Hike #1137; Far Hills to Bound Brook

Hike #1137; Far Hills to Bound Brook

6/28/18 Far Hills to Bound Brook with Kralc Leahcim (Lerch), Stephen Argentina, Ellie Zabeth, Varsha Reddy, Stephanie ?, Justin Gurbisz, Celeste Fondaco Martin, and Dan Asnis

This next hike would be a point to point between Far Hills and Bound Brook, a variation on a hike I had done in the past a few times, but with a few new things I’d been wanting to see.

LOL

The first time I’d done this hike was back in I think early 2008. We shifted it to end in Matt Davis’s old neighborhood. Since that time, I’ve done it a few times, one of which I tried to follow the route we started this one with, not knowing that it wasn’t yet finished.
We met after my work was finished at the Bound Brook Shop Rite. While waiting, I wandered into the liquor store, not thinking I would get anything, but then I found beers called “Fuggin Awesome” and “Effin’ Awesome”, both at 16% alcohol. I couldn’t turn that down, so I purchased a few.

North Branch of the Raritan

Varsha showed up, but she ended up getting into a fender bender in the parking lot, which wasn’t her fault. She had to sit with the cops for a bit, but I had a way for her to meet up with us really easily not too far in.

Pond on Bedminster Trail

We piled into my van and shuttled to our start point, on street near Far Hills Station, where we’d parked in the past. I also had Stephen go to this place because he was running behind. I actually helped him out, because I ended up missing my exit and driving all the way to the Lyons exit, then had to go all the way back., and
We all headed from the station to the bridge over the North Branch of the Raritan River where we waited for Stephen to catch up, and then moved on our way to the west through the village of Far Hills.

Pond on Bedminster Trail

Lerch was very happy to announce that he had gotten confirmation that very day of his new job. He had been working on getting a job with environmental remediation or something of the sort for a long time, because he has a degree in that area, but wasn’t really having luck. I was hoping that he’d get the state gig working with Justin, and I’d told him some of the buzz words and such that I told Justin to help him get in, but I guess that didn’t pan out.
Fortunately, Lerch said the assignment he got was actually the one he was most excited about based on the different interviews he had been doing. His new job started in two weeks.

At North Branch of the Raritan

I decided to try a slightly different route for this hike than previous times I’d done the Bedminster system. We went down between buildings and skirted the edge of a park, then headed through a wooded section out from Elm Street to the elementary school to the south. From here, we went around the building to the right to get on the regular Bedminster Twp. Trail. I was hoping to go around to the left but there wasn’t really a way.

Foot bridge

The trail went past the building, and the sign that had read “2000 More Miles” I believe was missing. That must have been a round of grant money years ago that went to trails, as we see them relatively often.
We headed through woods and past some pretty little ponds heading to the south. We passed the police station and skirted the North Branch of the Raritan River out to where the path diverges, just after an AT&T access road underpass. It was here I planned to turn off, but we waited here for Varsha.

Ped bridge

I guided Varsha to the access point down near Pluckemin, at the southern end of the trail where she could walk northbound on the old main route of the Bedminster Hike and Bike Trail, right to the place where the paths diverge. It didn’t take her long to catch up with us at the intersection.
We turned right, to the west, and headed underneath Route 202 along the AT&T access road, then climbed to cross one of the many metal pedestrian bridges throughout this area, seen prominently from the highways. There are more of them on the main route, and this was one of them I think I only ever used once otherwise.

New Bedminster Trail extension

We came down from the bridge into River Road Park along ball fields, and then turned to the left. We crossed over River Road, and then a newer paved trail continued on the other side. This proposal had been out for a long time, and on a hike years ago we waded across the North Branch of the Raritan here because a bridge wasn’t in place. This time, the trail made it’s way along Rt 202 and used it’s bridge briefly, then continued on the other side parallel with the highway into the woods. The pavement looked pretty fresh.

Some of this section of trail looked as though it utilized older road routes, because we could see where the old routes turned away from the trail route.
The woods were wide open at first, and then became much more sparse as we got to a successional area. There were some young trees with wraps around them to deal with buck rubs, and then really impressively high fencing to keep deer out. Some places in this area have over one hundred deer per square mile, so they can be a serious problem.

