Hike #941; Long Valley to Hackettstown/Mansfield

Hike #941; Long Valley to Hackettstown/Mansfield

6/2/16 Long Valley to Hackettstown/Mansfield with Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell, Brandan Jermyn, Lowell Perkins, Karen Ezzo, Alyssa Lidman, Sean TheRed, and Marissa Barradale.

This next hike would be another point to point night hike. This time I decided to post something that would be more of Patriot’s Path and Hackettstown area, but covering some of the stuff we didn’t see much of on one of the recent night hikes, as well as other points of interest.
We met at the Taco Bell in Hackettstown after work, then shuttled with two cars to Long Valley. The night was interesting right from the start, because Lowell somehow ran out of gas while going over Schooleys Mountain. We piled into Sean’s car, headed down to Hackettstown, and got a gas tank and gas!
Despite starting off late, we still ended up making pretty good time, and had a really great hike.

Alright Alright Alright on Gillette Trail

We went into the Krauszers at the start point in Long Valley for snacks and drinks. We found it quite funny that there was a drink known as “Happy Juice” now, a term which people have used for seemingly forever and no one capitalized on.

Happy juice

Of course, a couple members of the group had to get some specifically because of the name.
We made our way out of the lot and onto Rt 513 heading to the east. We then turned left into a trail lot and followed Gillette Trail down hill through farm lands.
There were two tractors going tilling the fields or cutting or something as we headed down hill. We cut into the woods and passed through the tree farm section, and then got to the old concrete bridge over the South Branch of the Raritan. It was pretty warm out, so I decided to take a dip right away. Surprisingly, no one wanted to go in yet, but then again we hadn’t even gone a mile yet and I was in the water.
We continued from the other side of the bridge to where there used to be a house on the left, now demolished. We then reached the former High Bridge Branch of the Central Railroad of NJ, now a trail, and followed it to the right for a little bit, then left on the Patriot’s Path up to Fairview Ave.
We turned left at the fork and continued on the co aligned Patriot’s Path and Highlands Trail, both on footpath and sometimes old logging or quarry roads heading up hill.

Long Valley overlook

The trail led to the lovely overlook of Long Valley from the former vertical quarry wall of a century ago. We could see the church steeple and farm lands of Long Valley. We had a nice little break here and caught our breath after the ascent.
We continued from this point to the north a bit, and I was looking for the Falling Waters Trail to the left, and it just wasn’t appearing. It was no longer blazed as well as it used to be. When I didn’t see it, and we got to the Quarry Stone Path which was not blazed, I knew we’d gone too far, so we turned back and I was able to find the correct trail. We descended on it into the Boulder Gorge, where the Electric Brook cascades beautifully over rocks. We continued up stream to the lower waterfall.

Falls of the Electric Brook

I went and took a dip in the falls right away. After I put my head directly under the falls, the others decided it was just too tempting not to do. Everyone except for Uncle Soup, who relaxed and enjoyed the view, jumped into the water for a dip.

Falls on Electric Brook in Boulder Gorge

After our break, we headed up stream on the same trail and passed the second falls, which are also beautiful. We continued further through the rocky gorge toward the pond at the top, and somehow Alyssa lost the trail for a few moments. We waited up, and when we were all together we climbed to the top, then turned left on the bridge across the dam of the pond. We headed along the west shore and then to the floating bridge that goes across the pond, which is also always a very neat little spot. On the other side, we got back on the Patriot’s Path again and were able to head along it parallel with the parking lot to the north.

Floating bridge

The trail leads through a swath of trees, then along more fields before coming to Springtown Road. We turned left on Springtown Road just to cross the bridge over the Electric Brook, then into a parking lot. We lost the trail the last time we walked that section, and it was because there is a washed out bridge that sort of sits sideways on the trail. The trail is otherwise fine, and it had disoriented me. So, we walked the trail past this bridge, and then found our way to another foot bridge over Electric Brook. The trail then followed the east side for a while in the wider flood plain where multiple springs feed the headwaters of the stream.

Floating bridge

We continued on the trail across yet another little footbridge on the now much smaller Electric Brook, then walked a long series of puncheons through the northernmost end of Schooleys Mountain Park.
Soon, we emerged at Rock Road across from the access road to Harrington Field. We followed the trail straight there along the access road, and the Highlands Trail turns to the right onto Falcon Ct, a cul de sac. This is because the Patriot’s Path is in such poor disrepair up ahead. We followed the Patriot’s Path to where it turns from the back of Harrington Field, and it was the worst I’d been through in that section. Tons of blow downs at first.

Patriot's Path bridge

After going around the blow downs, there were lots of briars, then phragmites, and of course lots of lawn trimmings and sticks placed by adjacent land owners who probably don’t want the trail there at all. Maintenance is definitely needed on this section big time. It was really the only tougher section of the hike we came to.
We continued from this section across Flocktown Road, and skirted the left side of the yard of the Flocktown-Kossman School, and the trail remained plenty clear as we made our way north to the power line section. The section here is actually pretty nice. The trail became mowed before we reached the power line section.

