Hike #921; Chester to Mansfield

Hike #921; Chester to Mansfield

3/10/16 Chester to Hackettstown with Brandan Jermyn, Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell, Annika Krystyna, Sue Bennett, Lowell Perkins, Phøėbə Tĕmpəşťå, Sandy Westermann, and Dan Asnis.

This next hike would be another night hike, this time between Chester and Hackettstown. I had warned that I wanted to do more hikes in the Chester area, a bit more challenging, but covering more intersting trails. This time the majority of the hike would be on the Patriot’s path system.

Patriot's Path on Chester Hill Branch of the CNJ

We met at the Wal Mart in Mansfield, which would be our end point after coming down off of Schooleys Mountain at Cataract Park. We’d turn off of the Patriot’s Path in that area somewhat.
It was cool that Lowell was finally able to come back out with us again, this time with Phoebe with him, the only newcomer for this one. We shuttled to the Chester Hill mall and then stopped at the pizza place there since there wouldn’t be any other stops for sustenance along the route.
Lowell had gone into the Wal Mart and gotten a giant box of Honey Comb, which I mistook reading it as “honey BOMB”, so we continued to call it that for the entire hike. He looked really funny because I gave him an old “Welcome” sign I’d gotten from Taylor Rental I think years ago to wear as a cape, and he was carrying this enormous family sized cereal box.

Patriot's Path at Furnace Road

It was cool also to have Sue, the daughter of Al Kent who laid out the Patriot’s Path with us.
We went over some of the history from the start. The parking lot of the mall we were at used to be the railroad yard for the Central Railroad of NJ, where the station in town was located. From there, the Patriot’s Path passes through town eastbound, but to the west it now follows the railroad bed on the gradual downhill route away from town, past a couple of old mine pits. We crossed Rt 513 and headed in that direction.
I pointed out to everyone where we’d walked on the previous Chester area hike, then we turned to the right to follow the white blazed main route where the blue blazed route continued on the right of way.
The trail went down hill and over a little tributary on a footbridge. There were remnants of some sort of a dam, and an old building foundation just below the trail. We weaved around over some somewhat new foot bridges to cross Furnace Road, which now had a newer kiosk.
The sing was really nice, with an overlay of where all of the historic buildings were associated with the furnace.

Historic interpretation at the kiosk showing Chester Furnace structuress

I’d walked through this area countless times before, and knew only where the historic Chester Furnace itself was. I’d always wondered where everything else was, and this sign now pointed out the exact location of each one of the structures that were associated with the furnace. This is an awesome resource.

Chester Furnace site

We continued into the woods from the road, weaving around a bit. We crossed the old right of way of the Chester Branch of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad, almost unnoticeable unless you knew what you were looking for. I was happy it was shown on the map, but it didn’t make any mention of this being a rival company to the Central Railroad of NJ, which had all of the other branches in the vicinity of the furnace and their connections. We continued on and passed by the site of the Chester Furnace. In the past, rocks were stacked like a fort around the circle that was where the furnace kiln would have been, but someone had knocked most of them over this time.

Near Chester Furnace

We continued from the furnace site past more old building foundations, then headed to the south a bit more until we got back to the Chester Branch of the Central Railroad of NJ right of way again, the same line we followed at first down from Chester. The trail returns to it for a short time here. We then continued to the west for a bit to the crossing of the Black River.
From this vantage point, we got a great view of the former dam, now open, where the pond was associated with the furnace. The trail continued ahead from there, and soon the junction site with the former Hacklebarney Mine Railroad was on the left, which I also pointed out.

Old dam on the Black River

We continued along the railroad bed for a short while longer, and then the Patriot’s Path turned off to the right across an open old field area. There were now some arrows pointing to turn at this point rather than continue on the railroad bed, something that had never been there before. Also, the entire trail in the area was marked by plastic or metal white blazes rather than paint. It was kind of disappointing to see that all of them were pretty much hammered completely into the trees, because they’ll grow out in no time. It’s always one of the toughest things for trail maintainers to explain that when using tags, don’t hammer them in all the way.

Patriot's Path on the CNJ right of way

It’s necessary to leave the nails an inch or two out to allow for the tree to grow. Some of these young growth forests are fast growing trees, and it will be no time before the blazes will either pop off or grow into the trees.
We continued from here out of the field section and into a nice planted grove of evergreens.
The trail passed through the rows and soon came out to Tanners Brook Road. Here, we turned right to follow the road to the north for a little while. This section of road didn’t always go through as I recall, but there’s a new development nearby that somehow changed things.

