Hike #899; Bridgewater/Somerville to Branchburg

Hike #899; Bridgewater/Somerville to Branchburg

11/27/15 Bridgewater/Somerville to Branchburg with Gregg Hudis, Joe Tag, Carla, and James Quinn

Our next hike would be another point to point, this time between the Bridgewater Mall and Shop Rite in Branchburg. I had wanted to put together something new, something I had not worked into a night hike ever before, but something that would lend itself well to it.
I looked over the maps, and decided on the Somerville vicinity. Peters Brook Greenway is a great route any time.

Bridge at Bridgewater Mall

After looking over several routes heading to the north and south, east and west from Bridgewater, I settled on following Peters Brook Greenway toward Duke Island, then continue to Branchburg. I could then make Branchburg my meeting point, which was a little closer to my work. I’d get there quicker.
When I arrived, Joe was shortly behind me. He did not RSVP, so it was a nice surprise to see him. We headed into Wendy’s together to get something to eat before heading on our way. We took off as soon as Gregg and Carla arrived. James would run somewhat late.
We went into Wendy’s for some food, then when Gregg and Carla arrived, we shuttled over to Bridgewater Mall. Joe knew the way best to get over there, being more of a local, and plus he’s inspected just about everywhere through work.
We started hiking over the foot bridge over 22, then down Mountain Ave to the trail head. Joe had walked this with me before, in October 2008. That made it cool that he was here this time, because so much has changed since then.
The sun was already going down as we walked across the bridge. Unlike so many other hikes, this one would be done almost entirely in the dark. We turned left onto the greenway as it followed it’s own route plus short sections of streets.

Sunset from footbridge at Bridgewater Mall

The sun was setting beautifully. I figured I’d be able to remember exactly where the trail went, but I was forgetting, and some of the signs that used to mark the greenway well had been removed. We continued along the route easily until we got to High Street, where the official trail goes off to follow Park Avenue. Instead, I like to step over the guard rail and go behind a building to stay closer to the stream. The Krauszers market across from us, which I used to stop in when I’d had chiropractic appointments with my friend Dr Jenn nearby, had now changed to a generic mini mart.

Sunset on Peter's Brook Greenway

When we got to the next road, a police officer was sitting and waiting. This was Main Street. Rather than walk right by him to enter Michael Lepp Park, we opted instead to cross and follow a short section of Veterans Memorial Drive East. We probably wouldn’t have had a problem, but just in case since we were walking in the dark I wanted to avoid any issues.
We continued to the parking area, then cut to the left toward Peter’s Brook to get back on the trail.

Former Central Railroad of NJ underpass for Peter's Brook

There was now a formal trail at this point. When I had hiked the Peters Brook Greenway in the past, we had to wade the stream here. Some of the group at that time climbed up to the railroad tracks to go over the brook. There was now a prefabricated bridge directly across, and a connecting path on the other side up to Central Avenue.
We turned right which took us under the arched old railroad culvert, then into another park field. We skirted the field to the right from here.

Former necessary ditch crossing

It used to be that we’d have to swing across a big ditch on a vine at this point, but that’s been eliminated and there’s now a trail with a pipe.
We continued on the newly delineated trail across the field to reach Southside Avenue near a bridge. Here, the trail crossed, and followed the edge of a fence line on Southside Ave, then turned right into a new parking area where someone was sitting. The guy pulled out as soon as we walked into the park area.
The trail went straight back from here on what used to be a utility or access road. I had walked this with Joe all those years ago too, only we turned left when we got to the Raritan River.
This time, we turned to follow the trail to the right. The somewhat new trail took us along the Raritan River, with some spots where we could walk out and get a better look. We then crossed another prefabricated bridge to get across the Peter’s Brook at it’s confluence with the Raritan.
The trail took us out to Bridge Street and Rt 206. Here, we turned to the right across a grassy business lawn to the edge of Rt 206. We crossed at the traffic light and walked the highway to the north. We also crossed the former South Branch of the Central Railroad of NJ. In retrospect, I wished we had walked that section a bit, because it might have taken us to a good clearing in what Google calls Raritan Valley Park. I’ll have to check on that another time.
I tried to get down to something a couple of times while walking along Rt 206, but it ended up being a mess. We just kept to the road toward Orlando Drive where we made a pit stop at the Stop & Shop for some food. Gregg bought some cheese that he shared with everyone.
From here, we continued along Orlando Drive, at first through an open parallel field. The road walk wasn’t that bad, or busy. We kept to it out until we reached the now pedestrian only Nevius Street Bridge.

Nevius Street Bridge

Although it was not really part of the route to go on through, I planned to stop and walk across the history bridge anyway. It was closed to all but pedestrian traffic when the new bridge was constructed, and it’s a really great connection over toward Duke Farms. I hope to use it to connect to that site one day for a hike.
We walked to the other side and back, and checked out the views up stream. The former Raritan Power Canal was on the north side of the river at this point, but it too had been filled in. There used to be a dam across the Raritan in this area until recently, but it had been removed. We headed back over the bridge, then followed the former power canal route down stream.
Unfortunately, Carla was parked just on the other side of the culvert under the new road bridge, so she had to cut out. She had even wished she could go a little bit further, but didn’t want to do the entire hike. We said goodbye and headed to the actual watered old power canal ahead.

