Hike #831; Pennington to Trenton

Hike #831; Pennington to Trenton

3/8/15 Pennington to Trenton with Bib Sidoti, Daniel Lurie Jr, Dan Lurie, James Quinn, Arielle Judith Cocozza, Stephen Argentina, Rob Creamer, Jen Berndt, David "Captain Soup" Ca,pbell, Anne ?, Ric Giantisco, Lyz Hagenbuch, Tamara Sapilak, Mike Heaney, Serious Sean Dougherty, Justin Gurbisz, Gregg Hudis, and Carla ?.

The group

Our next hike would both fit into the NJ Perimeter series, but also have a lot of other stuff that is unrelated. Although I had hiked the Delaware and Raritan Canal and Belvidere and Delaware Railroad route completely going back to 2004, I could still get closer to the perimeter than what I had done, and so it merited posting another hike to do these sections. It ended up being quite interesting.

We met in the morning at "Old Warf". This was the near location on the Delaware River where Lieutenant John Fitch in 1790 made the first successful trip on the Delaware by steamboat connecting the cities of Trenton and Philadelphia. It was a good, out of the way but easy to get to lot, and a rather obvious choice for me for a meeting point for the group. A lot of people signed up for this hike, but many of them never showed.

After meeting, we shuttled to the northeast, to the town of Pennington and it's namesake market, actually a mom and pop grocery store, to begin the hike. I'd done many many  hikes out of Pennington before, parking at the market, but this one would take us in a completely different direction from where we'd gone before.

We crossed Rt 31 onto Pennington Titusville Road. There was a good amount of snow on the ground, more than I'd thought we'd have left at this point in March. We got off lucky for the first part of the Winter, but February hit us hard and the snow just didn't want to go away. Still, we managed and found out way off of the road and into the parking lot to a building near Central High School. Captain Soup was already speeding ahead to make his first "AsSOUPtion" remaining on the road. He caught the mistake (he says it's not the wrong way, it's the "best" way) and joined us walking around the building.

I didn't realize it at the time we were walking through, but about where we turned into the parking lot was where the Mercer and Somerset Railroad would have crossed the road, and one of the only railroad stations remaining on the line, built about 1875, was just off to our left. I had somehow missed it. The station was the first built in Pennington, and the entire line did not last long because the National Railroad was soon built completely parallel to the earlier line and made it obsolete. It was abandoned soon after being built from the Delaware River to Millstone.

We headed along the back of Central High School and continued west to South Timberland Drive. We crossed here and descended a slight hill, then continued through fields north of another building and a fenced ball court of sorts. We then remained in the field heading straight to the west, with a slight turn to the north at a sort of retention pond that led us out to the corner of Pennington-Harbourton Road and Scotch Road. We turned left on Scotch Road for a bit, then right back onto Pennington-Titusville Road.

We continued down Pennington-Titusville Road, around a curve, and past some signs that read "bridge out". We ignored them as we continued past the last intersection. While on a stretch of road sorrounded by mostly farmland and lightly residential, a guy pulled up to us in a fancy black car wearing a suit. The car had limo plates on it, but was rather smaller. He was friendly, and asked what we were up to, and wanted to warn us of the missing bridge ahead. He was kind enough to give us permission to walk across his land to the north of the road to look for a safe crossing, but thought that there was nothing, the water was too deep. I figured the Jacob's Creek was rather small down stream on parts of it that I had walked and we wouldn't have a problem this far up stream. We thanked him, but I opted to continue on the road anyway to see how it goes.

We descended to where the road began to parallel the creek down stream. Ric headed off the road to the right, offering to look for a safe spot to cross. I continued down the road a bit to where I could more clearly see up stream, and noted an ice jam over a narrow section. I turned back and joined Ric in the woods heading to the site. He looked for another site up stream, but I tried walking across the ice jam. Twice my feet went through and got a bit wet, but my initial try denoted the bad spots and the group was able to pretty much cross without a problem behind me. I signaled them to follow us and we used this spot pretty easily.

