Hike #860; Miquin Woods to Clinton

Hike #860; Miquin Woods to Clinton

6/28/15 Miquin Woods to Clinton with Justin Gurbisz, Cory Salveson, Linda Whiteford, Serious Sean Dougherty, Alyssa Lidman, James Quinn, Michele Valerio, Grant Tomutus, Dylan Jagiello, Conrad Blease, Teresa Montes, William Honachefsky Jr, and Pete DeFellipo.

The group at CSA event

Our next hike would be another point to point, again working with Common Sense for Animals as part of their annual walk.

Usually, this event is held in September, but it was put together with other events this year, combined for better attendance. Unfortunately, rain scared a lot of people off. Still, we had a good turnout and a great hike.

We met in the morning at Riverfield, the medical center with the trail I developed with Hunterdon County Parks Department in 2010. This would be our end point, and the start would be my Aunt Pam and Uncle Ken's house in Lebanon Township. We could park there and access Miquin Woods, then head to Lebanon Township Park, a first time location for the CSA event.

The use of this park happened to work well to promote my hike because it was the five year anniversary of the Taylor Steelworkers Historic Greenway opening, for which I helped Union Forge Heritage Association develop, twenty year anniversary of the Columbia Trail being made an official trail, and five year for Riverfield.

The group at the Taylor Steelworkers Historic Greenway

While driving to the start, we passed the running group from the CSA event. Among them I spotted Ron Lozowski, near the front of the pack I think, and then Sandy Westermann just after that.

We started out with only seven of us. We parked at my Aunt Pam's, and headed out along Newport Road to the entrance to Miquin Woods. I had wanted to walk the old scout camp road back to the property, but a piece of it is owned by my family's neighbor who is not very friendly. He owns the Newport Mill and threatened to sue Metrotrails for having a photo of it up, even though it was taken before he owned it. I didn't want to bother with problems so we just walked the road to the main entrance. The sign entering Miquin Woods had been destroyed, and it looked like a sad sight.

There was another group doing a search and rescue drill when we got there. We passed them, passed a small old building and hit the woods roads heading down hill to get to the access lane. We then followed the camp road after crossing Spruce Run Creek to the west.

Abandoned house

The old camp road led us eventually to the old stone house, which pre dates the former Boy Scout Camp Watchung that used to occupy the property. The house dates back probably to the early 1800s, though I'm not sure of the entire history of it. We walked around the outside of it for a look around, and I was surprised to see the door opened up. Even though I worked for Hunterdon County Parks for years, I had never been inside. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a look inside.

Cracks

It was a neat old building, but it's been abandoned for a very long time. The outside of it was in poorer shape than I'd remembered it being. There were cracks working their way down through the masonry. From the top window, a crack stretched far down the body of the building, and an even worse one went almost the entire length of the building in the back. I feat that the rear of the building will soon collapse and there will be little left to save if someone doesn't do something to stabilize it.

Shingles inside?

The inside was very strange; the walls were covered in what appeared to be shingles or sidings, the type of material one might normally find on the outside of a wooden house rather than the inside. But here it was, on the inside. We checked out all of the rooms, including the basement with it's dank old exposed masonry, then headed out to continue on our way.

Miquin Woods farm house

We followed the old roadway to the east until it sort of ended where the last buildings used to be. Years ago, this old road used to continue through to Woodglen Road, but not any more. When I was working for Hunterdon Parks, we had a plan of putting a trail through to Woodglen Road on the old road route, but it turned out the road route was private. Instead, the trail envisioned would be through another township piece near a utility right of way, then connect with Miquin Woods. Matt Davis and I met and suggested puncheons be placed in their for use. They went overboard with it creating larger ones than expected, but some of the trail was done.
We bushwhacked through the trees and found some of the orange tape we put up with the parks over five years ago, where the trail was planned to go. We followed it to a lovely confluence of two branches of the Spruce Run Creek and crossed. From there, we made our way through more woods onto the somewhat overgrown utility right of way.

Note that during this entire time, Dylan was carrying a sixty pound sack on his shoulders. It didn't seem at all enjoyable, but he was doing it for some sort of training exercise. I couldn't believe he'd even try it. It must be hell on the knees. But he was doing it, through brush and all.

New boardwalk

I turned to the left several times looking for the boardwalk section, and came back when I didn't find it. Eventually we came surprisingly across a new section. They had begun work on extending the trail beyond where they'd completed it before, which wasn't all that far yet. We walked the new section, still under construction, on to the older section. The older wood was brown and it was growing over rather heavily with lots of grasses. Once it's a through route I suppose it will be much better.