Sunset on Patriot's Path

We got to the power lines still before dark and turned left. We crossed some of the yard sections, and remained on the power line out to Quail Run. Last time we went straight to Cataracts, but this time we turned right on Quail Run, Left on Winay Terrace, then right on Sparrow Lane to pick up the Patriot’s Path again.
We continued parallel with some houses, along a retention pond berm, and to an area that always used to be private property when I first started hiking this. The trail, when finally opened, went switch backing down hill to the abandoned old route of Mission Road, but now it was different. I didn’t see any of the old blazes at all.
The trail always used to go along or next to the former Mission Road route, past an old lime kiln in a section Jillane’s girl scout troop put in, and then come to the intersection of Mission Road, Reservoir Road, and Spring Road. Now, it continued on the hillside without descending to the lime kiln. I didn’t notice if they reblazed the old route a different color.
We continued through the woods, across the power line, and along a rather nice route through open woods. The trail didn’t have as much elevation on it with this new route, which still came out at the same triple intersection.
We turned left on Reservoir Road following the trail route, past a development, and then a while down the hill turned left onto the footpath again. I accidentally made a wrong turn at first down another woods road, but turned everyone back.
We took to the footpath which now had some foot bridges over washouts down to the development off of Candour Ct. We turned right on a paved path down to Pegasus Place, then turned right on Candour Court. When we got to the intersection with Heron Drive, rather than turn left and head down to the other main roads, I wanted to see if the old road I used to follow in the past was still in place. I figured it was a gamble but it couldn’t be too bad.

Abandoned road on one of my hikes in 2004.

I was surprised to see that the first bit of it was now an access road, and it served as a trail going by a club house or something. We continued to follow it, and it was totally clear leading to the abandoned old concrete bridge. This was the way I had told Al Kent from Morris County Parks that I thought the Patriot’s Path should take years before, but for some reason it didn’t work out. After crossing the bridge, it was a little weedy, but we were able to bully our way through and come out on Hearthstone Road where we turned right.

On Target

Hearthstone leads out to the traffic light on Rt 46 where the Target is straight across. We went over and headed directly to the Target where we proceeded to hike the perimeter of the store.
I forget what kind of snacks everyone got except for Lowell. He got these Oreo thins that really sounded like they’d be kidn of crummy. I was like “Not double stuff? Really?”. I was not a believer at first. Then, I realized that not only is it thin frosting, it’s super thin outsides too. The things were actually quite delicous! I loved them! We had a short break at the Target and waited for everyone to use the restrooms or whatever they had to do before making our way out.

Target

We left the Target and began walking the old abandoned access road, which was I think a public road before, the original route of Drakestown Road, or at least another side road that lined up with Reservoir Road. It leaves the west side of the parking lot at Target.
The road led us out to Lotus Lane at Mine Hill Road. We turned right here for a little while, then left on the dead end River Road. This led out to Cove Lane, a dead end dirt road that goes off to the right along the river to a gravel turn around. We followed this out without a problem to the edge of the Musconetcong River. This is a really shallow spot, around where the Seber Dam was, and easy to wade across.

"I'm not gonna remember any of this night!" - Uncle Soup is happy

We all waded across the river here and took a break on the other side. It’s really a beautiful spot along the river.
Just beyond this point, there is a paved path that goes through the woods close to the river, and leads all the way out to the Alumni Field from the Doctors Park area at Hackettstown Riverfront Park. This was another really nice and relaxing swath to walk.
When we got to Alumni Field, we kept to the paved path along the Musconetcong, and past the former swimming area stanchion. We turned with the paved path toward the entrance, and then briskly walked the gravel road out past what used to be the fish hatchery ponds.
We had no problem, and we headed left to the intersection of Rt 46 and Willow Grove Street. We headed down hill from there on Mountain Ave, and I thought to go through the cemetery, but that would add distance as well as uncertainty of where we were going. We chose to remain on Mountain Ave because it wasn’t so bad at night. We turned right when we got to Rt 57, and made our way behind many of the businesses that front up to the Musconetcong River.

Car wash. At the car wash yea.

We continued past a power line crossing and between there and the businesses could pretty much stay off of Rt 57. We turned further to the left when we got to the Musconetcong Wildlife Management Area lot, and then followed the fisherman’s path that followed the long abandoned roadway along the river.
We wandered this and returned to Rt 57 where the old road crosses the dilapidated old three arch stone bridge. It’s amazing to me that any of this old stone bridge still stands at all. I’d been looking at it and watching it deteriorate my entire life, but it’s still there.
At about that point, we crossed the road past the Panera Bread, and headed out behind the Bowtie Cinemas movie theater. We continued along the back of the Shop Rite and other stores, on the frontage road until we were out behind the Taco Bell to head back down to the cars.
Amazingly, the Taco Bell was still open. I thought it would be closed and we’d have the poor luck like we did the previous time, but Uncle Soup did a test run through and appeared successful, so Brandan and I hurried over for some glorious supper as I recall.
Everyone dispersed; we finished the hike at about 11:30 surprisingly, even with our late start. Brandan and I waited with Alyssa til her dad Ken showed up to pick her up.
It was an overall happy evening, and Brandan was very happy to be back out with us. He happily announced that he’d soon be rejoining the regular Sunday regiment for more fun.
The Summer continues to show promise.