Hike #966; Locktown to New Hope

Hike #966; Locktown to New Hope

9/1/16 Locktown to New Hope with Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell, Lerch (Kralc Leahcim), Shane Blische, Dan Lurie, Sue Olivar, Jessica Anne, Stephen Argentina, and Sarah Jones.

Our next hike would be another point to point, this time to cover the entire Wickecheoke Creek Greenway from Locktown south to the Delaware, then along other routes continuing south to New Hope.
This was a great night hike for me because it included favorite components of other hikes as well as significant new additions to keep it exciting. At the same time, it was melancholy because it would be the last hike before our good friend Sue returned to the desert hell of Las Vegas.

The group in New Hope

We met at about 4 in New Hope, at the plaza with the Giant Supermarket along Rt 202. We would shuttle from there north to Locktown where Shane and Stephen met up with the rest of us.

Locktown Cemetery

We parked at the little cemetery at Kingwood-Locktown Road. I'd done another variation of this hike before, in 2008, but at the time the greenway was not complete and we did a different variation that involved some of the Lockatong Creek, the next major tributary to the Delaware to the north.
We started out by following Kingwood Locktown Road briefly to the west. Shane showed up wearing an absolutely hilarious Kool Aid Main costume thing. We turned left from this main road onto Wickecheoke Road, a lovely dirt road that barely gets any use.
A lady peered out of her home as we walked on by asking what we were doing. She was of course blown away at the distance we planned to go.

Falls on the Wickecheoke

At the first bit of Hunterdon Land Trust land on the left, we cut into the woods and headed to the little waterfall on the creek. It's a beautiful little spot, but the water was pretty low by this time, so it wasn't nearly as impressive as it could be.
We started walking down stream, but it is rather close to people's houses, and Shane and I think Stephen ended up going pretty far ahead on the road, so we went back out to the road to catch up with them. We did miss one short section of trail, but it's only parallel with the road within sight, so it wasn't too much of a loss, and I've done that part before. We continued south to a left turn on Old Mill Road.

Old mill building

We crossed the Wickecheoke on an historic old pony truss bridge, then climbed the hill on the road a little bit.
There was an old mill on the right side of the road that stated that the structure was an old mill, with the date 1763 , however there were no historic markers around.
I can't help but wonder about my family ties to the area. Some of my Dutch descendants who eventually moved to Warren County, first moved to Hunterdon from the Dutch section of Nassau, Long Island around 1734 I have read. They were reportedly Wheelrights and had mills, and I wonder of any connection with the Prall family, because my Great Grandfather's name was George Prall Allen.

Wichechoeke cascades

At the top of the hill, we turned right on Pine Hill Road heading south for a short while. From there, we eventually came to where the trail went down hill to the right. It was a great little route, well blazed, that took us down to the edge of the Wickechoeke Creek again.
From there, the trail turned left, following the creek down stream with lots of places with rocks and such.
I had done some of the sections through here before, but never connected it through to the south as I recall. The trail was pretty well marked on the east side of the creek, but at times we skipped over and walked right down the interesting rocky creek bed.

Wickechoeke Walking

The rocks had some really interesting wear to them in areas where it was totally exposed. In some places it was typical looking, block like, fragmented pieces of Piedmont geology, but in others there were flat exposed things full of grooves.

Odd rocks

As we walked the section of rocky shore line, there was a Great White Egret in the water, just down from us. It didn't seem all that scared, but as we walked it would keep flying down stream just barely within sight and waited for us to get to it.
Shane and Stephen crossed over the creek early, because Shane saw an old woods road on a hillside he wanted to check out.
The road seemed to come right to the shore line, and had some rock laid walls on the west facing side of it.
We continued down stream, and another section of trail appeared on the opposite side. When the blazes started up, we followed them for a bit.

Wickechoeke

The east side had become far too rocky to be walkable. There was a lovely spot with a vertical rock face and a deep pool.
The trail was far less used than the sections that were more accessible, but it was still pretty easy to follow. I don't recall exactly when we crossed back over, but eventually we had to follow the trail on the other side again.
Another woods road appeared on the east side of the creek. It could actually have been the one that Shane spotted coming down from the hillside. It's not far fetched to think there might have once been a mill down in this deep ravine at one time.

