Hike #947; Little Falls to Roseland

Hike #947; Little Falls to Roseland

6/26/16 Little Falls to Livingston with Justin Gurbisz, Brandan Jermyn, Dan Lurie, Brian Coen, Tom Edmunds, Gregg Hudis, Tamara Jennings, Doug DeGroff, Alex Gisser, Ted Wright, Edward DiSalvo, Gail Ingham, Terri Allen, Serious Sean Dougherty, Pamela ?, Sue Bennett, Fiddlehead? (Not sure name on meetup), James Quinn, Steve Sanbeg, Robin Deitz, Jack Lowry, CJ ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, and ? (Apologies, I cannot remember everyone’s names, if anyone has someone I missed please let me know!)

Our next hike would be a point to point, and the fifth in the series to cover the entire 911memorialtrail. The trail is intended to connect, much using existing trails through an alliance, the World Trade Center site, the crash site in Shanksville PA, and the Pentagon and Washington DC for a large triangle circuit.
These hikes have been going exceptionally well since we started the series in the Winter.

The group at Little Falls

My plan was to start at the Little Falls Shop Rite after meeting in Roseland at Quick Chek. We could then take as few cars as possible to the start, and we’d follow some of the Morris Canal Greenway briefly and other routes to get to where we left off on the Lenape Trail on the previous hike.
We started the hike at the Shop Rite from the far side of the lot, then walked to the Morris Canal Greenway, where we’d been on the previous hike. I typically don’t like to do two hikes in the same area so close together, but I made an exception because the themes of each of these hikes were so much different, and overlapping the route a little bit isn’t so bad.

Morris Canal aqueduct abutment

The canal paralleled the Shop Rite on the south side, and I opted to go down into it again to the former aqueduct site. The masonry abutments to the aqueduct remain in place making it a pretty cool obscure Morris Canal site. Ed followed Justin and I through again, and I think he managed to do it more gracefully than he did, falling through the weeds the previous week.
We climbed up to the former canal, which is weedy just above, but that soon got better. It was actually easier than the previous time; it’s amazing what a few feet tramping over some weeds can do. We soon reached Stewart Ave where the canal trail becomes paved.

Morris Canal Greenway in Little Falls

We continued along the former canal, now filled in with a weaving paved pathway on it. It took us across a couple of streets, then to a paved cul de sac, where beyond the canal trail is only more recently developed into Little Falls proper. This was just after crossing Hudson Street.
Here, we climbed a berm built over the former canal, and this time we turned left. We had actually done this bit on the previous Morris Canal series hike. We followed the utility right of way south to the intersection of Rt 612 and Jacobus Ave. We then turned left to follow 612 rather steeply up hill. Sean was playing some great songs as we walked, this time on his electric guitar with a small amp strapped to him.

It's always sad to watch children dead end...

We laughed at a sign reading “Watch children dead end” and then made comments about kids in retail jobs.
We continued further up hill across active railroad tracks, then just a little bit further to pick up the long abandoned Caldwell Branch of the Erie Railroad, now part of the West Essex Greenway. We regrouped at the rail trail, and then all continued on the right of way heading south.
I really like this particular rail trail because it’s not overdone and resurfaced like so many others are. We continued following it to the south, and there were a couple of side trails that go to historic farms, which I’ve never followed before. Certainly there must be a return trip.

Mile marker

There were even the occasional concrete mile markers from the Erie Railroad days, denoting mileages to Jersey City.
We regrouped when we got to where the Lenape Trail came in from the left. It descended from one of the reservoir properties, and on the previous hike we had joined it here and headed back to Little Falls.
I let everyone know to look for yellow blazes for the remainder of the hike, and we continued along the railroad bed. It sometimes went up on some rather impressive high fills as we made our way to the trestle over the Peckman River. There is a spot down stream known locally as The Devil’s Hole.

Peckman River Trestle

The trestle is pretty impressive for the area. I’d been across it before, but never bothered to go down and look around further. The Devil’s Hole is a small falls on the Peckman River just down stream, and it’s deep enough to jump into. Someone died in it somewhat recently, and so it’s not encouraged that people go down, but I had to go and have a look at it.
We climbed down and saw a little dam, then the falls were in a cleft in the rock that looked pretty cool. I think only Brandan and I went for a swim in it. It was too tempting not to. We enjoyed a nice break here before moving on back to the railroad bed above.

Devil's Hole

This is one of three locations I have found on my hikes that held the name of “Devil’s Hole”, interestingly enough.
Another is in the Poconos of Pennsylvania below Seven Pines Mountain, a deep ravine, and another is a small hidden valley in the southern Susquehanna River Valley of PA south of Wrightsville.
We climbed back up to the top of the bridge, and there was a guy there at the top that was wondering what we were doing. He seemed impressed that we were hiking for so far, and he gave us some history on the railroad.