We crossed over the Tanners Brook itself on the road bridge, then continued up the road, which I believe was dirt for a bit, passed a house, and then turned to the left into the newer Tanners Brook Preserve. The original planned trail was to follow the railroad bed further to the west, and then head out into Long Valley. We’d hiked that route in the past before, but for some reason that never went through. The route now climbs from Tanners Brook Road through a strange preserve with alternate larger white tag blazes for a while. The trail started as a footpath, but then followed some pleasant woods roads toward the top of the hill.

The group in Tanners Brook Preserve

We re-grouped at the top, then began to descend the other side. There was a dead fox right in the middle of the trail we passed as we descended, now on footpath. Yuck.
When we got to the bottom, the trail turned to the left on a utility right of way for a while. We followed this, and eventually turned right again on another clearing to the back end of a golf course. The trail then turned left and right into the back of Palmer Park, a small municipal park. We walked along the right side of the park as we headed north. We got to the entrance and crossed the paved road, then followed a short bit of footpath to the Columbia Trail, the former High Bridge Branch of the Central Railroad of NJ. The Patriot’s Path follows it for a good while to the west. This was about the easiest portion of the hike for us.
We continued on the rail bed west for a bit. I went over what I hated about the “Columbia Trail” name, how it’s really just a gas company name given to an historic rail line, and how it shouldn’t even be legal. Some tell me that we should be thankful that the gas company gave surface rights to the counties for the trails, but in all honesty they’d have to mow the damn things anyway. Basically they took all of their maintenance costs and put them on taxpayers. I don’t mind the trail being maintained by counties, but let’s not name an historic route, which once carried 150 cars of raw iron ore per day, and fifty thousand vacationing passengers per year, a throwaway name. Plus there is another long distance rail trail that begins in Columbia NJ and it’s stupidly confusing to many.
We hiked from here to Long Valley where the Patriot’s Path breaks away and climbs Schooleys Mountain, but I overshot the turn by a bit. I recognized the old turn spot from when I first hiked the trail, strangely enough, and then we turned back to the correct spot. We crossed over Fairview Ave, and then instead of following the joint Patriot’s Path and Highlands Trail, we turned right on Bee Line Trail.
I figured this route to the right would be a lot easier for the group to handle with it getting so dark than the other way. We made our way up the hill, and then turned left onto the Grand Loop Trail I believe. We followed that I believe to Quarry Stone Path, and somehow I made a wrong turn. I thought that pink blazes were white. When I first became familiar with Schooleys Mountain Park, these trails in the middles had no color designations, and so I made the mistake in the dark of seeing white.
We made our way back to the correct route, and headed directly to the parking area and the real Patriot’s Path route. We had to take two breaks in there for me to check my GPS because after that turn I was second guessing myself.
Next, we had to cut through sections of woods and along mowed grass to Springtown Road. When we got to the road, we turned left and then right across the Electric Brook on the road bridge. Patriot’s Path then goes into more woods and immediately crosses wetlands on footbridges, but it looked as though they were washed out of place, and I could not see the correct route beyond. I changed it up, and we again turned away from the trail and followed the access road north from the parking lot. Thankfully I know the area pretty well from wandering off trail so many times in the past. We turned right when we got to a cleared old utility right of way, and followed that to a good crossing of the Electric Brook. We were able to get on the Patriot’s Path/Highlands Trail again on the other side without a problem.
We continued on the trail to the north from here, crossed an access road, and weaved around through the woods. We crossed several sections of puncheons before we finally made it out to Rock Road. This section hasn’t changed a whole lot since the first time I hiked it I believe in 2002.
We crossed Rock Road and walked to Harrington Field. This section of the trail was unblazed for an eternity, but is now marked. We did not follow the Patriot’s Path the entire way through, but rather the Highlands Trail which instead goes up to a cul de sac called I think Falcon Court. The Patriot’s Path route is subject to people dumping tons of lawn trimmings and it’s right along people’s back yards, so I didn’t want to take that route this time.
We reached Flocktown Road and turned left across the yard of the Flocktown-Kossman School on the left. The trails then took us into the woods in a swath between development homes. They eventually took us out to a power line right of way.