Older boardwalk section

We reached the older boardwalk section, followed it to it's end, then continued on the trail to the small parking spot on Woodglen Road. We turned right on the road to follow it to the north. I power walked a head, with Cory following close behind, as well as Grant I believe it was. We hurried on and soon reached the old settlement of Woodglen. Here, we turned right on Hill Road, then left into the Lebanon Township Memorial Park past the fire department.

CSA walk with the Doc

We didn't miss any of the walk, though we arrived right on time to be able to catch it. Sean Grogan was there, who we talked to extensively the previous year, but he still hadn't joined us on one of our hikes. We'll get him out yet I'm sure.

We started eating some of the food before even starting the walk. It was raining earlier, and it drizzled a bit while we were walking, but it was looking like overall we were going to have pretty good weather. Unfortunately it scares off a lot of participants. The walk was supposed to be through the grass and such, but instead they kept it on paved areas, and I walked ahead with Teresa and Doc and his wife Val. Conrad was asleep in the car when we arrived, clearly not ready for hiking just yet. In short order he'd be ready to join us for the remainder though.

We walked around onto Hill Road, then down toward Bunnvale to come back the other entrance to the park, and past the World Trade Center memorial, my favorite one I've ever visited. Some of the group missed the walk part because they were looking for me. It was sort of scattered this time because the weather messed things up, but it was still nice.

In addition to Conrad and Teresa, Michele, James, and Serious Sean met up with us at the event. Dylan left us at this point due to previous obligations.

WTC memorial

We had a nice break at the pavilion and ate lots of food. I really went overboard, but didn't drink any soda which was my downfall the previous year. Still, I ended up eating nine cheeseburgers, two hot dogs, a plate of pasta salad, and a cookie. It was way too much. I was going to stop at eight, but then went for the nine. I felt like such a bloated mess for the rest of the hike again. In fact, I felt like a bloated mess for the rest of the week!

(fun fact: despite over eating like mad, I still lost weight during the course of this week according to my weight at my doctor's appointment).

When we were finally ready to go, we headed back over to the WTC memorial, and out the trail to the road to Bunnvale. We headed down hill, and passed the biker group on their way to the same event (there is a CSA motorcycle rally every year as well, this time combined with this event).

Once at the bottom of the hill, we took a break at the gas station on the corner of Rt 513. It was here we picked up the Highlands Trail route. We turned left to follow the northbound trail, then turned right to continue on it into Ken Lockwood Gorge Wildlife Management Area.

Ken Lockwood Gorge WMA section of Highlands Trail

We followed it along the woods road deep away from 513. It was nice and relaxing for me to cover this as part of a hike because I am so familiar with it and I hadn't come back here in a while. It's great that there is always something new to do, like the house in Miquin Woods.

When the Highlands Trail turned to the left, we continued straight on the woods road to visit the abandoned house at the end of the lane.

House

The house had been secured since the last time I was back there, but around the back was another open door, so we got to go in and have a look around. The house was pretty well trashed unfortunately. It's a beautiful building in a great location. I would love to be able to live there and run monthly programs of some kind. Maybe one day something like that will happen.

We left the house and headed back down the driveway to the Highlands Trail. We followed the trail gradually down hill via switchbacks to reach the Columbia Trail, former High Bridge Branch of the Central Railroad of NJ. I wanted to incorporate this trail into the hike because it's now been twenty years since the rail bed was turned into a trail. It was one of the first lines we ever walked through the group in 1997 too. Although we were heading toward High Bridge, this time we headed over to the Ken Lockwood Gorge Trestle so everyone could have a look at it.

Gorge trestle

Near gorge trestle

When we got there, a few of us went on down to the South Branch of the Raritan River to have a look, but it didn't look really inviting enough to swim. We'd find better places to take a dip further ahead, and I wanted to try to catch up with Bill Honachefsky who was walking the Columbia Trail to catch up with us.z

We left the bridge and began following the trail west, back toward the town of High Bridge. I'd been in touch with Bill who was now walking toward us.

I also hate the name "Columbia Trail" for this trail. There are a few reasons.