Nevius Street Bridge

I was surprised to see that the foot bridge over the finger of the canal and further on to Duke Island Park had been closed off. There was orange fencing and chain blocking the way. I don’t know if the bridge was considered structurally not sound or what, but this would mess things up a lot if we could not get through.
Fortunately, we descended to the river side, and the flow of water out of the power canal was so slight that we could walk right across it without really getting our feet wet, then climb to the berm of the canal. We then followed the canal parallel with the river up stream.
Much of this was different than it had been as well. The river used to be deeper, held back from the dam that had been removed. We passed where the rope swing used to be where we would stop to swim in the river.
We continued on this route, which was lit enough from the parallel Old Yorke Road, and paused when we got to the beautiful through style truss bridge over the canal. The bridge was originally from the Hibernia Mine Railroad in Morris County. I had hiked that line many years back, in March of 2007, but didn’t know of this bridge until years later. The bridge was taken away from the old railroad and moved to be reused as a road bridge in Somerset County. When it came time to replace the bridge, it was moved to Duke Island Park as a pedestrian bridge. Ironically Gregg had just been working on the Four Birds Trail, a little piece of which follows that very same railroad line.
We turned from the power canal to the left on the paved Duke Island Bikeway. This took us closer to the Raritan River, but more in the woods for a time. Rather than be closed to buildings as I knew the canal would take us, we’d be at the end of the fields and along the river if we followed that route. I had also never incorporated this path into one of my long hikes (I had done it with Dr. Jenn on one of the fund raiser hikes maybe a year prior). We continued and the path took us through some open area, but not for too long. We went back into the woods and soon reached the power canal as well as the small dam across the Raritan River at the “Confluence Reservoir State Park”. This piece of state park land was part of an authorized reservoir that was to span just below the confluence of the North and South Branches of the Raritan that come together just above this point. That dam was never built. We continued on the power canal route out to the access road off of Old Yorke Road. We followed that to the main road and turned left.
Old Yorke Road took us across the North Branch of the Raritan, where a look to the south was at the confluence with it and the South Branch. There was a vehicle access site next to the bridge, but we didn’t bother going down. The road had a flood gate over it in case of emergency, and we turned right beyond it onto North Branch River Road. It was a pleasant road to walk, and when we got to the north side, we met James. We passed one woods road to the side on state park land I would like to come back to explore, but we didn’t have enough time to do that one on this, plus we couldn’t see well.
We soon reached Rt 202, crossed and turned right to cross the North Branch again. On the other side, I planned to descend to North Branch Park. I tried a couple of spots. The first one had a gross dead deer blocking the way, so I came back up. The second way was a mess of briars so I gave up too. The final one, at the end of a railing was a perfectly good woods road. This led us direct into North Branch Park.
North Branch Park had pretty much no formal paths along the Raritan. It’s just grassy fields. We made our way along the waterfront to a tributary that flows into it. We then had to turn right to follow it up stream and cross close to a building. We crossed I recall on a cute little covered bridge, then crossed over a secondary dry flow at a point that had a gradual dip. We then got back to the edge of the Raritan and followed it onward to the north.
When we reached the edge of the field section, we entered the woods on a path at first. The path didn’t last forever, and we came to a power line clearing. We managed to cross this and followed an informal path along the North Branch toward the bridge for NJ Transit, a stone viaduct constructed for the Central Railroad of NJ.

NJ Transit train crossing the North Branch Viaduct

It was a treat to arrive just as a train was about to cross the old arched bridge over the North Branch of the Raritan. It looked eerie in the dark going over the very old bridge. When the train had passed, we approached the bridge to use it to get across ourselves. It is no longer double tracked, so it’s not really dangerous to cross. From there, we followed the tracks a short bit ahead to the North Branch Station, then turned right onto Station Road.

Joe and a tree

The lights were really pretty at the North Branch Station.
Station Road was pretty, and most of the land to the right of it was all preserved. I wanted to explore it pretty badly, but in the light. I will have to go back when we have more daylight and hopefully explore more of that. Rather than wander there, we continued ahead on Station Road until we got to Aspen Hill Road on the left, a road to industrial complexes. I figured we must might be able to walk it through and get out. I suppose it was a rather big gamble for the end, but I figured it’d be at least very cool.
We followed the road up hill past an industry on the right, then to another one on the left. To the right here, there was a hill and a faint woods road heading gradually up, parallel with the main paved road route. At the top of the hill, there was a clearing to the northeast, but we did not follow this. Rather, we continued on into the woods. Joe had missed us at first, and was down below. He ended up coming up a more direct woods road.
After cutting shortly through woods, we reached a clearing alongside the chain link fences associated with the golf driving range. There were tons of golf balls everywhere, so I loaded up my backpack with them for no apparent reason. I suppose part of me thought I could randomly leave them at Carol and Rob Creamer’s house for the coming Decemberween Party, but I didn’t.
We opted to go left to follow the driving road around it’s back. The route was clear enough at first. When we got to the corner, we found a dead hawk with it’s head or something stuck in the fence work. It was sad to see, and it makes me wonder how often that really happens. We continued around the corner and to the northwest along the backs of the fences.
The weeds got a bit worse, and I figured we wouldn’t be able to get through easily. We went back a bit toward the corner, where someone had spotted a hole in the fence work. We opened it up and walked the totally clear green heading north a bit.

Message from James

Once we got toward the far end, there was another hole in the fence we simply walked through and were able to get onto a cleared pathway (not perfect, but clear enough) that led to an open field section. We moved on from here across the fields trying to follow the most direct route. At the northwest corner, there was a faint pathway we followed, and this took us out of the woods and to behind the Hyatt House of Branchburg, near to our end. James for one wanted to go further.
We turned to the left at this point, not toward the building, but skirting the retention pond around the back. We walked this, which gave us a pleasant route out to the main parking area at the hotel, past the pool and outdoor lounge. We went out around the building to reach Rt 22 and crossed.
It was pretty much across the highway and a bit to the left to where we left the cars, at the Shop Rite. We got done much earlier than anticipated, but still covered the mileage I wanted to do.
Areas like Somerville really are great for night hikes. I realized I need to do more in these areas to cover some different stuff. It’s easy for people to get to as well as great to walk.