space that has little obstructions, and no one will see us out on them.

The quarry spur

This particular course is really huge, and spreads out all over the place. It looked like it would be a fantastic one to hike, so it was one of the last major things to slap into this hike that I’d never done.
We passed through the trees from Bartley Road, lots of tight Autumn Olives that were almost not worth pushing through, and emerged onto the Palmer Park fields. We turned right to skirt the far right side of the park, and then followed the tree line to where it opens, and the grassy area connects with the Black Oak Golf Club.

The quarry spur

We emerged onto a paved pathway, and then turned to the left, out along the edge of the course. It was a very pleasant walk through here, and we took it around to the south side of this first open area. Then, a paved trail led into he woods to the south. This took us up hill and over a little bridge before emerging at another open area of golf course. We kept to the right in this section, because we were now getting close to a road known as Chancellor Way, and were visible from the first house.

Flowaz, yo

We continued from here to the west for a little bit, and then again to the north still following the golf cart paths. We passed along a couple of nice little ponds at the lower section, and then the cart path crossed over Chancellor Way. We then turned to the left, and started going back up hill on another cart path. This section was just a line of trees away from the cemetery we had walked through earlier, but the point of this was not to take short cuts. There are no shortcuts to anywhere worth seeing.
The hill was actually enough to take the wind out of me. When we got near the top, it turned to the right, and then off to the left. The course itself is pretty much a linear route, almost like a long trail itself. I walked up front with Ken, and he told me stories about when he was in college, and the others behind me were having some sort of interesting conversation, because all of their voices would grow louder as we walked, and I had to keep reminding them to pipe down, that we weren’t supposed to be out here!

Gillette Trail

The next bit was probably the highest elevation of the entire course. We came upon a building out there, which had some lights on, so I was a bit leary about approaching it.
It was fine, and I found a bottle of water, which was good since I was thirsty and all I had been having was heavy Weyerbacher beer.
We continued from here on a very relaxing route down hill gradually. We walked across some green instead of the paved path, which took on a more circuitous course at this point.

Waiting for the others to cross with me in Long Valley

We soon crossed over Chancellor Way yet again. We hurried over before any cars came by, and the pleasant descent continued.
We crossed over a power line, and continued down hill until the green ended entirely, but the golf cart path continued into the woods ahead in a very pleasant wooded section. When we neared the bottom, we crossed a utility right of way which the Patriot’s Path follows, but we continued straight along the cart path and into the next open course section.
We continued ahead, and then saw another building on our left. I noted immediately that the door was propped open. It was a restroom, so we took the time and let people use the restroom and drink some water. It was a nice little spot for a break.
Another path intersection on the right was our next route. This took us to the east for a bit, over more level ground. We simply followed the green toward the farthest east point we could get to in the course.

The Chester Branch CNJ at Ort Farm

We didn’t realize while we were walking that the South Four Bridges Road aligns with the course just to the north, and then turns. So, when car was coming on Four Bridges, it looked as though an ATV or vehicle of some sort was coming over the green right for us. We all took off running like crazy to the line of trees on the south side, and ducked along the edge until we realized it was just the road and the way the lights looked on it. Relieved, we returned to the course and followed it to the end.

CNJ Chester Branch

I waited for everyone to catch up, and we turned to the right on Four Bridges Road. There was a good amount of traffic on the road, so we turned right onto Old Four Bridges Road, a splendid back road to walk.
We passed another trail head I did not know existed along the way, which will have to be the subject of a future hike here as well.
We returned to Four Bridges Road after it’s older route rejoined, and we had the crappiest bit of the hike walking up hill in traffic. The short distance to Tanners Brook Road seemed like it took forever. We turned right when we got to it.
Tanners Brook Road is nice. Part of it, getting closer to the bottom of the hill, is dirt.

Chester Branch crossing Black River

We continued along, along the dirt section, and then joined the Patriot’s Path where it came out of the Tanners Brook Preserve. It followed the road briefly, then cut to the left into a pine or spruce plantation to the left before joining with the Chester Branch again.
We followed it along the rail bed to the bridge over the Black River, an old stone culvert with a defunct dam to the north. This was supposed to be a lakefront community, but poor planning led to it flooding all the way out to Rt 46, so it had to be drained immediately.
The trail soon cut off of the ralroad bed to the left, and passed through the former site of the Chester Furnace. This furnace was state of the art for it’s time, because it burned anthracite coal for hotter temperatures and quicker manufacturing.

1890 Chester Furnace view from Chester Historical Society

The trail weaves through the site, and I pointed out where an oven was to the right. I also pointed out when we crossed the Chester Branch of the Lackawanna Railroad.
Soon, we crossed Furnace Road, and the trail led us up hill through woods. It was kind of wet in this section, but we pushed through it, and the trail rejoined the CNJ Chester Branch once more.
We made our way gradually up hill on this railroad bed at a surprisingly steep grade for a railroad. The route went by Chubb Park, and a few old iron mine holes.

Old CNJ Chester Station

At the top of the hill, where Patriot’s Path turns left into town, the railroad used to continue across Rt 513, and there was a little station and railroad yard where the Chester Hill Mall is today. We made our way back to Dan’s car to finish off the hike.
We really didn’t plan this all that well, because we should have left my van at the end since we had to get five people back to four different locations.
Still, we managed to cram and get everyone back alright. We just got Ken to his car first, then when we got to Elizabeth’s car, we had enough to get everyone where they needed to be.
I’ll have to do another one in this area some time soon and explore some of the other new developments we’d found, and maybe revisit some other old ones I’d not seen in many years.