1. The railroad was the High Bridge Branch of the Central Railroad of NJ. It had nothing to do with the country, town, or anything to do with the name "Columbia". The only thing even close is that in 1888 an engine named "Columbia" crashed off the Ken Lockwood Gorge bridge.\
2. "Columbia Trail" is named for Columbia Gas. The natural gas line which was placed under the railroad right of way. It has no historic value. Hunterdon County Parks suggested the name for the trail. I am in possession of the meeting minutes, and it says "Hunterdon County suggested naming it Columbia Trail....naturally, Columbia Gas is excited about this..."
3. In a day in age with all the controversial fracking and bans of fracking, it seems crazy for a trail to be named inappropriately for a utility line that carries these resources. Actually, it should be illegal because it is free advertisement for Columbia on the part of a public park system.
4. The name is confusing. There is another rail trail that begins in the town of Columbia NJ, the Paulins Kill Valley Trail some forty minutes to the north. People end up on Columbia Trail looking for features from Paulins Kill Valley Trail like the giant Lackawanna Cutoff Viaducts, and people end up on the Paulins Kill Valley Trail, which runs through Columbia Lake Wildlife Management Area, looking for Ken Lockwood Gorge. I have now worked as an employee on both trails and have seen both happen.

As we walked the rail bed, Bill walked on up to us and started nudging people in the arms, with sunglasses on and a blank look on his face. He made an entrance coming off like some rude hiker with a chip on his shoulder, and I'm sure some of the group were thinking "who is this ass hole?". I had a laugh and gave him a big hug.
We all continued on from here along the right of way heading to the east. Next to join us was Pete. We'd become friends through the Metrotrails facebook posts to affiliated groups dealing with historic railroad stuff. Pete is a huge rail fan, and even owner of his own locomotive. We had some phone conversations and talked about coordinating on some hikes, but I've been so busy with the Jersey Perimeter stuff and other obligatory things that I hadn't gotten to putting it together yet. So it was cool to finally meet him in person.
We headed a little further on through Readingsburg, and then to the start of the Taylor Steelworkers Historic Greenway, at the big sign I built with help from Bill when I worked for Hunterdon County Parks. I had painted the sign in place there, and Bill took time off work to help me get it in place. It was now five years ago we had finally opened the trail.

TISCO building

We talked about the greenway a bit to the group, then we checked out the short red trail to the overlook of the Lake Solitude Dam. From there, we continued down the trail from the rail bed and into the TISCO, or Taylor Iron and Steel Company property, now township park land. It was here that we redecked the 1890s Carnegie truss bridge over the South Branch of the Raritan in 2009, one of our most fun volunteer projects ever.

Inside the TISCO building

To the right of the trail, where it emerged from the woods, was the TISCO office building, oldest office building in the state of NJ, dating back to the early 1700s. I had never seen the inside of the building before, and someone had forced the front door of it open. It had been covered with plywood. We had a look inside before securing the door again to keep people out. It's really not safe to be in any more. It was sad to see that the top floor had collapsed through to the ground level, and from there into the basement. If Union Forge Heritage Association were still able to do their work in High Bridge, they would certainly pursue grant monies to repair this incredibly historic colonial structure.

We didn't stay in there long because we didn't want to cause any trouble with the town. We continued from here across the Carnegie Truss bridge, and I walked across the top of the trusses like I'd done so many times before. Justin of course followed me, and Sean did the same on the other side. Bill ordered us down, and rightly so because the last thing they need is for someone from the town to try to shut down the greenway there.

There has been a long history of the town trying to battle the success UFHA has brought. The town didn't want an official historical society, but concerned citizens that did got together and formed UFHA. They opened up the historic Solitude House, where Pennsylvania Governor John Penn was held prisoner of War during the American Revolution, as an historic museum to the rich iron history of the town. We worked with them to develop the greenway, and they brought in over $150K in grants that included interpretive signs, refurbishing the Solitude House, putting a new roof on the TISCO building, and much more. In order to be eligible for such grants, non profit organizations are required to have long term leases. It's the government's way to protect their investment if they are to fund these non profit projects. The town however offered no more than a five year lease, and with the ability to end the lease at any time at their own discretion. Accepting this lease would tie the hands of any non profit and make it virtually impossible to apply for more grants. UFHA was forced to reject the lease offer with hopes of securing a better one. The town instead said they'd like to see a Bed and Breakfast in the historic Solitude House. Now, years later, the house sits vacant and is falling into disrepair...and all they had to do was sign a reasonable lease to UFHA. Honestly, the town should sign over the entire property to UFHA and let it be managed right. Having attended town meetings myself, I was disgusted when the mayor stared off into space while the UFHA President was speaking. They truly don't care about the town history and have no concept of land management.

Kyle's grave

After crossing the bridge, we stopped at our dear friend Kyle's grave. Kyle tragically died in 2010 shortly before the opening of the greenway, and we placed this memorial to him with his ashes at the site. UFHA still owns the easement over Custom Alloy property. Bill had just gotten finished re clearing the memorial site with a second bench sent by Kyle's mom. It looked really nice now.

