Hike #1140; North Flemington Loop

Hike #1140; North Flemington Loop

7/7/18 North Flemington Loop with Craig Craig, Cody Earl, Carolyn Gockel Gordon, Dan Richter, Stephanie and her daughter, Kevin P. Gora, Mike Heaney, James Quinn, and Steven Smith

This would be another near loop in the Flemington NJ area. I’d done variations of this hike many times, but there have been a lot of new trails added I’d yet to do.

Collaboration!

I made the meeting point the CVS area in northern Flemington to do the near circuit route around the Hunterdon and Readington Trails systems.
The work schedule was still messing up what I want to do further away on the weekend trips, so I’m still looking to try to do a lot of new stuff, and fortunately new trails keep getting added.
This time, we shuttled to the developments to the west of this area near Carolyn’s house, and then started walking from there on back roads.
Once we had gotten all of the vehicles to where they needed to be, we started walking east. We followed along Valley View Drive, and Mike Heaney came late and met there. We continued walking to Covered Bridge Road, which I have no idea why is named that because there is no covered bridge whatsoever on it, and I don’t even know where there would have been one anywhere nearby, except over the South Branch to the north.

Trail to the school

Craig gave me a good sixteen percent beer drink, that was a mango coffee stout. Usually I don’t care for coffee flavor, but this one was rather tasty, probably because of the mango flavoring.
Near the end of Covered Bridge Road, we turned to the right on a paved trail, which leads down hill and over a foot bridge (they should have made it a covered bridge, damn it). It then went up and came out in the open fields at the Frances Desmares School. We continued to the left, and followed the field edges.

Path

I watched the wood line for a good opportunity to cut through from here. Carolyn told us that they used to have a nature trail through the woods at the south side of the school, but that it had long since grown in. We didn’t see any sign of it. It’s typical of all the new trails opening up; there’s no one to maintain them, and so they grow in and are forgotten.
We continued to the southeast corner of the field area, and there was a small path.

Assiscong Creek

The path went into the woods, along a fence, and then turned to the right along the back of some private land. There were some weeds, but the narrow little trail made it’s way out to the back of the Central Hunterdon Baptist Church.
We made our way out the driveway of that place and to Rt 31. We had to carefully cross 31, and then headed into the main large lot of the Stop & Shop. We walked to the Bourbon Street liquors and got some drinks, then continued around the back.

Old South Branch bridge site

Stephanie and her daughter met up with us at this point, having ran a bit late.
We all walked to the east side of the lot, then turned right on the access road heading to the south.
We continued south past the Healthquest Fitness building, and then turned to the right to skirt that area, and reached the access road that headed to the south.
We turned left on the access road, which took us across the Assiscong Creek

Dan and the South Branch

We turned left at the intersection onto Bartles Corner Road heading to the east. We skirted the Diamond Nation sports places, which is insanely busy, and then continued to the intersection with River Road. We turned to the left here and headed down hill over a nice old stone arch bridge over the Assiscong Creek.
From here, there is a trail that goes to the right into the woods in the Assiscong Marsh section of the South Branch Reservation. The trail used to be more prominent, all the way to the South Branch.

Old South Branch bridge site

The trail is growing in a lot more now. The first time I ran a hike on this section, in 2003, we waded across the South Branch to the Wings Section of the South Branch Reservation where it was rather shallow. That was my plan for this time, but then Steve told us about a rope swing I had not been aware of.
We turned left and followed the railroad tracks when we got to them, the former main line of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, heading to the north parallel with the South Branch of the Raritan River.

Rope swing

I knew the spot Steve had been talking about, but I had no idea the depth there was such that you could safely jump off and into the river.

Carolyn off the rope swing

The spot was where the original bridge crossed over the South Branch, the predecessor to present day Route 31 bridge.
I’m not sure what the bridge was called, or what the road was, but today it lines up with River Road on the west side, and Deerpath Road on the east side. Deer Path Road probably went through at one time, though it probably had a different name in the past. Maybe this was a covered bridge. I’m not sure.

Rope swing

I’d been to the other side of this bridge site many times, and I’d driven by this site many times, but I’d never walked by except when I hiked the Lehigh Valley Railroad with my ex girlfriend Cathy years ago, and it was during colder months so I wouldn’t have been looking for swim spots.
The rope swing is just south, downstream from the old bridge site. It’s necessary to step a bit further back on this one, and it take you out pretty high.