Devil's Hole

He had told us that the original trestle over the Peckman River was just slightly to the downstream side by a few feet, and that it was substantially lower. He noted that some of the abutments to this bridge were also still in place. He made mention of a flood that had happened which necessitated the replacement of the original bridge.
The Peckman River is known for some pretty bad floods, and one in 1945 reportedly took out the more major railroad bridge just to the north, on the main line we had crossed. I wonder if it was the same flood that destroyed this particular bridge’s predecessor.

1945 Peckman flood

The guy chatted with us a little while longer, and told us about his house that was for sale, immediately adjacent to the railroad bed. He told us that it dates back to long before the railroad, and I think he said it was from the 1700s.

1945 flood with suspended track

We continued on along the railroad bed, and rejoined the others that had taken a side trip to someplace to eat just below in Cedar Grove.
We soon made our way over the the old Overbrook Hospital. The railroad skirted the east side of the grounds. Although one building was still occupied the last time I was there, it was now vacant. The old asylum is now in the process of being demolished, which is very sad to many preservationists. It’s been in pretty bad shape, but is still stately architecture.
The development of the grounds as a hospital began in 1896 due to overcrowding of facilities elsewhere.

Historic postcard of Overbrook

The building is quite a sight, with collapsing stuff everywhere; it has it’s own power plant with tunnels and such. It’s made it a huge draw for Weird NJ fans and Urban Explorers for a long time.
The property has become the subject of great articles and photos by my friends including stuff in Weird NJ, as well as the famous Wheeler Antabanez, who is getting a lot of attention with “The Old Asylum and Other Stories” which can be read about further at the following link: http://www.luckycigarette.com/the_old_asylum/index.html
We continued past the site, which even at one time had it’s own train station on the Caldwell Branch.

Overbrook Station historic image

When we got to the next road crossing, we saw a car that looked like Kathryn Cataldo’s, but it turned out not to be her.
We continued on along the railroad bed where it crosses Fairview Avenue at an angle. The trail got to be narrower and less used as we continued to walk to the southwest.
The trail continues on the railroad bed only as far as a road called Arnold Way. It then turns away from it and follows some back streets on it’s way into Verona. We regrouped and then headed out into the town.

Lenape Trail on the old Erie right of way

People always stop and ask us what we’re doing when we walk sections like this, which is pretty entertaining. We also stopped at a yard sale along the way before reaching the main part of town.
One of the best parts of this road walk was the fact that many people going by had sprinkler systems running, and we could cool off by walking beneath them.
When we got to the main down town, I told everyone to take a break and meet back up in a half hour. There were several places to choose from for lunch, and so most picked a pizza place nearby. I went up the street a little further to Krauszer’s for some drinks.

Enjoying sprinklers

I joined everyone at the pizza place on my way back, and they actually had some pretty good stuff.
From here, we headed along the trail route, along the main street just a little bit further until the entrance to Verona Park. The trail then follows along the west side of Verona Lake, which is quite beautiful. We continued to the south side, wrapped around past the boat house, and then up the other. It was here that Jack met up with us to complete the rest of the hike. He and Sean had some great sounds going, Jack with his carbon fiber acoustic and Sean with his electric.

Verona Park

I can’t quite remember all of the songs we went through on this one, but I do recall “Mother’s Little Helper” by the Rolling Stones, as well as “This Will Be The Last Time”.
Sean had actually learned some Elton John stuff, or figured it out or something around this time. I remember singing “I’m Still Standing” earlier, but then we somehow got into “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues”, something I’d never imagined singing while hiking, but somehow I remembered just about all of the words!
I can’t remember all of the turns the trail takes on roads from here, but it makes it’s way along some back streets to the west side of Eagle Rock Reservation and climbs.

View in Eagle Rock Reservation

Tom and much of his group continued on ahead at Verona Park to get through to Eagle Rock, but we ended up actually not too far behind them. We continued along the nice footpaths with good views of the New York City Skyline, then made our way to the restaurant where the 911 memorial is. Tom and the others were only just leaving there when we arrived.

Remaining group at Eagle Rock

Serious Sean got up on the memorial and played a rousing electric rendition of the Star Spangled Banner reminiscient of Jimi Hendrix, and then he and Jack did another, with Tammy and others singing along.
We headed down the trail from the memorial through the southern part of Eagle Rock, then emerged onto Eagle Rock Ave near the Whole Foods store.

Cart!!