Improvised crossing of Jacob's Creek

The creek was narrow in this section, possibly because it was just down stream from a former dam site. The masonry remains of it on both sides were clearly visible. We crossed and turned right, and surprisingly came across an official public trail following the creek's edge up stream. It was marked with white painted diamonds over property of NJ Conservation Foundation. My original plan was to continue on Pennington-Titusville Road to the west, but this was too interesting an opportunity to just let pass. We began to follow the trail up stream.

The trail crossed over a tributary to the creek near a private house above, then it gained more of the height of the land above the creek. We passed a giant tree and cross a power line that I thought to use because we were now headed quite a bit out of our way. Rather than turn off, we first opted to

head further up along the trail toward Pennington-Harbourton Road. We continued until the trail seemed to end at a private yard, with a sign reading "Nini Tr.". We soon saw that the trail skirted the yard and descended to closer to the creek. We opted not to follow it further from here, and instead head back to the power line to try to get back on my original planned course.

At the power line, we turned right on a vague path. Scrubby vegetation made it less than pleasurable to walk along this route, but we managed to cross

and then bushwhacked into a dense young woods to the south. We tried to navigate through some of the brushy stuff and emerged at a field, probably

private land. I wanted to remain in the woods, but it got way too difficult. Instead, we headed into the fields and began to follow a beaten down snowmobile track south toward the curve of the same field.

At the south side of the field, there was an abandoned old farm access road heading through a section of woods. There were some trees down over it, but we were able to navigate around them to the south and a clearing next to the same little tributary to the Jacob's Creek we had crossed over before. We carefully crossed and climbed up a slope to an overgrown successional field owned by NJ State Park Service. We zig zagged through this field dominated by Eastern Red Cedars, and at the other size cut through a section of woods and reached a less scrubby field of state park service.

We turned right through the field and then reached an abandoned farmstead.

The first building we came to was a garage in reasonable shape. An access road led through the site, now obviously used recently by snowmobiles. The second building was a house, ranch style of brick construction. Just beyond the house was an old barn off to the right standing alone from another collection of buildings on the driveway ahead.

Old barn

We continued past the couple of barns, and some of the group went to check the one out. I went over to have a look at an old late 19th century farm house, the nicest building of them all. The side door was unlocked but there was too much snow to open  the door and have a look inside. We soon just walked on out the driveway toward Pennington-Titusville Road. The nearest home had a dog outside barking up a storm at us, and I didn't want the neighbors to think we were there to cause any trouble or anything, so we just moved on. We followed the road to the west, and reached the intersection with Bear Tavern Road.

We crossed the road directly and passed through an opening in evergreens to one of the park trails where we turned right. We continued to the road access at the Phillips Farm Day Use area and turned left. We continued to the group camping area and took a little lunch break on the benches at one of the sites. From there, we cut off trail down through woods toward the North Branch of Steele Run. We crossed carefully, then continued until we got on trails following the creek down stream. We had to leave creek side for fields a couple of times, and eventually came out to Brick Yard Road. We first went left on it looking for another trail along the creek but saw nothing, then went up hill again and turned left into more woods and along field sides using an equestrian trail. This eventually somehow tied into the Blue Dot Trail, which we continued on to the west. We passed through some successional fields and some old farm equipment, then the trail became a bit more rugged as it descended toward Rt 29.

Once we reached 29, we made a right turn. We soon reached Church Road, where we would cross 29 as well as the Delaware and Raritan Canal and the former Belvidere and Delaware Railroad that was built later along side of it, and enter the village of Titusville, an historic village with lovely old buildings. I have already walked the rail bed and canal through here, but the main street comes closer to the river here than I had walked in the past, so this was the first bit of NJ perimeter on this hike that I had wanted to come back and do.

While we walked into town and passed the old post office building (Capt. Soup went up and opened the door, but I think it might have been a private residence with an historic sign!), a guy pulled up in his car and asked what we were up to. Stephen answered that we were a funeral procession. He would have had the guy fooled if he hadn't given in. The guy found it quite amusing that we were hiking in suits and such (I had worn one of my nicest grey suits for this one, as well as loafers).