James and the rope

I went off it first, and was surprised at how much air you can get. I let go a bit too early on my first go at it. I believe Stephanie’s daughter went next. After that, Cody, a friend of Craig’s out on his first hike with us, took to the swing. He handled it amazingly and had great stance all the way out. Carolyn also went, but she let go a bit early, and James went after that. I did a second time off of it, and got a lot of air. I let go just at the highest point the rope got me, and it really drops back down a surprising amount.

Another old bridge site?

I swam up stream under the former bridge site, and I couldn’t touch bottom if I tried. I didn’t even hit bottom when I jumped, so it’s really pretty deep.
Supposedly, it’s possible to jump directly off the former bridge abutment and into the river, which would be fun, but I didn’t try that this time. Maybe next time.
We continued walking to the north along the tracks, and then turned right at the Rt 31 bridge. There really was no path to follow down to the river.

Crossing the South Branch under 31

The route that I took to the river and the Rt 31 bridge was rather rough, but I was surprised to see some sort of foundation down there, apparently of masonry.

Wings Section, South Branch Reservation

The earlier bridge at the site for Rt 31 had been in place since the 1930s. Prior to that, the bridge we were swimming by, as well as the Packers Island bridge up stream were both the ways of crossing.
When the earlier Rt 31 bridge was replaced around 2002, it was built mostly on the same site as the original, with it being a four lane bridge. The new bridge took over some of the land on the downstream side, and this foundation was even more down stream from that. I can’t find anything on historic aerials showing anything about it.

Readington Connector

My best guess is this foundation was part of a much earlier mill or something that was gone by the time aerial images recorded anything.
We continued walking under the Rt 31 bridge, then crossed where it was shallow to the other side. We then turned right into the Wings Section of the South Branch Reservation and began walking down stream. A group of people on ATVs went by at this point. There were never ATVs in this section when I used to work for the county, but it looks like they’ve taken over.

Readington Connector

We got back to the site of the bridge we were swimming at, and I pointed out when the trail utilized part of the old road to the bridge. We turned away from this to continue on the trail down stream. It was growing in a bit with multi flora rose, because it’s not often maintained, but we got through without much problem.
The trail remained in the lower flood plain of the river for a bit, going around some wetlands, and then went up hill to the upper trail of the Wings Section. Here, we turned to the right to continue south.

Readington Connector

There used to be a Readington Connector Trail to the left just ahead, and just past a private house on the left. I think it was the last private house. The trail goes along the back yards of several of them. The largest one with the most back yard visible appeared to be vacant and not mowed this year.
Where the trail used to go was now rather overgrown. It might still be on the maps, but I’m not sure. Regardless, we continued south just a little bit, and there was a better, clearer connecting trail.

Bale fun

I had never used this route before, only the one closer to the houses. It took us out of the woods and into an open field that was apparently some sort of retention pond. The perimeter of it was well mowed, and so we continued through the woods to the north.

New Round Mountain trail

The trail came to where the original connector trail used to come in. I saw no blazes for that, but there were some alternate side trails and such, in the fields. We kept to the right and skirted the backs of houses in the development. This used to be right along the backs of back yards, but those yards have discontinued mowing to there, and a buffer was appearing between them and the actual trail. The trail entered the next wood line and made it’s way through young woods to the north. Some puncheons have been installed in the past couple of years, and it looks like good improvements have been made. Much of this trail system beyond that point is much the same as it was over ten years ago otherwise.

New Round Mountain trail

The trail went down slightly and along a small tributary. We crossed it twice, then ascended to the open fields of Deer Path Park, and headed straight ahead to the restroom buildings for a break.
We hung out for a little bit, then moved on past the Cedars Pavilion, and along some new exercise course stuff on the perimeter path. This took us out to West Woodschurch Road where we could connect over to the Round Mountain section. The trail on the other side was much as I remembered it, except instead of having employees brush hogging it a couple of times a year, they finally have it being taken for hay. There was a large tractor and an even larger pile of hay bales just off the trail on the right side of the first field loop. Of course, this was inviting looking to climb on. We all went over and climbed to the top of the thing for some nice views.
We continued from here to the end of the field, where the orange blazed Peter Buell Trail went up into the woods. We followed it to where the trail split again.

