Hike #965; Morristown to Succasunna

Hike #965; Morristown to Succasunna

8/28/16 Morristown to Succasunna with Tom Edmunds, Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell, Sue Bennett, Tamara Sapilak, Amy Davis, Jessica M. Collins, Timothy Kovich, Mila Gavurina, Brian Coen, Diane Reider, Pete G. Wilcox, Kenneth Lidman, Alyssa Lidman, Serious Sean Dougherty, Lyz Hagenbuch, Ric Giantisco, Jason Itell, Megan Itell, Gregg Hudis, Dan Asnis, Robin Dietz, Edward DiSalvo, Terri Allen, Vicki, Saba, and Criss Catastrophe Carney.

Our next hike would be the next in the 911memorialtrail series, this time in a route between where we left off in Morristown on the previous one, and Horseshoe Lake Park in Succasunna.
When I was planning the hike, I wanted it to be consistent with my normal high mileage, but it worked out to be kind of odd. I had a few options where we could tack something to the beginning or the end, but I didn't want to re-do the railroad yard section in Morristown yet, and cutting over in the Randolph trails would be a bit too early. I figured this would be a good opportunity to promote some of the West Morris Greenway, a great project under development that we'd done bits of in the past. Horseshoe Lake Park seemed like an obvious convenient place to meet as well.
With only a week remaining, we were warned that Horseshoe Lake Park had an event going on the day we'd chosen, and that the parking lot we planned to use would likely be full. We'd have to try to move others off to the main lot. This complicated things and gave us a slightly later than anticipated start time because we had to sort of corral people together. There was more than the amount of cell phone use I'd like just to try to get things together.
We were very fortunate once again to have Russell J. Nee of Morris County Park Commission out to help us with the "slack wagon", Morris County's 15 passenger van which provides a safety net for those who would like to try distance hiking but are uncertain of their abilities. We also had Tom Edmunds along who was able to give us some historic dissertation as well as guide us through a somewhat newly rerouted portion of the trail.
We all piled into the van and as few other vehicles we could and headed to our starting point, Speedwell Lake Park in Morristown.

Speedwell Lake Dam

As always, we got everyone in a circle and did introductions as well as a run down of what the hike was about. Russ spoke on behalf of Morris County, and about the 911 Memorial Trail with it's alliance of trails connecting New York City, Shanksville PA, and the Pentagon in Washington DC. Tom spoke a bit about historic Speedwell and it's history with regard to the invention of the telegraph.
I spoke on the history of the Rockaway Valley Railroad which was first developed in 1888 to haul peaches, however the 1890 blight destroyed this industry and the railroad struggled and failed several times over until it's very final abandonment in 1916 (signage on the trail reads it was abandoned in 1913, which is true, but efforts to bring it back and extend it occurred in 1916, but were abandoned). Much of the Patriot's Path in this section follows on or close to the former Rockaway Valley Railroad, including graded sections at Speedwell Lake intended for service, though this service was never seen. The eastern terminus of rail service was Watnong station, though construction occurred to a great degree to the east.
The railroad was nicknamed the "Rockabye Baby" because it's poor grading caused trains to rock during travel.

Historic image of Rockaway Valley Railroad

An article I wrote on the line can be found at www.njskylands.com/odhikerailrock.htm
(I wanted to title the article "The Little Railroad That Couldn't").
We bade farewell to Russ, who would meet us at the next good road crossing, and we were off along the trail.
No sooner did we start, not a quarter mile in, someone called out my name from the trail. It's always crazy when I meet someone in person for the first time who doesn't even know me from anything except Metrotrails facebook posts. At first I feel odd or bad because I don't remember them, thinking it's one of the people from my past, and then it turns out not to be.
Now I'm at a loss to remember exactly who it was, but I think it was Mike Juras!

Rockaway Valley Railroad culvert

We headed along the trail and soon reached where the Rockaway Valley Railroad would have gone beneath Lake Road. I pointed out to everyone the culvert that was built for the line, but never used and instead filled in. There is a very large and deep cut for the rail line on the other side of the road. It would be great if one day the culvert could be excavated and this could be the crossing of Lake Road for Patriot's Path, but it would be a huge capital project most certainly.
We crossed over the Whippany River and I pointed out where the railroad would have crossed, then the trail follows the road for a short distance ahead before turning to the left.

Whippany River

At first, the trail follows a swath of trees parallel with the woods, then it cuts directly into the woods and soon crosses over an abandoned berm for what would have been Rockaway Valley Railroad. That right of way goes off into a sewage treatment plant property, so the trail couldn't be put on it. Instead, it circumvents and then continues around to regain the right of way at Lake Valley Road. Russ was waiting for us at that next road, and of course everyone was still fine at this location. The trail here picks up the actively used Rockaway Valley Railroad right of way. It's original terminus was Watnong Station. The trail can be seen as wider in the area of the former station where there would have been more tracks.