Wickechoeke

The rest of the creek both north and south of this spot have roads following more closely to the edge of it, but this central section does not. I figure the Creek Road probably went right on through at one time, but was abandoned out of redundancy and expense of maintenance.
The road was at first not recognizable as such, just a wider flood plain on the east side, but once we were past the washout parts, it was very obvious that it was an old road. Shane was with me when we found this the previous year on another hike, but on that date we thought we lost the trail and headed up hill to bushwhack through to people's private land.

Great White Egret

We had now connected through that section of the greenway we missed out on the previous time.
We walked the former roadway until a building came into sight ahead. I knew we had gone too far then, and we had to backtrack a bit. The trail crossed over the creek somewhere here; it didn't take me too long to find where it was, the only place possible to climb up the other side, at a washed out spring tributary. We climbed up here, the steepest part of the entire hike, and then followed a side hill trail until it too came to another old woods road. It continued to climb to a former building site where we took a short break.

Kool Aid Man

From the building site, the trail continued to climb slightly more until we got to the small parking area along Upper Creek Road.
Coming out of the ravine, the Cumulus clouds were particularly beautiful on this evening.
From here, to continue on the trail we had to turn left and follow the road down hill for a bit.
We continued on Lower Creek Road, past the intersection with Sanford Road, and then turned left onto Raven Rock-Rosemont Road.
We were now at the Green Sergeants Covered Bridge, the only remaining authentic historic covered bridge in the state of New Jersey.
The bridge was originally built in 1872, and it lasted well through the 1900s until being damaged by fire in 1960.

The old road along the Wickecheoke

The bridge was dismantled and replaced with a modern structure, but public outcry was so great that they actually re-assembled the bridge out of it's original pieces and erected it at it's historic location in 1962.
We crossed over the bridge, and then turned right onto Lower Creek Road, which follows very closely to the shore of the Wickechoeke Creek.
The next stretch of the trail follows the road, and is the most controversial stretch of the Wickechoeke Greenway due to the Penn-East Pipeline project.
I'm all too familiar with gas line companies from my work with the state when Tennessee Gas was going through the northern region.

Wickechoeke cascade

They don't really bully, but there are certainly strong arm tactics that come into play on the part of the gas companies.
In this case, the company sent representatives and workers out to the areas onto private land to scout out the future route of the line. This was done before the company had final approvals to put the gas line in, which put locals in an uproar, because the Penn East guys were technically trespassing. Further, they were using the Land Trust property as well, without permission to go out and do the same scouting.
As a result, the edge of the road is lined through the entire section of Lower Creek Road with signs reading "This Land is My Land, Not Penn East Land", "Penn East Go Home", etc.

Lovely Cumulus clouds

Other signs were actually quite funny, making all sorts of sarcastic quips aimed at the Penn East people for when they come by.
One sign showed specifically where the pipeline would be crossing the road should it be built. At present, there is still opposition to Penn East and no work has been done. I must admit that the prospect of stopping them sounds bleak.
When Tennessee Gas sought permission to go through north Jersey, it didn't matter what we brought up, they got approvals. Of particular interest, they were permitted to tunnel beneath Monksville Reservoir.

Nice shirts!

The reservoir the gas line tunneled beneath had old iron mines under it, and several of them would be purged out as a result of the expanded gas line. Writenour Mine works were partially flooded over and it's uncertain where exactly the other mines are, and the Winston Mine would be dug out entirely within the right of way. With these underwater mines purged, it would cause acid mine runoff into the public water supply. I found myself exchanging e mails with none other than Jeff Tittel from the Sierra club while trying to deal with the problem.

Penn East stuff

We continued on the road south of the pipeline crossing site, and then came to where the trail breaks off into the woods to the right again. On the previous trip, there was a bench right at a washout spot along the creek, but this time it had been removed.
We continued on the trail down stream to a giant pile of rocks in a very organized pile.
Uncle Soup was fascinated with how organized this pile was, and he leaned into it as if giving it a hug (immediately after Shane did the same thing), and then proclaimed to just "leave him there". He was looking pretty happy, and we jokingly were calling him "Drunkle Soup".