We continued down River Drive, which left the town and took us over an old bridge, closed to vehicle traffic, over Steele Run. We then passed a tree with a high up mark denoting the water level from the Flood of 1955. A walkable path left the road and went closer to the river to the right, and so I descended to it a bit to walk closer to the river. There were some really nice views of the ice jams and of the Washington's Crossing Bridge that was originally built in 1831 to replace the Johnson Ferry. This area was the spot where General George Washington and the Continental Army crossed the Delaware on Christmas Day 1776 with Durham boats. The Nelson House which might date back to that period stands beside the river too.

Washington's Crossing bridge

We continued back up to the towpath and rail bed along the canal out to the road crossing at the bridge, and I offered to have everyone stop for a break. There was a bar and grill place, and we went in and got some drinks to hold us for the rest of the hike. We had a nice break outside and enjoyed the view while we rested. The remainder of the hike would only be NJ Perimeter stuff, some of it I'd done, some not.

Historic view of Washington's Crossing

I figured the trail along the rail bed and canal to the south would be very easy compared to what we had been doing. Certainly, a flat easy trail in such a well populated would at least be beaten down by cross country skiers or something. Such was not really the case. We had a lot of trudging ahead of us on nearly virgin trail. The walking was not at all easy.

D&R Canal and Bel Del rail bed.

We formed a single file line heading along the trail, and those of us who remained behind would have the easiest time fighting through the snow. I noted in this section that there was a narrower walkway, now mostly overgrown, on the other side of the canal. I figured that this must have been the original towpath, because the canal was used not only as a feeder to the main Delaware and Raritan Canal, but also to haul freight. If it co-existed with the railroad, the towpath would have had to be in such a location as not to interfere with the railroad operation. There was some nice masonry on the other side built onto the rocks.

Historic view of Washington's Crossing

I fell behind a little bit and James and newcomer to the hikes Arielle were the last in the line at this point. The snow was taking a toll on everyone, and James wasn't really prepared for the Winter hiking conditions (arguably, neither was I, but I have no problem with wet feet). Fortunately, I was carrying a spare pair of socks in my backpack I was able to give him to help him through some of the next portion of the hike.

Historic view along the Bel Del and canal

We continued trudging for a while until we reached what seemed like a miracle: the railroad right of way was plowed. Shortly after James had changed socks, he would not have to worry about messing up another pair because we'd have dry walking. Stepping onto this easier terrain was a relief beyond description. We continued walking on from this point when I realized that this spot was actually the former junction where the Mercer and Somerset Railroad once broke off of the Belvidere and Delaware line.

Former junction site with Bel Del and Mercer and Somerset

The right of way widened much more than it was further back, perfect for double trackage necessary at a junction site, and it was lined up correctly with Jacob's Creek Road, which was built on the right of way of the old Mercer and Somerset Railroad. In fact, this area was known as "Somerset" because it was the junction site with that railroad, despite the fact that we were in Mercer County, not Somerset.

We continued on from here to the south to catch up with the rest of the group. Some of them waited for me while others plowed on ahead.

Historic view on Bel Del and the canal

We continued for a ways on the easier ground, and a path cut off to the right. This was the start of a woods road that led back toward the Scudders Falls access point. This was yet another little bit closer to the NJ perimeter I had never come. We walked this section for a bit, while many of the others opted to stay up on the canal. The road brought us much closer to the riffles in the Delaware known as Scudders Falls. There are wing dams and such here, and there was a giant awesome tree along the road.

Awesome giant tree near Scudders Falls

When the road turned back up toward the canal, some of the others were waiting for us up there. However, there was a good trail well below the canal I knew I wanted to follow from this point. The foot path broke away at the point where the road went up hill. Someone had been maintaining it as a rogue trail complete with cut logs, and some of them cut to an extent of steps and such. I went back up to get the group together for a picture, because Dan, Dan, Bob, James, and Arielle were going to cut out early here. Also, from the area above, Carla had just joined us.

Trail along the Delaware at Scudders Falls

We said farewell to the others, and we headed back down to the foot path on the Delaware. It was a very nice route along the river that I very much enjoyed. The canal turned away and crossed Rt 29 ahead anyway, and so in order to follow the perimeter we needed to do this anyway. We continued walking and had to cross a stream flowing into the Delaware. Despite the cold and the fact I was wearing loafers, I had to walk into it and check it out. We continued from here as the path got narrower, on a steeper slope between the Delaware River and River Road/29.

