Hike #904; Pittstown to Union Furnace

 Hike #904; Pittstown to Union Furnace

12/22/15 Pittstown to Union Furnace/Van Syckles Corner with Jennifer Berndt, James Quinn, Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell, and Dan Asnis.

Our next hike would be a point to point night hike, this time between Van Syckles Road near the former site of Union Furnace on Spruce Run Reservoir, the end point, and the town of Pittstown. The waters were low on Spruce Run, and I wanted to run another hike on it, so this was a good opportunity.

In Pittstown NJ

We met at the parking area closest to Rt 31 on Van Syckles, and then shuttled south to Pittstown across from the historic former Century Inn.
We walked from here down the road to the access at the northern end of the Capoolong Creek Trail. The trail, which I’ve used a great many times on different hikes, was the former Pittstown Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad.
It’s among my favorite area rail trails because it’s not overdone like so many others are. It’s not been widened with some horrific crushed stone surface. It remains narrow with original cinder base. Bridges have been redecked, but that’s pretty much the extent of the improvements done.

Pittstown Station

The only thing I wish was more done up is the historic Pittstown Station.
The station remains, but is in deplorable condition that worsens every year. The roof is in poor shape, and efforts to save the structure were stalled over the years. I’m afraid the structure will be lost in short order if something isn’t done soon.

Historic view of Pittstown Station

Hunterdon County was once the peach capital of the world, and Pittstown was at the epicenter. It seems appropriate that this piece of the town’s heritage should be saved.
We got on the trail and began following it to the northeast. It’s a great trail because it so closely follows the Capoolong Creek itself. At some points, the trail is beginning to wash off into the creek.

The trail near Pittstown

James was running just a little late, so he was to meet us at the first road crossing along the trail, White Bridge Road. We simply followed the trail to the north along the creek, and could see him parking even before getting there.

The White Bridge on the road was not as I remembered it originally. It was now much wider. It’s still a Pony Truss bridge, but may not be the original trusses. At least this one retains some sort of historic character, unlike so many other ugly bridge replacements. It does have that ugly fake stone facade on the abutments. I hate that stuff because it looks so obviously fake to me. I prefer dyed, darker concrete to blend with natural area features rather than expensive fake stone.

White Bridge Road

We continued on the trail from here heading to the north across each of the roads along the way. It went by quickly, and it got dark quickly. Before we even reached the old junction site at Landsdown it was already completely dark.
I was concerned that it was going to rain a lot during the course of this, but the moon started to show through after not too long.
At Landsdown, we walked a section of road for a bit, then turned right on Landsdown Road to reach the former Clinton Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, now Landsdown Trail.
The Landsdown Trail is much wider than Capoolong Creek Trail, but it’s not quite overdone as badly as the former High Bridge Branch of the CNJ to the north. We followed it with ease north and under Interstate 78 to reach Clinton.
From here, we were to turn to the left to Union Road and get to the dry reservoir bed, but first I figured we’d stop for food and drinks. Unfortunately there was nothing open the way we went. We should have headed over the Krauszers down the street from where we emerged, but I figured we’d find something else.
We continued on anyway, and turned right onto Union Road.
This road used to go straight on through where the reservoir is to connect with Van Syckles Road and Polktown Road. There would have been an offset intersection, and Van Syckles Corner Road would have gone right. We’d hike this later.
We reached the gated and abandoned portion of the road, then turned left off of it and through some fields. When we reached the levee on the south side of the reservoir, we carefully climbed down over the rocks to the dry bed.