Pile

This section was very well done, and even had mileage signs on it regarding how far it was to Locktown and such.
The section of trail came back out to Lower Creek Road, and we followed it to another very nice double pony truss bridge.
It wasn't too terribly hot out, but this was the best swim spot we would come across on this hike, and I wasn't about to skip it.
I mentioned to Lerch that it's probably deep enough to jump off of, and so he checked out the depth and deemed it safe enough. He went up to the top and jumped off a couple of times. I didn't really feel like trying it, because there wasn't that huge an area I could safely hit.

Ducks

I enjoyed my time in the water, and there were some ducks floating around quacking just below the bridge.
Uncle Soup walked over to them, and it was obvious they were used to being fed. They came right up to us even though we didn't have any food at first. Uncle Soup pulled something out and started feeding them.
From the bridge, the trail crossed and then went into a field on the other side. It follows a long section of mowed trail parallel with Lower Creek Road heading to the south, which was really nice. There were all sorts of sounds out in the field, and just enough ambient light that we could get through safely.

Lower Creek Bridge

The trail came back out to Lower Creek Road one more time, and continued to follow it through a narrow spot along the creek.
There was one more spot we could have gotten off of the road out near the corner of Worman Road, but it was getting really dark and we wouldn't be able to see it that well. Again, I had done this section a few times and it's all within sight from the road anyway.
We turned left onto Kingwood-Stockton Road, which was uncomfortably busy, then left again onto Rt 29, but only briefly. I made sure everyone was back together, and we took the right turn to the Prallsville Mills, where Shane used to work, so he knew a lot of info.

Historic Bel Del image at Prallsville

Shane ran ahead at this point because Sarah was meeting up with us, and she parked in Stockton to the south, so he made sure she got to where we were.
When we got to the far side of the mill, Shane started going over some of the history of it.
We then walked around the back of it to get on the right of way of his favorite rail line, the Belvidere Delaware Railroad which operated between Trenton and Manunka Chunk NJ.
He took us out and around the back, past the old locks of the Delaware and Raritan Canal Feeder, and then down a path to the dam below the former railroad bridge for another spot to take a dip, at the confluence of the Delaware and the Wickechoeke.

Historic Prallsville image

Station photo collection of Delaware River Mills Society. These two b&w train photos show doodlebug and passenger train in Prallsville section of Stockton by the mills. both dated 1950 taken by Frank Barry

We hung out at this nice little spot along the Delaware for a little bit, and then climbed back up to follow the Bel Del right of way, now the state park trail, a little bit further south to the town of Stockton.
The old railroad station in Stockton has since been converted to a little eatery. We went in for snacks and such, and took a good break outside on the benches and such they have next to the store. Shane gave us a little bit more of an historic dissertation on the town of Stockton and the Bel Del Station.

Historic view of Stockton Station

Dan and Sue were going to cut out at this point, and get an Uber to take them back to the car, but I made a silly fuss out of it, and was quite surprised I was able to convince them to stay.

Historic view of Stockton Station

Train at Stockton Sta. 1957 by John W. Barringer the 3rd
We turned right on the street at the station and headed out across the Delaware on the Stockton-Centre Bridge crossing, then on the other side turned left on the Delaware Canal towpath.
We continued south on the Delaware Canal towpath, with some lovely historic homes along the way, into the north end of New Hope.

Historic view of Delaware Canal on the north side of New Hope

The Delaware Canal is actually the Pennsylvania Canal, Delaware Division, part of the Main Line of Public Works that created much of the canal system across the state. The sixty mile Delaware division opened in 1832 between Bristol and Easton where it connected with the Lehigh Canal. It was abandoned, but remains mostly intact, in the 1930s.
We followed the canal to the Rt 32 bridge, and then turned right. I almost made the wrong turn at the foot bridge to the north first. Shane left us here to walk back home, because he lives literally right along the canal in an historic home.
The rest of us followed the road to Lower York Road, at which point a paved trail follows the road southwest. At first the path is right along the road, but then it takes to the higher ground and follows a rather nice route out to Sugan Road.
It was a really pleasant section, and we only had a little bit more road walking from there back to Rt 202 and the Giant to complete the hike. At the end, we walked along the store front awnings, and through a tunnel beneath the buildings to get to the main parking lot on the other side.
This turned out to be a really excellent hike, not too tough, all interesting, a bit of challenge, and a bit of relaxation. Most of the others headed out to get some food, but I wanted to get home. Work in the morning always comes too fast, and the next hike can never be soon enough.