Hike #944; Clinton to Flemington

Hike #944; Clinton to Flemington

6/15/16 Clinton to Flemington with James Quinn, Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell, Shane Blische, Carolyn Gockel Gordon, Jessica M. Collins, Sarah Jones, and Jack Lowry

This next hike would be another point to point, this time between Clinton and Flemington. I had originally scheduled this hike for the week before, but then it was only about sixty five degrees and too cool for a lot of swimming, so I opted to put it on hold. This was a much better day for it.

View of Landsdown Meadows and a retention pond

We met at 4 pm at the BJ’s in Flemington, as we had on the previous hike, then shuttled with Carolyn’s car north to the Walmart and Shop Rite complex in Clinton. I decided to start the hike off different than than I had all of the other Clinton hikes, and change things up.
We walked across the strip mall parking areas to the south side, where there is a retention pond and a limited view of the Landsdown Meadows.

Landsdown Meadows

Landsdown Meadows was a Hunterdon County Park property acquired just before I was laid off from the county. I led a hike across part of them as part of Hike #500, years ago.
We would try to trace the same or similar route again to reach the Landsdown Trail, formerly the Clinton Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad.
We headed down along the retention pond on what was a mowed path, but then there was no good looking way through. We ended up crawling through an animal path out to the first field section, after which it was very easy. We then walked through the fields to the southeast until we got to the old railroad bed.

Shane and some ties

Shane was ecstatic to find railroad ties there. Many had been pushed off of the right of way when it was turned into a trail.
We continued south on the trail along the South Branch of the Raritan, and then crossed over the Capoolong Creek on a decked former railroad bridge. We then reached Landsdown Road where we met up with Sarah, who met us late. She left her car along the road, and we turned left to make our way toward the Melick’s Bridge Section of the South Branch Reservation. We followed the road just to a church, and there James was able to meet up with us. He brought me a couple of drinks and I gave him an uncomfortably long hug.

Former Lehigh Valley Railroad deck girder bridge, Clinton Branch

There wasn’t much road walking to do at all. The section of Lower Landsdown Road leads to a ninety degree angle turn, where we turned right on old Hamden Road. The road used to go through, but then some years ago the road bridge was moved slightly during a flood, and then deemed unsafe as I hear. So, the bridge was closed and made a pedestrian bridge. It had been like that since I first started doing hikes in this area, probably around 2007. We followed the abandoned old Hamden Road, with the double yellow line still visible along the way. Just before we got to the footbridge, we turned right on a path.
We could see the former Lehigh Valley Railroad main line bridge from here, crossing the South Branch of the Raritan.

The South Branch along the Landsdown Trail

Shane threw all sorts of railroad history at us as we walked along. He remembers so much stuff it’s amazing.
The foot path from old Hamden Road broke in two directions, with the main route getting too overgrown. We cut over to the parallel field, and then back to the river side. The path led down beneath the former Lehigh Valley Railroad bridge at an awesome deep spot where I love to swim.
The water looks somewhat still, but there is a lot of current to it. I like to get in it and try to swim up stream against the current for some good exercise. I always find it kind of tough to do, and probably exert more energy than is necessary.

Capoolong Creek

The last time we had hiked this spot, Lerch jumped off the bridge in the dark and injured himself. I had jumped the bridge before, but only after seeing a kid land it safely. This time, I went out and checked the depth first, and felt pretty comfortable with it.
I ran up to the top of the bridge, and to about halfway out. There were ropes and stuff tied to the bridge, so it was sort of obvious where people jump from. I stepped out from the deck of the bridge and onto the frame of the giant through style truss bridge, then jumped off. It was no problem, and I barely touched bottom when I landed it. It felt pretty great. Shane had a look around, always the historian, at the other side of the bridge and the abutments, some made of stone, some of concrete.

Shane was talking about a hair cut

Once everyone had had enough of swimming, we headed further on along the trail.
This was a weird section, I believe we called it the Rhinehardt’s Section of the South Branch Reservation. The official trail goes under the railroad bridge, and there used to be a lollipop loop down below when I worked for Hunterdon. We got to the site to clear it using a six wheeled Polaris Ranger ATV. Now, the property isn’t maintained in such a way, and it seems what is there is only maintained from the horse farm property adjacent to it. Years before, the trail used to go through, maybe informally, to the Pine Hill section of the South Branch Reservation at Camp Buck Road.