Cataract Falls

We regrouped here one more time, and I explained that we wouldn’t be stopping again for a bit, but we would be leaving the Patriot’s Path and Highlands Trail to follow an old Patriot’s Path route to a connection to Cataract Park. We soon crossed a development road and remained on the power line right of way across back yards, then on a cleared path along the power line to one more road. The official trails went to the right, but we kept going straight, down hill on the power line.
I was surprised to see new trail work going off to the left from this right of way a short ways out of sight of the last house on the left. I had heard there would finally be a connection from Patriot’s path to Cataract Park, which I’d been doing for years anyway. Now it would be formal. The trail route between used to be marked with tin can lids rather spuratically.
The trail remained down below the houses, but skirted the hillside a lot more than the trail that used to follow the tin can lids further down the hill. It was well graded, even though it wasn’t blazed, and it took us onto a good switch back down hill.
The down hill route took us to the trail that was put in by Bob Moss’s father at Heath Village, the retirement home. Bob Moss was supervisor of the Highlands Trail when I first became involved around 2002. He had gone out to work with his father on this trail system at Heath Village, which led to all sorts of neat little places. That trail system used to connect to Cataract Falls from the village, and the municipality had their own poorly marked trail in from Schooleys Mountain Road, but the two did not connect. I walked it so many times in between, informally connecting these trails that it sort of became a trail. We followed the new trail to Mr. Moss’s old trail, and followed it along the rim of the gorge to the top of the falls. Here, we crossed carefully, and then very carefully descended from the top of the falls to the bottom and the Washington Township trail.

Young's Mine

At the bottom, we regrouped and took a break. I showed everyone how to get to the falls rather close up for the best view. The trail below really doesn’t offer the most impressive view of them, but it’s alright.
I also pointed out the odd split boulder above, where the water flows through it and seems to defy gravity because most of the stream is below it. We left this spot and followed the trail up hill on the old woods road, passed the turn to the road directly, and continued on the spur trail to the old iron mine, known as Young’s Mine.
I didn’t really put the mine into the trip description, and I didn’t tell anyone we’d be going to it because I figured it would be a cool little surprise for the end of the trip.

Young's Mine

Some of us made our way down into the mine, which isn’t too deep, but it’s cool enough to be inside of.
We hung out here for a little bit of time before making the final move back toward the road. The trail cut off to the left and we could see the lights of Mansfield Township and all of the stores brightly. I always love the look of that from above. It was tough to remain on the trail though, because it was so poorly marked and the thing really isn’t graded at all until it picks up the section where it’s on an old log skid.
We descended a bit more until we got to a picnic bench on the last slope before Schooleys Mountain Road. We stopped here for another break while the rest of the group came down the treacherous trail. From there, we managed to lose the trail one last time before the foot bridge over the brook. It went quick, and we turned right on Schooleys Mountain Road heading to the north.
This was the worst part of the hike because it’s busy and there’s not a lot of room to walk. It got better though, pretty much as soon as we got to Newburg Road.

Picnic bench break

We took another quick break under a tree at Newburg, and while there a police officer pulled up to us.
“What do you have goin on here?” he asked out the window.
“A hike!” I replied enthusiastically.
“Really???” the officer replied with some surprise. I explained what we were doing, hiking from Chester to Mansfield, and that we were done with the trail stuff, and it was time for the pleasant back roads. He told us to be careful, and I said not to worry, we were now on one of the good roads.
Newburg Road really is great for walking because there is a wide grassy swath on both sides. Particularly on the right there is a white wooden fence set back enough to allow for a lot of walking room. We headed along the road, and then the officer was sitting waiting for us again when we got to one of the industrial properties. He got out of the car to come over and talk to us.
Annika told him about how we get stopped often, because people can’t believe what we’re doing, and she mentioned the story about the officers in Lopatcong Township that once gave some of the group rides back to their cars, sort of hinting about getting a ride, but he didn’t take the bait.
Instead, he and I chatted for a good while about the trails in the area and what we were doing. We got to talking about White Lake where I used to live and the Ridge and Valley Conservancy. The rest of the group got fed us with us blabbering, and so they moved on to the end without me. I stayed and talked to him for a long time until he got toned out to some emergency call and had to go.
I walked to the end of Newburg Road, crossed, then walked through the lots of Shop Rite, the hotel, and other lots as well as a retention pond by myself back to the cars. When I got there, some of the group had left, but Brandan needed me for a ride, and Annika and Uncle Soup were still there. We all went over to Taco Bell for a late dinner, which was stupendous.
Considering all of the tougher terrain and the fact that we did get a little bit lost, we still made really good time for this one, and it was great to be out.
With the time change coming very soon, I look forward to more night hikes of this calibur.