Old road diverging

The new trail section emerged in the north side of Burnt Mills Park, and we walked across some of the lawn area to cut a corner heading to the south. Elizabeth was planning to meet up with us up ahead, and I texted her to park over at Zelis Healthcare on the east side of Route 287.
We turned left on Burnt Mills Road and crossed over Rt 287, then skirted the lot for Zelis Healthcare. We could see Elizabeth’s orange car from a distance.

Bedminster trail

When we got over there, she had brought a bunch of mylar balloons for Lerch, with “Congratulations Lerch” written all over them, celebrating his new job.
Lerch said after a while that this was one of the most annoying things he’d ever had to try to carry on a hike, which was saying something considering all of the annoying things he’d tried pushing onto people during hikes in the past. Still, he managed to carry them without popping any, and during the course of the next two weeks I got various picture messages of the balloons in weird positions around his house or something or other.

Deer fence

Directly across form the parking spot was the Pluckemin Park, as well as the old historic Pluckemin School House. We went by that and skirted the left side of the ball fields.

This sign can be used for spanking

The old Pluckemin School house was a four room, two story school built in 1912. It was used as a school until 1958 when the Bedminster School was enlarged, and after that contained municipal offices until 1993, when it became home to the Center for Contemporary Art.
We continued to the very end of the field and looked for a cut through path, because I wanted to try to get out to the Corporate Center that sits adjacent to the connection between Rts 78 and 287. This ended up being a little bit messy.

Pluckemin School

We had to bushwhack through some weeds, which wasn’t quite easy, but we worked it out. We had to climb through the mess, up a slope, and over a small fence to get to the lots.

Historic home in Pluckemin

We took a break and allowed for time for everyone to get over before we moved on.
Then, we headed down the access road to the right and came out to Rt 202, where we crossed and turned right. We passed beneath the highway, and I went up onto the sloped underpass.
We crossed over Chambers Brook on the Rt 202 bridge, and then just after turned left into a parking lot of a law firm. A trail leads into public lands behind it, and to the remnants of a sort of defunct dam and mostly emptied lake.

Congrats Lerch!

It’s a pretty cool sight to see, and the trail continues up past the dam and on the slope above where the lake used to be. We moved along this section rather easily, though it’s a little rockier than the rest of the hike.

School House Park

Once we were on the other side of the lake, the trail seems to remain on the slope with a side hill, but I wanted to find a near rocky area of typical Watchung formation to show everyone. I went down through the brush a bit and followed up stream on the Chambers Brook. I found the spot, with some pipes and such, not quite how I remembered it. We managed to keep following the brook up stream a bit until the trail descended to beside it.

Old dam ruin

We continued up stream and came out at the intersection of a driveway and South Shore Drive. We then walked out to the dam where Chambers Brook flows out of Sunset Lake.

Abandoned lake

Sunset Lake was way nicer than the mucky mess of the previous one we had seen. We went out ot the dam and got a group shot, then took a break before moving on. It rained only slightly while we were in this area, and then stopped.
We followed South Shore Drive to the south east, all the way out to the end of the lake, then continued on the road out to the next ninety degree bend. There, a trail went straight into the woods into what I guess is part of Gene G. King Park.

Informal path

The trail passed through woods with some nice little foot bridges that had obviously been improved since the last time I had been on it. In the past, it was getting really hard to follow, and a couple of times ended up with us bushwhacking. This time it was very easy to follow, but it also had a new designation as the Washington - Rochambeau trail, and may now be part of the National Scenic Trails sections. Apparently, this section and much along the Middle Brook follows closely to the marshing route used by Washington.

Along the Chambers Brook

The Middlebrook Encampment was a major Continental Army encampment during the American Revolution two times during the late 1770s, and so it makes sense that this would be the route Washington traveled by to get there.
We continued along the trail route, past where there was a bridge to the main part of the park, and then onto a section that in the past was sort of informal looking.

Chambers Brook

The Washington - Rochambeau route had blazes that led us across a couple of little tributaries, and then came right out to the cul de sac at the end of Papen Road ahoad, exactly where we needed to be to continue.
We continued along Papen Road ahead, and I accidentally turned too soon, so we had to turn back.
We continued along Papen Road to the intersection with a road called Wishnow Way. The Washington - Rochambeau route signage was also found at this intersection, and it wasn’t there before.

Along Chambers Brook

At the end of Wishnow Way is the western end of the Middlebrook Greenway, a terrific greenway that follows this tributary out to Washington Valley Park.

