Hike #964; Pittstown, Landsdown, and Flemington

Hike #964; Pittstown, Landsdown, and Flemington

8/25/16 Pittstown, Landsdown and Flemington with Carolyn Gockel Gordon, Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell, Sean TheRed, Jennifer Tull, Annika Krystyna, Russell Lord Byron Rapp, and Dan Asnis

Our next hike would be another point to point, this time between Pittstown and northern Flemington, in an indirect route.
I planned the meeting point as being the BJ's in Flemington as I'd done a few times, but with the possibility of amending the end point. Carolyn lives nearby, and has a swimming pool, and had invited us to come by on one of the local night hikes, and so since she came this time, we moved the cars over to on street parking nearer to her house, then shuttled with as few as possible to Pittstown.

Former Century Inn in Pittstown

We parked at the start in the lot across from the Pittstown Inn, formerly the Century Inn, built originally in late 1700s, possibly as early as 1760, reportedly started out as a mill, and was made into a tavern. It was a meeting place, tavern, and stage coach stop over the years, but was completely gutted by fire in 1913.
With only the masonry left, the owners completely rebuilt the interior using the original stone walls and were open again within seven months.
We made our way up the street from the inn, then turned left onto a driveway which leads to Capoolong Creek Wildlife Management Area, formerly the Pittstown Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and now Capoolong Creek trail.

Pittstown Station

It's always disheartening to see the old Pittstown Station in ruin, just standing there. People have offered to take the lead in restoration, and the town wouldn't even provide a tarp for the roof, a measly cost of $100.

Old view of Pittstown Station

We continued on from the station along the trail heading to the northeast, and I related the history of how Hunterdon County was once the Peach capital of the world, until the blight killed the trees in 1890. There was a major exchange in Pittstown, and several spur tracks that went off at different angles during it's heyday.

Historic view of Pittstown Station

Although short spur lines like the 3.7 mile Pittstown Branch continued in service, some, like the Rockaway Valley Railroad were abandoned very early on after struggling to succeed.
We continued along the rail bed for a bit, and stopped to take a swim where the first little tributary comes in on the right. Only Sean and I really wanted to go in, and it felt great. It was quite a hot day.

Former Pittstown Branch

We continued walking the right of way to the north, and eventually reached Landsdown, where the line connected with the Lehigh Valley Railroad main line.

Capoolong Creek tributary

Here, we continued across on the former Clinton Branch of the same, which is now Landsdown Trail just a bit further north along Lower Landsdown Road.
We only walked the short bit of it to the road, then turned right out toward the South Branch of the Raritan River.
We continued to the Melick's Bridge Section of the South Branch Reservation, then turned right onto the abandoned portion of Hamden Road to the right. We've used this pretty often on hikes. We continued past the barricade and onto the abandoned road to the foot bridge erected where the original road bridge was.

Old Clinton Branch of the LV Railroad

We continued through woods, paralleled a field, then turned toward the river and passed beneath the former Lehigh Valley Railroad's bridge over the river. We took a break here to go for a swim, which is always nice.
I always like to swim up stream beneath the bridge because it's such a good workout. On the past few hikes, I jumped off of the top of the bridge into the river, but this time I think the water had gone down a bit, and so I decided not to do it. After swimming, we continued south into the Rhinehardt's Section of the South Branch Reservation.
When I worked for Hunterdon Parks, we used to maintain a loop trail back here, but that has since grown in. Someone has a private access from a horse farm, and that's it.

South Branch Reservation

We made our way parallel with private land, and I figured I'd find the path out to Pine Hill the way I had on previous hikes, but somehow I took a wrong turn. We had to back track twice in this area because I couldn't figure out the correct route. We somehow got into an island of trees that juts out into a private field.
The steep slopes through this section are bad enough when going the correct way, but we now had some briars I had not been counting on. It's further frustrating that there was once an official trail connecting here, but Hunterdon closed it down years ago.
We managed to get through to Pine Hill, then turned left on Camp Buck Road over the lovely old double pony truss bridge. We passed Camp Carr, then turned right on the next bit of Hamden Road.
It was here that Russel "Lord Byron" Rapp joined up with us. I had him park his car at the good pull off ahead in the Valinsky's Section of the South Branch Reservation.
We crossed the next truss bridge near some lovely homes and continued on the river road south, some of the loveliest back roads in Hunterdon County.

Sunset on the South Branch

We followed the roads to Sunnyside Picnic Area and Kiceniuk Road. After crossing one of my favorite bridges, the triple pony truss bridge, we turned right on the trail which led to Awossagame Grove, the county's 9-11 Memorial, and we took a dip in the South Branch.
We continued from this point on the trail out across the next road, then to the railroad tracks where it ends.
As I recall, we just stayed on the tracks the short while from here out to Stanton Station Road, and then turned right to cross the South Branch on another handsome old truss bridge. Directly on the other side, we continued on another bit of South Branch Trail heading down stream.
In this section, because it was getting too dark, I made a wrong turn and we ended up heading to Cole's Cliff. This cliff above the South Branch is named for a Ranger who once fell off of it. It's a really sketchy place, with a very steep drop off not to be tried in the wrong conditions. We probably had several wrong conditions, but still managed to get across without a problem.
Soon, we were safely at the Lehigh Valley Railroad bridge over the South Branch and took a break on the abutments. I made sure the depth of the water was good, and then did a running jump off of them into the river, which felt great.
I think a train came by while we were there, which is always a thrill. I was feeling pretty happy though, and I don't quite recall. We made our way up along the official trail from here, then turned left on the red trail which took us up and across the power lines, then out to Old Clinton Road. Directly across from the parking area at the end of the trail is another paved trail through the development lands. We continued across here.
At an intersection in the path, we turned left. This was the section of trail on this hike I'd never done before. The thing took us very shortly to Demott Lane, and we turned right to Rolin's Mill Road, where another section of paved trail led into the woods. I'd not done that one before either, but I believe it took us out to William Barnes Road.
I recall walking Timberwick Road for a bit, then a few more development back roads for a while led us to where we parked, but first we stopped at Carolyn's house and jumped in her pool. While there, we also consumed probably all of the hot dogs she had left at the house. I don't recall, but we likely consumed just about everything she had laying around that she wanted to get rid of!
While there, Sean decided to try to teach me dance moves, and I believe there was some waltzing going on. The kind of silliness that only goes on while hiking with this group.
Yet another great hike and great memories to add to the collection.