Dry reservoir

Once on the reservoir, we headed straight out and to the left. The shore wasn’t that muddy where we got onto it. Very easy to walk. The moon was coming out nicely, and it was bright enough, nearly full, to cast a good shadow while we walked.
Heading west, we went around the first inlet area. I thought we’d be able to walk right across it without going far inland, but it was too difficult. We had to go around and back out. The next one was a long peninsula, just after where there is an island. I walked below in the normally watered area (even when the water is down), and then headed toward the corner. The area of where the water usually reaches was growing over with some weird shrubbery because it had been dry for so long. We cut across this section.
There was one more little inlet we had to go around before heading west to the Mulhockaway Creek inlet. This one we didn’t have to follow as far out to cross as I’d anticipated. Mulhockaway was always the toughest of the inlets to cross every time I’d walked the perimeter of Spruce Run, but not this time. The ground around it was rather solid, and the creek had been carrying in sediment from outside the reservoir that collected on the edges to such an extent that stepping over was easy, if we could find a good spot.
We did find a few good spots, but we still decided to wade a little bit of it. It wasn’t a problem. The problem was on the other side.
The creek was not the problem, it was two other spring inlets to it that I’d never seen before. These springs were now part of the muddy reservoir bed and would have been really rough to try and cross. I ended up walking much further inland to get around these than I thought I would. Doing the perimeter previous times, we went far to the edge of this inlet, and wouldn’t have dealt with any of those springs.
We got around it just fine, and continued heading east along the north shore of the reservoir. I had to remind Dan to keep his music down for the one house that was on that edge until we got out of it’s way. We continued along the way to the Ranger Dock area where we took a break.
I ran back up hill to the maintenance shop and grabbed a slice of pizza I had left there earlier, because I got rather hungry. I decided then to have the group come up and meet the shop cat, Puss Puss, but she was too scared to come around anyone.

We headed back down along the shore line, making our way over a rocky section to the tower area. From here, we got on the concrete pathway which soon joins with the Highlands Trail and followed it over through the beach complex for a break. :D
We then headed onto the beach directly, and continued along the shore of the reservoir more directly around lower Picnic Area 5, then out and around the camp grounds. At the end of this area, we could see more of the old Union Road, the former north/south through route from before the reservoir was created. We walked further past the boat rental area, and the Union Road became more obvious. We were able to actually walked the nice paved road heading to the north for a good while, parallel with Lower Area 4 and 2. The old road heads into the water again at an inlet, where we had to walk to the west, then crossed it as we headed out toward the boat launch area.
At the boat launch, we crossed more of the old farm foundations, these ones where several silos used to stand. There was a couple out along the waterfront with their car parked at the restroom above. We all walked over to use the restroom as one of the final breaks before reaching the end. For some reason the lights wouldn’t go on inside.
We stayed along the waterfront and continued to the former Van Syckles Corner Road. Current Van Syckles Road used to end apparently at Union Road, which continued north to connect to present day Polktown Road. Drivers would have had to turn left, then right at the intersection to continue east on Van Syckles Corner Road as I understand. The second parking lot from Rt 31 is actually the old road, and a former bridge is seen there over a tributary spring.

James at Union Furnace

The Union Furnace itself, vintage 1740s, is well out of the water again, with it’s rounded stone kiln area well visible. I had pulled a piece of partially smelted and glassy iron ore out of it recently.
The furnace and area were purchased by William Allen and Joseph Turner in 1742 when they developed Union Ironworks, and the furnace might have existed prior to that time. The main works were later moved to High Bridge and became the Taylor Iron and Steel Company.

Union Furnace Ruins prior to the reservoir

We left the furnace site and headed along the shore to the old bridge, then turned right to follow the usually under water Van Syckles Corner Road. We followed the old paved road over and area that was very muddy on both sides, all the way out to the Spruce Run Creek, where the remains of bridge abutments could be seen. This road crossed the creek here and reached the intersection with the predecessor to Rt 31. Cregar Road out of High Bridge used to join at the same point for a four way intersection. The old highway bridge over Willoughby Brook is still in place just to the north of here.
We turned left here and headed to the inlet of Spruce Run Creek to the reservoir where our cars were parked.
We actually finished relatively early, and covered all of the mileage I was planning to. It was overall quite a successful night hike, and the weather really cooperated with us.
The warmer than average weather made it feel like the Spring. I hope the warm weather holds out a bit more.