Chambers Brook

I found out about this many years ago, and from the first hike I did on it, I was blown away. It was beautiful and so complete that I even wrote a Black River Journal article on it.

Chambers Brook

The greenway closely follows the Middle Brook from it’s head waters at two little ponds at the end of Wishnow Way and Argonne Farm Road, both of which have connectors to the trail system.
The greenway exists because they allowed for cluster development along the way. In doing so, they were able to preserve the creek corridor and the public got a free trail out of the deal. The trail was almost completely put together through scout projects, and more of them continue to keep the trail maintained and developed better ever time I return.
In the past, the trail was marked by wooden posts with white routed circles, and while some of them were still there this time, there were more posts on the trees than before.
The trail follows actually the West Branch of the Middle Brook, and it’s really amazing to see it gro wing slowly as we continue to follow it down stream.
As we walked into the woods, across the bridge and through the greenway, we followed along nice boardwalks that were each part of scout projects heading to the east.

Chambers Brook

There were some really substantial bridges built as part of the greenway spanning the brook, with big arches to them. The boardwalks themselves were quite an undertaking, and this time I noticed that even more of them had been added since my previous visit. There was still one of the brook crossings that was and always has been missing a bridge. They probably have a permit process necessary to put it in, or I’d imagine it’d be done by now. We continued east and crossed over Mount Vernon Road.

Chambers Brook

The trail continued really through what was a narrow swath of woods between developments, and often there were formal and informal side trails leading off into different developments. We even went along the back yard of a house at one point.
There was a good, wide swath of woods after Mt. Vernon with nice bridges, and we emerged from the woods at Crim Road School. This had been developed differently now too, with some sort of a garden along it and some kind of different landscaping that I can’t quite recall.

At Sunset Lake

From here, the trail followed along the edge of the access road to Crim Road Soccar Fields. We went along a mowed field edge beyond there, then re-entered the woods.

Sunset Lake

We soon crossed another access trail, the continuation of Tullo Road, which is accessed to the left, and to the right Totten Drive. The trail continued ahead into much more dense woods.

Gene G. King Park

It was in the next stretch that the trail entered Washington Valley Park. It ascended much further up hill from the Middle Brook itself, and connected with other trails from the county park.
We kept to the lower trail, even though I think the blazes for the Middle Brook greenway went a bit further up, and it took us out to Newmans Lane. We waited just inside the woods for everyone to catch up, and we then crossed directly. A trail leads along the road to the left, parallel and across the Washington Valley Reservoir.

Gene G. King Park

On the other side of the bridge, the trail turned off to the right and headed along the edge of the Washington Valley Reservoir as it got to the larger main body of it. There were some nice deep spots along the thing to the right, with good access points, but surprisingly no one really wanted to go in!
I typically try to enjoy a dip here and there regardless of whether anyone else wants to go in or not.
We continued walking, and passed a few more good spots with surprisingly no interest.

Gene G. King Park

We continued to the inlet to the reservoir to the north, which was where I had first seen the reservoir on a past hike, back in October of 2008. The trail used to come in from Martinsville and cross over the inlet tributary well to the north, but this area had much changed.
Now, the trail goes up only to a certain point, and a giant new bridge had been erected over the finger of the lake. Before crossing the bridge, I was already thinking of following the old route, but it was so badly overgrown we went for the bridge.

Gene G. King Park

Once on the east side of the bridge, the trail went both left and right. It didn’t used to go officially right. It kind of annoys me that when I did my interview with the head Somerset ranger about this, I wanted to promote a couple of unofficial trails in order to promote walking the entire Middle Brook Greenway, but he insisted that they not be included because they put so much effort into closing them. Within about a month of my article coming out, Somerset decided to acknowledge these trails and put them on the maps.

Middlebrook Greenway

It kind of made my article inaccurate, based on their own insistence, and then they changed it. But fortunately, we got more trails out of it, and perhaps it had something to do with my article.
We turned left after the bridge, and then skirted the backs of private properties. I could see where the trail was SUPPOSED to come out, but there were no good markings after a bit. We walked up hill slightly and between shrubs, but it looked like everything was coming out in people’s back yards. It was now dark, and I couldn’t tell.

MIddle Brook Greenway

I made sure everyone was close together, and we all just decided we were going to head straight up hill and along someone’s driveway and out to Chimney Rock Road. I told everyone we would just get to the road and continue to the right without pausing, as not to cause a scene with us all loitering around someone’s private property.
We passed Loft Drive and just past that went into Chimney Rock Park, a municipal park with ball fields and such.