Abandoned old Hamden Road

My goal in this hike was to try to follow that old route.
We headed along the clear trail, over to the farm fields, and skirted a fenced area as we headed south. We had to go through a bit of woods, and then came to a very steep slope to the left. The foot path made it’s way up and next to a fence, then came uncomfortably close to someone’s house. We were still following a path along the Hunterdon County Parks boundary, which I’d been able to do before, but there was no marked trail in there. It would be really nice if they could put something permanent in there. It’s a beautiful section.
We descended from here to the Camp Buck Road, at a double pony truss bridge over the South Branch. Directly across, there is parking for one car and the Pine Hill section trail.

Me jumping; photo by Uncle Soup

The next leg of the hike was to follow the Pine Hill section trail.
This is yet another disappointing trail in terms of what Hunterdon County could do. The trail once went through to the next bridge, at the Valinsky’s Section of the South Branch Reservation, but the county gave up the trail when a private land owner wanted it closed. The county holds easements for these trails along the river, but they won’t work to maintain them, and they always close them down when anyone complains.
Now, the trail just goes out into the preserve, loops back onto itself and ends. Still, it is a nice little secluded section, and it was years since the last time I was on it, so we went out and did the loop. The other disappointing thing here was that the old pavilion, which was part of the old Camp Buck, had been town down by the county. The trail to that section was now rutted and a mess from the large machine they had to take back there to remove it. The old camp was once associated with the Taylor Wharton group as a sort of charitable thing.
We closed in the loop, and then headed back down to the parking area where we turned to cross the river. We followed Camp Buck Road to River Road and turned right.

Camp Buck Bridge

This was a landmark hike because it was the first time we’d ever dragged Jack out on a night hike! He’d been attending the day hikes since January of 2007, but just never did one of the night ones. I told him to park down near the Valinsky’s Section on River Road, on the far side of the bridge where it was just pull off roadside parking he wouldn’t have a problem in.
We followed River Road to the south, which became dirt surface parallel with the island the current YMCA Camp Karr occupies. We passed the regular Valinsky’s lot, then crossed over the double truss bridge over the South Branch. There are beautiful large historic homes along this stretch of road, making it particularly pretty.

Pine Hill

We continued south from here along the road. I’ve always loved the River Road section to the south. It becomes paved again, but it’s still very lightly used, and it’s not even as wide as a lot of the rail trails we’ve walked. Not to mention the scenery is beautiful.
Jack brought his carbon fiber guitar with him, and we of course sang lots of songs as we continued along. There was a good number of Rolling Stones numbers on this stretch of road as I recall, including “Paint It Black”, “Let’s Spend The Night Together”, and I can’t remember what else. One of them that he’d been learning that we’d not done before was Don McLean’s “Castles In The Air”.

Overlook on Pine Hill

We continued down the road past the historic old smoke house built in the 1700s, then past the horse farms. We soon reached the Sunnyside Picnic Area section, where we crossed a rare example of a triple pony truss bridge.
Pony trusses are lower truss structures, and this particular one had three spans. Double ones are pretty common, but triple is rarely seen in this size (the only other one I can think of off the top of my head is the Province Line Road bridge in Princeton). Once we got across, we stopped for a break and took a much needed dip in the South Branch. I gave James another uncomfortably long hug.

Bridge

Sunnyside looked pretty well maintained as far as the Hunterdon Co Parks were concerned.
We followed the path from Kiceniuk Road along the river, which leads to Awossagame Grove, which is the county’s September 11th Memorial. There’s a big rock that came from Mountain Farm at the northern part of the county with a plaque on it, and a tree for every Hunterdon County resident who died on 9/11. Unfortunately, the trees were placed far too close together. We had a lot of problems when I worked there trying to keep the trees going, and I helped to move them further apart a bit so it wouldn’t be an issue.
We continued past the memorial onto another footpath. The park has two parallel trails up to a certain point, and we used the ones closest to the river. Then, we came to Old Clinton Road. Another pony truss, a double, crosses the river here. We continued straight across on the trail along the South Branch.
There was a new bridge at this point, which kind of surprised me, because it was always a big deal spot.

