Hike #958; Changewater, Point Mountain, Penwell, & Washington
8/4-8/5/16 Changewater, Point Mountain, Penwell, and Washington with Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell, James Quinn, Jennifer Berndt, Sarah Jones, Celeste Fondaco Martin, Jessica Anne, and Dan Asnis.
Our next hike would be another point to point night hike, this time between my grandfather’s house on Changewater Mountain back to Brandan’s house in Washington.
The group at my grandfather's
We simply made Brandan’s the meeting point and shuttled to my grandfather’s place from there.
I always love starting, ending, or visiting my grandfather’s place along a hike. I want for everyone to meet him. He’s responsible for so much in my life. He took me for my first hike at the age of three, and part of that would be the hike we were doing on this night.
Garish Farm
Like always, he told the group silly stories of when I was little, and joked with them not to follow me, that I’d get them lost.
We left the cars at the far driveway at his house before starting on our way up Mountain Top Road, the route of my first hike. We followed it past Jay Garish’s lovely farm (Garish just passed away the previous year), and out to the parking area to Point Mountain South.
I never get tired of walking Mountain Top Road. It’s one of the most beautiful roads in the county and well worth walking. We turned off of it before the steep part, onto the fields that were owned by Gurton Wattles.
Point Mountain South
The field trails were kept pretty well mowed, but when it got to the woods, they were in bad shape.
Hunterdon County pretty much dismantled their maintenance department, so many of the trails now are completely closed and/or are impassable.
Fortunately, the white blazed trail were were following, while not in great shape through the woods, was still passable. I brought everyone past the old spring house ruins, and along the old farm lane.
The plastic blazes blazed by Hunterdon County are still cracking and falling off, or are being eaten by rodents, but my paint blazes, many of which are now over seven years old, are still holding up surprisingly quite well.
Etchings on the Point Rock at Point Mountain from 1920
The white blazed trail leads to an intersection with the yellow blazed trail, which is the shortcut to the Point if parking on Point Mountain Road. We followed the yellow trail down hill, across the road, then up to the Point. Jen was on her way, and I had her park at a pull off further up as not to have a problem.
Point Mountain
I pointed out the 1920 etchings in the rock at the point, which were actually quite legible this time because of the way the sun was shining on them. I think I was able to read more this time than most previous times, making out names such as “Arthur Armstrong”.
We enjoyed the view for a bit, then made our way down from the overlook to the orange blazed Ridge Trail.
The overlook is not actually the 934 foot top of Point Mountain, the top is a little bit further along the Ridge Trail. We followed the trail to that point, where there is a large rock jutting forward. Uncle Soup got up on it for a photo.
Uncle Soup on the top of Point Mountain
We continued along the Ridge Trail, which makes it’s way down the back of the ridge and along a stone row for a short time. It’s there that the white trail joins up with it, and where we waited a short bit for Jen to meet up with us. I had her use the more obscure pull off parking area as not to have a problem off of Point Mountain Road.
We all continued on along the Ridge Trail as it regained the ridge for a bit more, then descended over some springs before joining a woods road.
I had a drink from a spring on the way down, and then we all turned right on another white trail, one of the last trails I helped to develop before getting laid off by Hunterdon County.
Wydner Farm Bridge
This trail leads above the fields in the Penwell area, then down to cross Beatty’s Brook near where a mill used to be. There is still a bit of a remnant of a mill race and possible pit where the wheel would have been.
The trail heads up to cross over Penwell Road, then climbs steeply up to the Point Mountain North section. We actually lost the trail a bit in this section because the plastic blazes the county put up had for the most part fallen off. We had to go by a lot of my old paint blazes, which I did not do as often because by the time I went to do it, most of the trail was already marked by the plastic things.
Brandan teaches some dance moves
Once we got to the top, we made our way back down hill along the trail through woods, at first on a woods road, then on a weaving path to the parking area off of Old Turnpike Road.
It was here that James met up with us. Together, we walked out to Old Turnpike Road and crossed the Musconetcong River on the Wydner Farm Bridge built in the 1890s.
Once on the other side, we turned left to follow a short bit of Route 57 back toward Penwell. While walking this stretch, I got a phone call. It was my brother, Tea Biscuit (Scott Helbing). He was driving home from work and saw us walking so figured he would say “hi”.
Penwell rope swing
I said “You should pull over and come join us for a while! We’re going to Penwell and we’re gonna swim!”.
“I dunno, I got a lotta shit I gotta do” he said.
“You don’t have anything more important than this!” I told him.
“Yeah...you’re right. I’m comin’” he responded, much to my surprise! He pulled over at the other side of Penwell, and when we walked in on the abandoned road, he was walking in from the opposite way. He hung out and went off the rope swing with us a few times before heading on home.
Penwell has gone through some changes over the past few years. It was always a place we went to swim growing up, but in the last five or so, it was taken over by city folk who come out in insane numbers. They leave all sorts of trash all over the place down there, and it had just gotten out of hand.
This year, the township closed it all off. No one was allowed to park there unless they had a fishing license, and they put a big gate across the entrance to the old Penwell Road. It was actually kind of nice because we pretty much knew no one would be down there!
Uncle Soup on the rope swing
We all took a turn going off the rope swing, including Uncle Soup.
The water felt great because it was such a hot night. We all left Penwell feeling quite refreshed.
From there, we turned left on Penwell Road back across the Musconetcong River, then to the right up to the Rosen fields parking lot for Point Mountain. We then followed the blue blazed River Trail along the farm fields, and then down along the Musconetcong heading back toward the Point Mountain Bridge. When we got there, again no one was around.
This was another spot that’s gone through some major changes as well. The bridge is supposed to be replaced soon, but Trout Unlimited also dug out the area just below the bridge for habitat, and it’s now well over my head. We had a great time swimming there as well.
Then and Now: Point Mountain mill site
Point Mountain used to be the site of a dam on the Musconetcong River, but very little remains of the site today. The edges of where the dam went across can still be seen, and there are large Sycamores growing out of it.
I met with William Steven Van Natta, a descendant of the historic miller, at the site perhaps a year earlier, and he sent me digital copies of historic photos he’d obtained showing the mill, and I was able to get now photos from about the same point. It’s amazing that something so substantial could absolutely disappear with almost no trace after really a relatively short period of time. Soon, it will look even more different, and there will be one less pony truss bridge spanning the Musconetcong, a kind of bridge that is fast disappearing, and few examples are being preserved.
The group at the Muscy
I tried calling up my buddy Darryl from work, but he was too knocked out to have guests over, so we all just continued along the road from Point Mountain heading east.
We passed Mowder Hill Road, which goes down to Butler Park. I grew up driving these back roads, with all of the narrow sides and curves. It’s some of the best driver training I suppose anyone could get.
Just down hill from us was the former site of Butler Park. Even when I got my driver’s license, I used to take old Butler Park Road on through to cut the corner from Mowder Hill to River Road, but now it’s impassable.
Historic postcard view of Butler Park NJ
James was playing some good new Radiohead stuff on his phone, and Dan was trying to overpower him with other stuff, so I was trying to stay between one or the other because it was getting to be too much with both.
We continued on the road out to Changewater where we turned right and crossed the bridge over the Musconetcong. This was where the Changewater Trestle used to stand.
We had to remain on the road up hill, out across Asbury Anderson Road, then to Washburn Ave. We turned left and then right on Railroad Ave. We again turned right at the tracks then cut across from that to the back of the businesses along Rt 57. This took us to directly across from Presidential Estates at Flower Avenue so we could get right back to Brandan’s house.
No comments:
Post a Comment