Narrow path along the Delaware

We passed beneath the Scudders Falls Bridge, also known as the Rt 95 bridge. It's strangely the only limited access highway bridge over the Delaware River between Port Jervis NY and the Delaware Bay that does not have a toll. We continued beneath this bridge, and I was surprised to see the trail continuing on. The best I could think of is that there must be very dedicated fisherment who really want to access these river points to keep such a trail maintained.

Interesting cut log trail work along the Delaware!

The narrow path took us onward and beneath the concrete bridge carrying the former Reading Railroad, the national railroad company line that killed off the Mercer and Somerset over a century ago. We could see the piers of the viaduct's predecessor in the river adjacent to the current structure. When the new bridge was being built, the old one was left in place until it was completed as not to have an interruption in service. The piers were probably left in place as added protection against ice and debris on the current bridge.

The railroad bridge

The trail became much more difficult to follow, and the ice was sometimes tough to stay on. There were some difficult and dangerous spots where the wrong step might send us falling into the river or onto rocks steeply below. Some of the group opted to head up to walk along the road, while I held off for a bit longer. Some simply stayed down there as long as they could. I came up to the road at one point, and soon went back down. It was only a little while before I came up to the road to stay, but but that point we were very close to where Rt 29 went off to the left, and Riverside Drive, a small street to access houses along the Delaware would be out route.

Old ferry point?

We stepped over the guide rails and onto Riverside Drive and the northern end of Stacy Park to find a giant metal contraption. I couldn't figure out what the thing was. Just past this, there were nice stone steps going down to the river's edge. There was a cable on it, and on the other side of the river directly across I could see some sort of triangular stanchion. I figured this must have at one time been some sort of ferry across the Delaware. We continued from here along the edge of the road, which was all part of Stacy Park heading south. Stacy Park would be the next couple of miles of the NJ Perimeter.

I had already hiked some of this park a few years back, but we did not do the entire thing of it. This time, we'd follow it's entire length. The park was named because Trenton was originally called Stacy's Mills. It was named for Mahlon Stacy, builder of the mills mentioned.  The town later took the

name Trenton after Colonel William Trent, who purchased a farm of eight hundred acres on Assunpink Creek in 1714. Trent was, in 1723, Speaker of the New Jersey Assembly and Commissioner for Hunterdon County. The County Courts which had been previously held at Hopewell were removed to Trenton in 1719.

We continued walking through the park and found another beat up old wooden dock site which we of course had to check out. We continued walking through park and on the adjacent road, where we saw a tree I could not identify and am still uncertain what it was. I thought it might have been a Metasequoia, but it didn't look quite right, and it still had it's needles on it during Winter.

While we walked on, there was a goose sitting in a puddle to the left. It must have been wounded because it didn't want to move for anything. It even let us pet it without running off or flying.

Justin's new friend

When the road ended, a paved trail continued through Stacy Park. We continued walking on this, which was very pleasant. There was a pond on the left side, and then a foot bridge which connected to the other side of Rt 29. It was also quite wonderful that the trail was also plowed for us. It made for much easier walking that what we had become accustomed to. There was also some sort of abandoned building near the foot bridge, but no way in to see it more closely.

Stacy Park has got it going on

The park narrowed and widened closer to Rt 29 as we walked. I'd done this section before, also in the snow, but it was not plowed on my previous visit so I didn't enjoy it as much. We continued along the river and visited a little side spot with a view of the river. We were getting much closer to our end point. I was rather surprised at how fast we were getting done at this point. We had just changed the clocks, and so we had more daylight than before, but we were still doing pretty well.

Roebling Suspension Bridge

The next point of interest we came to was at the far end of the Stacy Park near the Waterworks Building. The Roebling Suspension Bridge is also known as the "Shaky Bridge". The bridge spans the waste weir which allows excess water from the Feeder of the Delaware and Raritan Canal to drain to the Delaware River. This is especially necessary during storms, to prevent the canal from overflowing its banks. This weir either flows as a trickle or a roar.The bridge is a replica of the Brooklyn Bridge, and was presented to the City of Trenton by the Roebling family. It is one of two Roebling Bridges in the City of Trenton (the other is between two buildings of Mercer County offices). Two towers support the bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge towers are of stone, but these towers are of wood with painted clapboards and cedar shake roofs.