Old ties from Rockaway Valley Railroad

Russ mentioned that they were soon going to resurface the section coming up ahead, so I took several photos of the old railroad ties still in place through the dirt. I've always found it fascinating that through this area, the tree roots have grown in straight lines parallel with the old ties. Some are so old that the ties have long since rotted away, but the roots still grow straight. The few remaining ones have been there since 1916 with no movement over them other than the foot or bike tire, perhaps an occasional maintenance ATV.

Old RV Railroad, now Patriot's Path

We crossed over Inamere Road, followed by Sussex Road, and a blue spur of the Patriot's Path broke off to the left, which goes up hill a bit away from the main route on the railroad bed, and has the spur trail to Fosterfields Living Historical Farm.
The trail continued on the railroad bed out across Sussex Avenue through the Washington Valley, then across Washington Valley Road. Between this and the next crossing, Whitehead Road, the trail turned away from the railroad bed. I pointed out to those who were still back enough with me where the railroad turned away.
After crossing Whitehead Road, we entered the lands of Lewis Morris Park and climbed up hill a bit. The old railroad bed has been developed over to some extent in this area, and beyond it goes through quite a messy swamp land along the Whippany River making development of a trail on it's right of way more prohibitive.

Sign from a concerned citizen

Tom pointed out as we went by a rogue mountain biking trail they had tried to close off, which had a sign from a "concerned citizen" on it saying it had been there for thirty years.
I can relate to these issues; the cyclist groups do amazing work, and a lot of it, but a lot of them go crazy on it and take every bit of land they can use and turn it into a track, and even build lots of structures. Some parks have gone completely overboard with twenty miles of trails in single digits of acres. I could see lots of places the mountain bikers had been going off trail and starting up new routes. I love cycling and have many cycling friends, but many of them go elitist and can be hard to reign in.

Old railroad ties in place

We continued along the trail at higher elevation for a while. It was obvious how much damage had been done with the overuse of the section. Where the trail follows the railroad bed, it's rather easy to keep people on it. It sort of follows a causeway over wetlands. Here, it's obvious that people go every which way around every tree. There's no easy answer to problems like these, but at the very least the trails are open and clear on which ways to turn.
We turned left down hill and soon crossed a footbridge over the Whippany. It was already really hot, and and wet myself in it as best I could. We took a good break here along the edge which was pretty nice.
The trail regains the railroad right of way for the most part from here. It does diverge from it at some points, and in the leafless seasons one can see some of the drainage structures to the north side of the present trail where the two are separate.
After our break we continued on the very nice section of trail, mostly on the railroad bed. More old railroad ties could be seen on occasion in these sections which was pretty cool.

Rockaway Valley Railroad bed

We headed out across Tingley Road, still on the railroad bed, then continued through a nice section of woods. Soon, the main white blazed branch of the Patriot's Path headed off to the right, while the blue blazed branch continued straight ahead on the railroad bed. Eventually, this blue branch will connect again with the main branch just outside of Chester (it was originally the white blazed main Patriot's Path, but was changed to blue in later years).
The trail led us out to East Main Street in Mendham, where we turned right briefly, then left into Dismal Harmony Natural Area (one of my favorite NJ park names).
The park is actually named for two brooks that run through it, the Dismal Brook and the Harmony Brook. I recall Tom told us a story about the history of the natural area, but I can't remember all that he said.
We passed side trails and some old stone ruins as we climbed away from the brook into some lovely forest. Tom mentioned here to stop and look around at where we were, and how huge a forest we were in. He was right, these were some surprisingly big trees, an impressive mature forest unlike many others in NJ.

Clyde Potts Reservoir

After passing by some ruins of old camp buildings to the left, we came out to the Woodland Road trail head where Russ was waiting yet again. Tom went with him to skip the road walk section just ahead, and I think a couple others might have as well.
The trail follows a driveway for a short bit here, then turns right parallel with Clyde Potts Reservoir. There's a pretty nice view of the reservoir as we passed by it going up hill.
This road walk section really isn't bad at all because the shoulder is huge, and we were walking on a huge swath of grass parallel with the road. The trail continued along the road for a short bit until near the power line just up the hill from the reservoir.

Patriot's Path new section above Clyde Potts

Tom warned us before going in there that he'd done some rerouting of the trail in the area, and that he wanted to make sure we didn't lose it. This section was always rough over the years, because it used to just switchback the power lines several times, and no one ever did that. Everyone just always walked the power line, which wasn't great.
Now, we crossed the power line once, then remained in the woods parallel with it going up hill. The blazes were pretty good, but this was the least trod section of the entire route for the day, probably because it's the most recently developed. Normally, we barely had to pay any attention to the blazes because it was so obvious where we had to be, but here I actually stayed more on the lookout.
The trail actually goes within sight of the Randolph Trail system, on which it piggybacks for a time, but then turns to the right to join that system at the same spot it has for years. I think several in the group cut the corner and most ended up ahead of me.
From here, the trail was very easy, basically a woods road heading to the west. We crossed over the old Calais Road, then went up and down over little hills to cross the India Brook before reaching the next trail head at Combs Hollow Road where Russ was waiting for us.
Some of the group just continued way ahead here, so we missed out on getting them in the group shot unfortunately.