Bridge

Hunterdon always insisted on having tons of permits to do anything, from a short section of puncheon to a couple of planks for a bridge over a wet area.
At this spot, there was a really bad low area one had to cross to get through to the next bit of trail. One day, my buddy “Bandit” (Adam Johnson) and I took some of the time at the end of a work day and fabricated a foot bridge out of a peculiar beefy pallet that one of our park orders had come in on. We simply added cut lumber to fill in between the spaces so there wouldn’t be a trip hazard.
We picked what looked to be a good spot over the small tributary, and placed the bridge. Later that Summer, a flood came through and washed our bridge down stream quite a ways. We had to wander through the woods off trail to find what became of our bridge, and we found it a ways down stream out in the flood plain. We went back with the six wheel Polaris Ranger, with some chains and straps, and dragged the bridge out of the woods.

Uncomfortably long hugs

We secured the bridge back in it’s spot, and this time chained it around a tree so that when waters rise again, it would stay put.
That bridge remained there in good shape save for one small broken board, until at least Summer 2015, about 7 years, and we crossed it a few times.
This time, we found that a new, more “proper” bridge had been erected on the same spot that Bandit and I had built our bridge. There was no sign of our bridge, but it was cool to see that they replaced it in exactly the spot we chose. It’s nice to think this little project we did surreptitiously made it possible for a good bridge to remain in place without all of the red tape we had faced before.

Sunnyside

We continued down stream along the South Branch in a nice section that ended at a culvert along the former Lehigh Valley Railroad tracks.
The trail never really went through from this point, but in the past, before Norfolk Southern, Conrail didn’t mind people using the right of way as much for the trail connections. This was once double tracked, and so there is a service road that makes for good and easy walking directly parallel with it. We headed out over the tracks and then crossed over the road to the entrance to Echo Hill Environmental Education Center.
We walked up the entrance road shortly until we reached the orange blazed perimeter trail.

Group shot

We took the trail to the right, which led through woods, then came out at a sort of camp site area near some of the buildings from the old Camp Echo Hill, from before it was a county park. We then made our way to the Stanton Station.

Shane checking out Stanton Station

One of the coolest things for a rail fan visiting Echo Hill is the fact that the Lehigh Valley Railroad’s former Stanton Station was not torn down like so many others.
Rather, it was put on a trailer of sorts, and carted a short distance up hill to Camp Echo Hill where it has been used as a camp lodge building for programs ever since. Most don’t know that this structure still exists, and I wouldn’t even have known that it used to be the railroad station if I hadn’t been told so by park planner Doug Kiovsky.
We left the station and headed down hill toward the main building. We all went inside to use the restrooms and take a break where it was cooler. Unfortunately, the main room was not open for everyone to see.
Once everyone was out, we headed down hill to the pond below, and then to the connector trail that leads to the Hunterdon County Arboretum. The trail had been refurbished somewhat since the last time I’d been on it. There was still no bridge over the Prescott Brook, so that was still a rock hop, but it was easy. We soon reached the tunnel beneath Rt 31 and arrived at the arboretum. We went straight and kept to the left outside the garden areas, then turned to the right when we got to the service roads. We continued past the gas pumps and a little pond to get to the Vincent Aubrytis Wetland Study Area, which has a nice long board walk out over a swamp.

Stanton Station!