From here, the trail follows Eagle Rock, then cuts onto some back streets for a time. Along the way, we found an abandoned shopping car, so we picked it up and started using it to carry our bags. I had fun on the down hill slopes of the back streets heading west, because I could sort of ride the thing down hill a bit.
After that Tammy got in it and we pushed her around for a while.
Next, we got to Degnan Park, where we went around the outside of a pond. Brandan took over pushing Tammy in the cart, but he abandoned it by the time we got to Hopper Avenue because the narrow paved path had so many roots growing through it, plus it was at an angle, it was too hard to continue.
In an interesting side note, Degnan Pond is the start of the Rahway River.

280 underpass

We turned left on Mt Pleasant Ave heading to the south. The trail used to go into a median for a while, but was moved to safer crossings in more recent years. I like looking around for Al Kent’s original blazes while walking these sections.
We soon reached the Rt 280 underpass, and of course I had to go up under the thing on the ramp. I think I’ve done that every time I’ve walked this section of the Lenape Trail. And of course, several in the group followed me to do the same.
On the other side, we turned right along the utility right of way following the Lenape Trail up hill to a sweeping view of the immediate area.

Power line above 280

The trail was getting a bit weedy, and certainly could use some improvements, but it only follows the power line as part of a trail licensing agreement. Unfortunately, Essex County doesn’t have the support for the trail that Morris County has, which is why the Patriot’s Path system is so nice. Still, it’s better than it once was because NYNJ Trail Conference has taken a leading role and many improvements have been made. There will always be erosion issues and such on these power line sections that are unavoidable.
The branch of the Lenape Trail that goes south to South Mountain Reservation joins in at the top of the hill with the overlook, but the junction is terribly obscure currently.

Prospect Park

We soon came to one of the somewhat recent reroutes, from the past couple of years, at Prospect Park. The Lenape Trail turns away from the power line into the woods for a bit, then has some nice sections of boardwalks and such avoiding a power conduit station on the power line.
It’s really nice that the trails in this park are both properly marked with turn blazes and such, but it also has maps posted with the key showing what turn blazes mean. It’s nice to see other parks taking a leading role for public perception in parks. I’ve long felt that the trail marker key should be on all maps as well as in all trailhead kiosks.

My only pet peeve about Prospect Park was that all other blazes other than Lenape Trail were tags that had been hammered completely into the trees. they were already growing out pretty badly.
We continued out of the park, and the Lenape Trail heads now way down Shrewsbury Drive, then right on Mt. Pleasant, then right on McLellan to get back to the power line section. I didn’t want to do that this time. Some of the others went far ahead already and I really didn’t want to do extra mileage walking on more streets. I opted instead to take everyone through on the original Lenape Trail, remaining on the power lines. The only reason this reroute was done on the road was because it took hikes to a place with a crosswalk.

Little cascade on former trail route

The first time I had hiked the Lenape Trail through, none of that safety stuff had been added. There was hardly anyone on the road since it was Sunday, so we just went directly across and followed the former trail across a small tributary. I can see where Al Kent would have had it cross because there’s a little rocky cascade that can easily be stepped over without a problem.
As we walked, we also noted that the old Lenape Trail blazes had not been painted out from the poles. We were still following the trail markers, only slightly faded from when this was the route.
The others rejoined us at about the same time from their road walk section.

Lenape Trail on the power line

We had to do a little bit of road walk before Livingston Ave, as the trail follows these back streets and then heads up hill on a tract parallel with the power line into Becker Park. It follows a nicer route away from the power lines and eventually hits Locust Ave. It then follows the road a short bit, past a side trail to Riker Hill Dinosaur Park, and picks up the power line again ahead.
The last bit of it got a bit rough. The power line was getting overgrown and we couldn’t easily see the blazes. We crossed over the railroad tracks, the same line that the trail followed earlier, only active now. At this point the blazes were pretty obscure and it was rather overgrown. The trail skirts a tree line on the on the opposite the power line to make it’s way out to Eisenhower Parkway. A guy in a business as we came through asked what we were up to. Some of this section is marked with “no trespassing” signs, and I can tell it’s been a problem spot for the trail. There’s probably a better way to move this bit, but for now it will do.
We turned left on Eisenhower Parkway, as the trail now crosses at a crosswalk where we parked at the Quick Chek, and finished the hike.
It’s really cool to experience this series again, and feel how each section becomes less and less developed as we work our way west. We weren’t in the woods the entire time, but there was a lot more than the previous one, and the one before that.
It’s wonderful that everyone doing this series will have such a greater understanding of this land. The transitions are so much more apparent when we experience it all by foot, and the experience only grows richer with every hike.