Nice big tree seen along Patriot's Path

We continued ahead from here along the trail following Doby Road. It's just a paved path along the road for a bit here, but then turns to the left into Heisteins Park. We skirted the south side of the park on the paved trail section, past a pond and then parallel with the parking area to reach the corner of Dawson Road and South Road. From here, the trail cut back into the woods as another very nice bit of footpath.
I remember trying to follow this section several years ago and finding it was incomplete, and so we had to do a long road walk out and around. That was my first attempt to do the entire Patriot's Path as a series. The last time I was on this section, it involved some hopping over springs and such, but this time there were nice foot bridges and other temporary structures in place making for a very pleasant walking experience.

Patriot's Path near Ironia

This section of trail took us out to Ironia-Mendham Road, where we turned right. At the corner in Ironia was our last break spot. Bill's Luncheonette off to the left was not open at this time, but The Pizza Pub on the corner was open. This ended up being a great little stop, and a relaxing way to spend the last break before making our final move to the end.
I had a couple of delicious slices of pizza, and the group lounged around for a little bit before moving on. Russ chatted enthusiastically about parks and about the trail route with the participants.
This was really a great example of exactly what the thought process is behind some of these great trails: people come out and have an enjoyable experience, but also compliment local economic development by patronizing local businesses like the Pizza Pub or Bill's Luncheonette at the same intersection.
The name of the town we were in, Ironia, hinted at the history of the area we were entering, as well as the change in character of the hikes in this series moving ahead. This, and previous hikes had been in Outer Coastal Plain and Piedmont ("at the foothills") geological provinces. We now moved into the iron rich Highlands.

Historic image of Ironia Station

From Ironia west through to Chester and beyond, veins of high quality iron ore were found, and so the area was an important mining community in the 1870s and 1880s. A tangled web of railroad accessed these mines as well as the furnaces and forges used to process the material into whatever items were needed.
The Patriot's Path crossed the road and began to descend through Black River Wildlife Management Area until it joined the long abandoned Chester Branch of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad, built in 1869.
The line was constructed to access the Chester Furnace to the west. Mining dwindled when more accessible ore was found further west, but during it's heyday, the 1880s, this was a busy line. The Chester Branch was abandoned in sections, the first being the piece to the furnace by the 1930s, and the rest through 1969 out to where the tracks currently end in Succasunna.
Some of the group decided to ride with Russ the remainder of the distance. The heat was just deplorable to some, and in some cases throughout the Summer, hikers have been drinking too much water and flushing their electrolytes.

Historic view of Ironia Station

Patriot's Path turns left onto the old Lackawanna line, but my plan this time was to pick up here for the next hike, and this time showcase for the last couple of miles the rather new West Morris Greenway Trail. The trail follows the old Lackawanna line west to Horseshoe Lake Park in Succasunna, our end point, and beyond there are plans to extend it well on to the Farney Highlands of northern Morris County. When more of it is in place we will showcase the route and do it as a series as well.
We passed the site of the former Ironia Station, though one could never tell that there could ever have been a station here. The trail is a simple cinder base pathway out to Pleasant Hill Road, from which point it is much wider and also used as a Water Authority management road. My old friend Chrissy met up with us at that point to finish the last leg of the trip with us.
The route of the trail is a little too wide for my liking, but that's no fault of trail planners, it does have to be used for the water company as maintenance, and it's nice to be able to walk clear on to the end without being on an actual road.
When we neared Righter Road, the trail crosses over the Black River, which looks like just a small brook in this area. I found it strange that since the rail bed has been turned into a trail, the bridge here was turned into a giant camel hump! Never have I see such a bridge built up so high with steep approaches. I forgot to ask Russ what the deal was behind this unique bridging.

The Black River bridge as it appeared over a decade ago

When I first explored this section of the Lackawanna right of way in 2004, the original concrete railroad bridge was all that was there. It appears that the original bridge is still in place, but that it was capped over with this high up structure.
We continued across the road, and the trail only followed the railroad bed for a short bit further. A new fence had been put up blocking off the section with active rails (still used as an industrial spur line), and the trail was routed to the left into Horseshoe Lake Park. We followed the trailway along the edges of the fields, and then out along the lake near the little miniature railroad to reach the cars.

Historic view of Succasunna

The former Lackawanna line continues along the park, and remains in active use all the way to Lake Junction.
Succasunna too likely owes it's name to the iron rich Highlands province. It's a Lenni Lenape term meaning "Land of Black Stones", which probably refers to the iron, because no coal, obsidian or other dark mineral is present.
We made our way along the edge of the lake and soon reached the parking area where we found some of the group still around. Russ again helped to shuttle everyone back to their cars to close out another successful hike in the Morris County section of the series.
From now on, the days would begin to get cooler, and the hikes should become easier to handle. Two more remained to complete the Morris County leg of the journey, and only about five until we complete the entire 911 Trail route across New Jersey.
The series only grows more interesting as we continue the journey westward!