We walked the board walk section, then continued through the arboretum keeping on the trails to the south side. When we reached the east end of the arboretum, we got off of the trail and headed out the back of it to Stanton Road. We turned right and followed the road for a little bit, then soon turned right again on Foothill Road. Just after the turn on the turn Foothill Road, we turned left onto a driveway access which took us to the Round Mountain trail head. We re-grouped here, and then started heading up hill on the orange blazed Peter Buell Trail.
We didn’t go too far up on Peter Buell Trail when I saw another trail to the right, one I’d not seen before. This was something new. I was just happy that it had a triple blaze for the start of the trail, rather than trying to do things their own way.
I decided we would try to follow this new trail, because it might just lead to where we wanted to go anyway. We ended up looping around quite a lot on it, and then hit yet another new trail I had not done, and this one led us back to the Peter Buell Trail. It was getting dark back there, and I didn’t want to try to keep exploring when we couldn’t see well. When we got back on the orange blazes I was familiar with, it turned out to be even harder. Peter Buell Trail had not been at all maintained, and was grown in terribly.
I figured when we got to where the trail started following a woods road, we would be alright. Such was not the case. A huge mess of trees had fallen over the trail directly, and no effort had gone into clearing any of it. We had to climb all through the mess. In retrospect, it was rather exciting, but I was just annoyed with it at the time.
Amazingly, Jack was playing songs the entire time. I was struggling and cursing at all of the branches I was having trouble with, but there was barely ever a break in the music while he seemed to easily navigate the rat’s nest of branches. It never ceases to amaze me how he can go through these things without missing a chord.
Eventually, we fought through the mess and continued on the trail more easily. We reached where we had come up on the previous night hike, and followed Peter Buell Trail down from Round Mountain to Deer Path Park. Like the previous time, we cut directly over toward teh Cedars Pavilion, but this time instead of heading to the restrooms, we went down the steps to the edge of Deer Path Pond.

Empty Deer Path Pond

The pond was alive with sounds, but that would not be for much longer. We didn’t know it at the time, but this would be the last time we’d see Deer Path Pond with water in it, as the dam would break just over a month from when we were there.
It’s kind of crazy to think about this time, because it brings back yet another memory with Bandit at the Hunterdon Parks. We used to stop at the maintenance building and look over at the spillway dam because thee would almost always be snakes in there, and we’d like to watch them. We chatted about how the dam was going to break if they didn’t let us do something about it, but then never did. It probably lasted longer than we’d have thought it would, but still, it’s gone.
We made our way over to where there used to be a bridge at the inlet. It was a really nice and simple little footbridge, but some county engineer deemed it unsafe while I was working there. They made us close it off with wood, which people would tear off constantly. Then, they said we needed all of these costly permits to repair it. It was among the stupidest things I’ve ever seen. Now, the bridge was completely gone. Things like this get built in other places constantly, and Hunterdon still can’t get their shit together to fix it. It’s very very disheartening. We crossed over the inlet using a couple of stepping rocks, then headed to the Hideaway Pavilion. Uncle Soup told us that they’d rented this one at one point, so it was cool to be back over by it. We took a break here above the pond, which was really nice.
Next, we headed down over the bridge and dam, then continued along the south side of the park toward Deer Path Road. We stopped again, as we had done the last time, to spin around on the exercise spinny thing on the way.

Shane and a sign

We followed Deerpath Road to the entrance to the Wings Section of the South Branch Reservation as we had done on the last hike, skirted some back yards, and then followed the South Branch through the woods a bit.
It was a nice easy walk, and it was much easier this time finding the spot I had been looking for to cross the river previously. We waded over with no problem and were soon across the street from the old Lipton Tea place.
We turned right on 523, then left along the sports complex as we did the previous time. We crossed the wide open field the same as before and skirted it’s edge as we headed to the south. I cut into the weeds slightly earlier than the previous time to find the trail that leads to the complex right behind the BJs and CVS. We were able to easily walk across the parking lot back to where we had met.
The evening was nostalgic and interesting for me, and we had a good group to experience. Carolyn lives so close by and hadn’t made all of these connections. Jack had worked the Summer Concert Series with StrikeSound at Deer Path Park, including while we were doing night hikes, but never got to see the connections, Shane had the railroad connection, and I could see some of the places I used to maintain. The nostalgia brought back good memories and frustrations, and seeing it now accentuates the same. There are improvements to the trail systems like the new stuff at Round Mountain, as well as more things that were just let go, like the Peter Buell Trail and the dam. I suppose a lot of things in life are that way. Fulfilled prophesies of failure where it was already bad, and pleasant surprises of good where others have stepped up to passionately create.