We crossed the bridge and continued on over the railing and along Rt 29. When I hiked through here before, we turned right to walk across the Calhoun Street Bridge, which is the route of the East Coast Greenway. The historic bridge is a temptation to cross, but we did not do that this time, staying on task and heading further south. We managed to cross the road access, and then continued just barely on 29 to a right turn into a grassy park section beyond.

Along the Delaware below Calhoun Street

We walked through this swath, which is obviously hardly used. It was a nice spot with more great views of the Delaware toward the bridges. This would be a limited section because it abruptly ended at the Assunpink Creek (I had no idea at the time that this small stream was the Assunpink Creek; I had done many hikes in the past along this waterway west of Trenton but had never seen it's confluence with the Delaware. I would like to trace it's entire route as part of a future series).

We had to get off of the swath of green grass and find a way to continue south. I had originally thought we'd have to go several blocks inland, but the group was good and I figured we'd try something slightly crazy; we would continue to walk the big highway. We could cross the bridge to another swath of green that would soon end, but then we'd have little room. We had to walk across the right lane and onto the median, then continue to where the median ended and dash over to the next median. It worked out just fine, and we were on safe grass before we knew it below the Rt 1 on ramp.

General craziness

There was a good swath of land from the exit bridge, grassy and with good views out along the Delaware River. It was a cool place to be, among all the business and where hardly anyone ever walks. We continued on beneath the "Trenton Makes" Bridge, officially called the "Lower Trenton Bridge". I had thought that the wording was removed from the famous bridge, but when we got to the other side we could see that the text was still in place, reading "Trenton Makes The World Takes".

"Trenton Makes" bridge

Ahead, we could see the stone arches of the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge, the Trenton-Morrisville Railroad Bridge. This handsome stone viaduct was completed in 1903. Prior to that time, the railroad crossed about where the "Trenton Makes" Bridge is now. That bridge was constructed in 1928 to replace the partial original. The first Lower Trenton Bridge was opened in 1806, the first bridge to span the Delaware.

Original Lower Trenton Bridge

The bridge was strong, but when the Camden and Amboy Railroad moved it's alignment onto the bridge in 1835, the old covered bridge could not hold up to the weight and force of the locomotives. Sections were replaced with trusses until it finally had to be replaced, by which time the railroad already had it's own bridge. It was also the first railroad to ever offer interstate traffic.

Pennsylvania Railroad bridge

We passed beneath the bridge, and then found an access to a pier area immediately on the other side. We went down to have a look around at it, and got some great views of the old railroad bridge. We also could see the Delaware River down stream. It is from this point that the Delaware River is tidal. This is why the area was chosen as the stop for steamboats invented by Lt. John Fitch mentioned at the start of this entry. We were now almost to Old Warf.

Below the rail bridge

We left the little pier area, and as the highway turned away to the left, we stepped over a berm to reach the parking lot where we'd met in the morning.

There was still a lot of daylight left; I wanted do do some bonus miles and cover more of the Delaware Riverfront heading south, but no one else was really into it, and Gregg was tired from the snow trudging, so we all just headed back to Pennington to get a bite to eat.

NJ Perimeter completed so far

This hike brought us one more step closer to completing the NJ Perimeter. At the time, I didn't know what was going to happen. My work schedule was facing possible changes, and it was looking like I might have to push the completion of the perimeter ahead to 2016 because many of my planned hikes would have to be canceled. There was a lot of stress, but still a lot getting accomplished, and a lot of good memories made.

There was now only seven more full day hikes remaining in the NJ  Perimeter series, and nine more segments missing that I would incorporate into other hikes. That means only sixteen more days of NJ Perimeter hiking. Part of me will be sad that it is going to be over because it's been such an amazing experience I would not have ever planned as any other kind of event. At the same time, there is a great excitement for the other things I am going to post without my self imposed arbitrary deadline fast approaching. The best days are ahead.