Vincent Aubrytis Wetland Study Area in Hunterdon County Arboretum\

It had been many years since I’d taken the left fork if the first split, so I figured we’d do it. I was glad we did, because it had been much rerouted due to major blow downs out there, so it was new to me. We crossed the power line and headed through woods further to where the two branches of the orange trail came back together. We continued north on the orange to the intersection with white and yellow blazed trails. The yellow one was there before, heading into the Readington properties. The white one was one of the new ones, which went off to the left for a bit. I decided that would be our route for this time. The hike up Round Mountain isn’t that bad, but it was pretty hot out, so we were sweating pretty good. Once to the white, we followed it on a much more level grade up to the very top of Round Mountain. There, the yellow blazed trail turned off to the left. We turned here as well.
The yellow trail in a short bit came to the red blazed trail, the longest of the new ones at just over a mile long.
The trail was very nice, in a gradual grade making it’s way down hill along the northwest portion of Round Mountain. It turned to the right near the property corner after descending between some stone rows and such, and then intersected with the blue blazed trail. About a year ago, we explored the blue blazed trail on a night hike. We continued ahead to where it joined with the orange Peter Buell Trail again, and then used that to continue the descent to the north.
Peter Buell Trail took us to the parking area off of the driveway at dirt Foothill Road. Once there, we turned to the right and followed it out to Stanton Road. I pointed out the church that we could see just as the sun was going down up hill to the right.

Historic image of the original Stanton Church

I had recently done one of my then and now presentations to include this church, which had me confused with it’s look for a while when I first tried to figure it out.

The present Stanton church with only the original front stone remaining

Metrotrails Then and Now Series: Historic image of the original Stanton Church, Hunterdon County NJ, compared with a scene from about the same point of the current building. The first church was organized in 1833 at the Reformed Dutch Church of Mt. Pleasant, and a parsonge was added in 1854, followed by a steeple in 1914.. The original church sadly burned down in 1931, and only the stone pillar in front remains of first church. The new building was completed in 1932, and another sanctuary was added in 1964.

The group in the arboretum

We continued walking up Stanton Road for a few blocks of distance to the rear of the Hunterdon County Arboretum. There, we cut into the back of it off trail, until we got ot the outer loop trail. We turned left and continued through the property’s south side, heading east. This took us through different former tree nursery areas, as well as through my favorite part, the boardwalks of the Vincent Aubrytis Wetland Study Area. We took the right fork of the boardwalk when it split, and that led us out toward the park maintenance area. We turned right, and skirted the pond back there, which now had a fountain in the middle of it.

Pond at the arboretum hooray

We continued onto the service road and along the back end of the garden area with the deer exclosure fence. We then made our way to the outer loop trail on the north side, and followed it through the lines of trees between the A Frame building property and the main park headquarters. We cut to the right slightly at the end of the trail, and then passed beneath the tunnel under Route 31 toward Echo Hill Environmental Education Center.
A lot of work had been put into the trail over to Echo Hill, which was sort of abandoned by the time I left Hunterdon Parks. They had removed all of the orange connector trail blazes at that time, but now it was much improved including turnpiking work and such.
One of the big issues with this trail was the Prescott Brook and the fact that it had no bridge. It was a permitting nightmare to make it happen, and so it was kind of an informal trail for a long time. This time, not only was the trail improved, a stepping stone crossing had been much improved making the creek crossing very easy. We crossed and then entered the fields of Echo Hill, and continued to the left.
We made a stop at the lodge building, which was left unlocked, so everyone could use the restroom. We then continued on to the left toward the old Stanton Station building.
It was kind o disappointing to see some of the connecting trails to this side of the property were now grown in, but at the same time, lots of the big mess of invasive species had all been cleared and was now being maintained like a lawn area, which looked quite nice. Hunterdon is doing a pretty good job overall with not much to work with.