Middlebrook Greenway

People get Chimney Rock Park mixed up with Washington Valley Park because the Chimney Rock formation itself is not actually in Chimney Rock Park.
We walked direct across some ball fields and such, and continued to the east side of the park where the trail descended into the woods. It wasn’t the way I remembered going the first few times there. It was a lot rougher then, and there was another of those arched bridges. This time, I don’t recall seeing that, but remember a pretty easy trail heading through woods.

Middlebrook Greenway

The East Branch of the Middle Brook is just over in this area, and when we first started hiking this, there was no bridge at a trail crossing. It required wading across. This time, we didn’t have to do that. The trail connected straight on to Gilbride Road without even having to cross the creek at all.
We crossed over, and then another trail led down hill through the woods to the right, on the East Branch. This leads down to the East Branch Reservoir. We lost the trail moving along in the dark for a time.

East Branch dam

It was really kind of necessary to use flash lights in this area. I got through without it, but it was really dark in this gorge. We headed through and got to the slack water of the reservoir, then came to the top of the dam. We took a little break there.
Heading down is a bit more complicated, but not insanely hard. To the edge of the dam, there is a set of stairs and a doorway that used to, as I am told, go into a little room that was later demolished. Pirate John at work had told me about it.

The steps at the dam

My plan was to descend the steps, then follow the rocky edge of the Middle Brook down stream through the gorge, past the Buttermilk Falls where we could stop for a swim.
First, Celeste wasn’t sure that her dog, Benny, could handle it. I knew he could, but Stephen was nervous about it too, so then went back up.
When I got down closer to the bottom, I thought they would be coming around a different way, on one of the wider trails. I gave Stephen some guidance on where they’d be.

At the dam

Everyone moved sleowly along, and again no one wanted to go in for a swim. So, by myself, I did a running jump off the rocks in the dark into the pool at the base of Buttermilk Falls. It was quite refreshing. Apparently I missed some calls while I was in there though, and Stephen and Celeste opted to go all the way back up to Gilbride, even though there were closer roads via another trail. I tried to give more directions from there, but they eventually just decided to wait it out and get picked up again at the end.

New development

It was the toughest part of the hike, but that wasn’t really that bad. We crossed the East Branch of the Middle Brook at a rocky spot and made our way out to Chimney Rock Road. This is a busy road with a sharp turn, but we were off of that part pretty quickly.
When we reached Thompson Ave, I gave the group the option of either following the road or following me. I was going to go down along the Middle Brook because there was a new development where we could get closer to it than before.

New mall thing

The last time we did this section, in the opposite direction, we went through the creek. This time, I wanted to see what changes there were.
Only Stephanie decided to follow me through that bit, and we walked around a couple of stores, then got to the new Bridgewater Chimney Rock store fronts. We walked in back of the place and followed a grassy path down to a retention pond along a stone wall with the name of the plaza on it. There was a fence at the bottom, but it wasn’t locked and we just opened it to go through. We continued around the retention pond from here parallel with Rt 22.

The new mall thing we walked around

On the southeast side, we descended to the edge of the Middle Brook again (this area is after the confluence of the east and west branches). We waded into the brook and walked underneath the Rt 22 bridge, which was extremely shallow. It’s easy to walk through.

The revived apartment building

On the other side, there is a tiny dam, and we stepped up from that to a flood berm along the Middle Brook.
The berm travels pretty much the entire distance back to the Shop Rite, although just before it, it’s a large wall with a fence and we have to walk through the lot. The hberm goes by a large apartment building that had burned down some time around 2010 or 11, which surprisingly was rebuilt rather than demolished.
We got back to the lot, and the others emerged from the road on the other side. We had to figure out who was going to go back to pick up Stephen and Celeste, but no one wanted a dog in their car, and my car was at the start, so we had to figure something else out.
We had someone pick up Celeste while Stephen stayed with Benny, and then we took Celeste’s car back to pick them up, then got rides back to the start. A little complicated, but it all worked out. It wasn’t bad planning, just the circumstances of separating the group.
It was really cool to see this route with a frame of reference that goes back over a decade now, and see how much has changed. I would suspect that in another decade it’ll probably be totally different than even this time. Maybe we’ll see.

HAM