Solitude House

Company Store

We headed from here further up the road. Our next stop was the old Bloomery Forge. This dates back at least to the 1750s. Only some wall remnants are still there, but it's an amazing historic site that now has an interpretive sign thanks to UFHA. Mountain bikers have been using the greenway quite a lot, and created their own bypass of this site over Custom Alloy Property which annoys me a bit. UFHA has an easement at a certain spot and they don't have the right to really go anywhere but on the marked trail.

We continued onto the spur trail which leads to the Solitude House itself. It's sad to see the walls are collapsing a bit in front of the house. It's just not cared for in the way it used to be. Bill gave us more of the history of the building while here, but it was a somber moment knowing what it used to be. I looked on at the yard below it and remembered when the place was alive, and when they had a community garden down there. All of that is gone now. We made our way along where the blue trail used to go to below the dam. We need to re open that because when they refurbished the dam it got messed up. We could see where the old railroad spur from the CNJ line used to end just below the dam.

Lake Solitude Dam

The dam was amazing looking as ever. It's the only remaining I Beam dam left in NJ. Everyone climbed up the stone abutments to the dam to the right to get a better view. I missed when we could jump off the top of it into the water below. I last did it on hike #500 at the grand opening of the greenway. Someone got a video of it.

I still went and took a dip in the river, which was really refreshing. From this point, we continued along the earthen portion of the dam, then came out behind the former Company Store, which sits next to the Solitude House. We headed back out the greenway, then re crossed the old Carnegie Truss bridge to pass the TISCO building. I had told Pete ahead of time that I would make sure the hike followed the old spur rail line, because he was obsessed with the cool old blue bridge that used to stand just ahead. The spur line really was something unique because it squeezed between buildings in such a unique route. I'm thankful that my grandfather walked me across it when I was six years old so I'd have the memory of it. I still remember the tracks going between the buildings and over the main street.

TISCO bridge

We began walking onto the old spur line, with tracks still visible in the pavement next to the old shop buildings. I'd walked this before in more recent years as well, so it didn't seem that different to me. We followed the gradually ascending railroad bed to the former bridge site, then climbed back down to the street level to head over to Union Forge Park. We cut in to the right and skirted the side of the embankment where the original High Bridge is buried under the fill that replaced it. As the story goes, the railroad put the piers to the bridge too far apart, and so the bridge sagged when heavy locomotives would cross.

Old spur line

We walked around the outside of Union Forge Park to the South Branch of the Raritan River where we could see the stone double culvert for Arch Street and the river. Some of us waded over the river, others went over to the big culvert and climbed over the top, which isn't really hard to do. I offered it up if anyone wanted to swim THROUGH the culvert with me. I'd done it once before, and it's super deep and awesome. Only Grant and Linda were interested in trying it.

1854 wood engraving of the original High Bridge

It amazes me to think there is a buried giant bridge under all of that fill above us. I just wish I could find a real photo of it. The only thing I've ever seen depicting the bridge was the 1854 wood engraving shown here.

Prior to the coming of the railroad, the area around the town was simply known as "Solitude", affectionately named such by John Penn when he was in detention here.

Pete left us to explore the rest of the railroad bed at this point. Bill joined him to show him around some more historic town stuff.

Sean on the High Bridge site

We swam through the culvert, hard at first because it sort of whirlpools a bit just inside. Then it was a pleasant but longer than it seemed swim out the rest of the culvert to the other side. The water felt great, but this and the last time I swam through it there is a strange smell of gas coming from the river on the north side.

We climbed out and continued walking; Serious Sean climbed over the top I think, and crossed the tracks. We saw him climbing down the other side, and he appeared on top of the old stone mantle soon.

We got on a trail soon, along the South Branch of the Raritan in what is called the "Arches Section", then came back out to Arch Street. We continued just walking parallel with the river down stream to Greyrock Road and turned left. Conrad and Cory headed the opposite way because they didn't want to wade across the river as I had planned to get to Riverfield. The rest of us had a nice time on the back road, and down through bamboo to cross the South Branch again. We emerged in Riverfield at my favorite little swimming spot for a good dip. It was a great way to nearly end the hike. The river has a dramatic bend in it, and it's a secluded area people don't frequent.

Riverfield

I was surprised to find the trails pretty well mowed. I later found out that my old co worker Jaybird Strauss was one of the guys now maintaining it on a regular basis. Once we were ready to get out, we headed along the trail around fields, then up away from the wetland to where we had parked. I didn't really even want the hike to be over, but no one really seemed up for bonus miles. Conrad, Teresa, Alyssa, and I went and got some pizza afterwards at Dimola's at Greyrock.

This was a really fun and relaxing hike. It was nice to be back so close to home in places that I love. In retrospect, it really felt like something I needed, something not too over the top, but with enough excitement to keep me feeling alive.