At Echo HIll

We backtracked a little bit and headed up hill to the camp area, where I showed everyone the historic former Stanton Station, of the Lehigh Valley Railroad.
This station and how it came to be on the very top of Echo Hill is quite interesting.
Probably an original station from the start of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, the Stanton Station served the railroad as a passenger and freight station until passenger service was discontinued in the 1930s. The station was then abandoned.
The history of Echo Hill goes back to the dates even before the railroad. It was first established as a farm in 1836. A stone house which is still standing along the pond, a barn, chicken coops, and a peach orchard (Hunterdon was the Peach capital of the world) were all built.
The property was purchased one hundred years later in 1936 by Robert and Hermia Lechner to establish a Summer camp for boys. During the transition from farm to camp, wood was salvaged from the barn to build the dining hall, which is still standing as part of the Echo Hill.
The peaches all died during the blight of 1890, and so at some point those orchards were cut down to keep it all from spreading elsewhere. The orchards were replaced with evergreen trees planted by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1939.

Echo Hill in 1930

65 boys attended camp the first year, and it was expanded on to include girls the next year.
In 1943, the Lechners purchased the disused Stanton Railroad Station from the Lehigh Valley Railroad for a mere $75.00. They hauled it up the hill and turned it into the girls activity hall.
Camp Echo Hill remained in service until 1959 when the Lechners retired and sold the operation to a local church.
Echo Hill was purchased by Hunterdon County in 1974, and soon opened as the county park we know today. The old railroad station is now known as the South Activity Center and is still used in activities.

Historic image of Stanton Station in 1900

I was glad Dan was there to see it especially, because he’s a railroad buff like so many of us.
We headed past the station building, and then entered the woods on the section of the looping orange trail just to the west of it, and headed gradually down hill.

Recent view of Stanton Station

The trail came down to the entrance road to Echo Hill, and we walked it directly to the west. This took us to the intersection with the road, but we hurried straight across to the tracks and turned left. The gates to the park weren’t closed yet, but I didn’t want to have a problem either, so we just hurried through.
We followed the tracks to where the station used to stand, then turned right on Stanton Station road and crossed the historic truss bridge over the South Branch of the Raritan. This is one of the oldest truss bridges in Hunterdon County, and unique because it’s decking has similar composition to that of the trusses. It was somewhat recently restored.
We turned left on the trail headed along the South Branch down stream, in the Stanton Station section of the South Branch Reservation.
I was originally thinking about taking another swim in the South Branch, but at this point I didn’t feel like trying to go through the difficult Cole’s Cliff section because it was getting too dark. Instead, we continued on the realigned trail. Years ago, a park ranger named Tammy Cole was on the trail in the section before it was moved, and she fell off the cliff and was badly hurt. It has since been called Cole’s Cliff, and the trail was moved from it.
We continued to the top of the hill, then turned right on the red blazed side trail which headed up to the power line crossing. From here, we could see fireworks being set off by people in the distance.
We continued on the trail to the parking area off of Old Clinton Road. We crossed the road directly and continued on a development trail directly across.

The last time I was on this section, it had some pretty bad washouts, but this time it really had been improved a lot. The trail skirted the backs of houses to the west, and we came to an intersection that cut off to the left. That took us down to DeMott Road where we turned to the right.
We followed DeMott to Rollins Mills Road. Near the intersection, another paved trail heads into the woods, and soon splits to head to the right to William Barnes Road, or to the left, the way we went, to another William Barnes Road that is unconnected to the other one, as per google maps anyway. It’s all rather confusing in that area.
We followed that road to the intersection with Scarlet Oak Road. We turned to the left here, and then made the next right on Timerwick Drive. We followed this down and around a corner, turned left on Cherryville Hollow Road briefly, then left again on Hickory Trail, followed by right on Valley View Dr.

We headed out that direction and stopped at Carolyn’s house where she gave us hot dogs and other food stuff, which was great. She’s got a great pool, but everyone else was apparently too cold at that point and didn’t feel like jumping in, so I did.
I was really surprised that everyone was as tired as they were, because I wasn’t feeling really anything at first. I think only Craig, Cody, Carolyn, and I seemed awake when we got to the end.
It’s still amazing, and I say it every time, that in an area so close to home and so close to work, that there is still so much more that I have yet to explore. There’s still so much more left that I haven’t explored even now. I have yet to finish some of those other trails at Round Mountain, and there are other new ones added to the surrounding area including a new private land preserve with public trails getting up to closer to Clinton area. I could do another entirely different variation of this hike and still cover entirely unfamiliar stuff.
Despite the crazy work schedule continuing, we’re still really making the best of the situation with some quality hike routes. Everyone seemed to have a great time, and for some it was their first official “night hike” with me, but everyone handled it great.