Hike #974; Flemington to Whitehouse

Hike #974; Flemington to Whitehouse

10/6/16 Flemington to Whitehouse with Jason W. Briggs, Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell, John M. Kosar, Sue Bennett, and Jillane Becker

Our next hike would be a point to point night hike, and one I was quite excited for.
Following the positive feel of the previous hike in Delaware, I decided to throw a night hike onto the schedule that I’d been looking at routes for over the period of more than a year.
Readington Township in Hunterdon County had long been working on a connective trail system, and they had recently been opening more trails that almost connected with their previous ones. I had never explored any of these connections heading north, and I’d been wanting to incorporate a hike with the South Branch Wildlife Management Area since I had been working for Hunterdon County Parks.
My friend from that job, Bandit (Adam Johnson), who’s father was working in Three Bridges, showed me the property one day while doing the garbage run for the county parks. It had an awesome abandoned house and many woods roads. He also told me about Northaldz, a railroad themed miniature place, and some other local spots.

Memorial Park in Flemington

I put together a very interesting and relaxing route piecing together these otherwise unconnected parks with short road walks making a very interesting night hike.
We met at the Wal Mart in Branchburg area, just east of Whitehouse Station, then shuttled with as few cars as possible to our start point, by the CVS I think it was in Flemington. Maybe it was Rite Aid. I forget, but it was right by the circle. We walked from there through the parking lot to the north, then turned left through a line of trees to come out into the Memorial Park just to the south.
We skirted a ball field, then came to the entrance road which took us to the Central Railroad of NJ’s South Branch, also known as Flemington Branch.

Old post on the CNJ

We turned right to follow these tracks rather than the nearby road. It was pretty easy going out across Rt 31, but over in the cut to the east of there it got surprisingly wet for an active railroad.
I noted along the way a wooden post, possibly an old mile marker post, which is rare to find in such good condition, especially made of wood.
We continued to the northeast parallel with Pennsylvania Avenue, and then out to River Road, which is very busy.
From there, I gave the choice to either walk across on the former CNJ bridge over the South Branch of the Raritan, or to turn right and follow the road a short distance to the Rockafellows Mill Bridge over the same.

South Branch CNJ bridge

It was hot out and the South Branch looked really inviting. If there had been a good place to get down, I would certainly have been in it. The only thing otherwise holding me back was that I might have bad chaffing before I got to the end point.
We continued on down the road, following the shoulder as best we could away from the speeding cars.

Sycamore hanging over the South Branch near Rockafellow's Mills

We soon reached the Rockafellow’s Mills Bridge. The mill itself is gone from the site, but there is still a dam, and a house probably where the mill would have stood years ago. We continued across the beautiful old through truss bridge over the South Branch, and the road turned to dirt.

Rockafellows Mill dam

Up ahead was the South Branch historic district; the name of the settlement was apparently South Branch way back. We crossed over the old CNJ railroad, which was where we would have come out anyway, then continued up hill a little bit to cross the former Lehigh Valley Railroad tracks, after the intersection with River Road to the right (my other route if this one didn’t work for future hikes).
We made our way past a collection of a few homes in the historic district, and then came to an historic and forgotten cemetery on the left hand side. One could drive right by this place and not see it.

1900 through Pratt truss Rockafellows Mill Bridge

The cemetery dates back to the 1800s and possibly earlier. The problem was that we could not check it out. It is now all private property and somewhat overgrown. We could only observe it from afar. I think I noted graves from the early 1800s, but farther back there could have been older. There were also some not visible below the level of the weeds which might date back even further in time. The only way really to know would be to get in, and we didn’t have the time to ask for permission. We had to get through the WMA sections before dark, because that part was the most questionable.

Old cemetery at South Branch

Just after the Lehigh Valley Railroad tracks, we turned right into the edge of an overgrown field, the first section of South Branch Wildlife Management Area. It was easy enough to walk at first, but got worse with the weeds as we continued on.

South Branch WMA

The field reached to the end of the public land, at a private farm, so we had to skirt it to the north for a bit. We made our way until the path around the outside of the field started to get rather overgrown. We then turned to the right, rather steeply down hill for a bit, then into a swath of trees to a small creek crossing. I was glad this section wasn’t worse. I thought it might be a mess of multi flora rose, which would have been awful. I did however manage to pick up a lot of those hitch hiker weeds.
We came up the other side of the creek to a field area, where we turned to the left a bit. This took us around the edge of a field to the north, then to the east. We picked up a very basic foot path across the opening and headed out to where there was an SUV parked.

South Branch WMA

Here, we were able to turn left onto River Ave, a lovely unpaved road heading to the north. When River Ave turned off to the right to head out toward Rt 202 (yes, the same Rt 202 we crossed down in Delaware on Sunday), we continued straight on the road into more of South Branch Wildlife Management Area.
The intersection of those two roads I have always loved. It was really a beautiful spot where the roads look like they can’t even be public. River Ave looks like it’s someone’s private driveway, as does this road heading north.
We followed the road down over a tributary, then up into more fields where we came to the abandoned old farm house near the top of the hill.

Sad old farm house

The old house has seen better days. The roof has some missing shingles, and that usually spells the end for an historic building. This was a very valuable farm house, but it sits on state land, and is some how “managed” by Readington Township. It’s probably a deal like what the county had with Hoffman Park, where the state has the lands but the township took the building. There are a couple of cameras on it and it’s well boarded up, but nothing is happening with it. It will likely fall into ruin and collapse. We walked all around it and took a few photos before moving on to the north.

Old silo

I went to check out the old silo. A couple of other out buildings still stand, but the area is not all that well cared for. The township apparently mows the grass around the building, because that is still low, but there really needs to be someone living in the house or it might as well be demolished.
We continued through the fields to the north. I had explored around some of these fields one day with Jillane, but other than that and a couple of drive throughs at my former job, I had not been back. Now we would have to find a way of connecting out to Lazy Brook Road, because the land connects, I just wasn’t sure how.

South Branch WMA

The farm road led us all the way to the edge of private land, where the fields beyond were obviously plowed and cared for by a farmer. From here, I did not want to skirt the fields directly because they were cropped and we were visible from a farm house, even though it was a ways off, so we stayed up in the state owned fields and made our way to the east.
There were some faint ATV paths at first through the weeds, but then we just cut through them heading to the east directly.
All of the plants were non abrasive, and this was really a relaxing section heading gradually down hill, in the “amber waves of grain” as they are sometimes referred. It was actually quite stunning with the dusk light cast down on them.

Farm view in South Branch WMA

The field section took us down to it’s edge, where it was much easier to walk. There was a little tributary likely down in a gully off to the right, but that would be too tough to walk through. We opted to follow the edge of the field directly heading to the north, now closer to Lazy Brook Road, sort of running parallel.
Before we could reach the road, we came to a path to the right that led down hill into a stretch of young woods. There was one interesting giant tree in this stretch, which I could not identify.
The pathway came out to a little area along Lazy Brook. We were able to turn left and follow the brook through it’s retaining walls at what appeared to be a new development entrance.

South Branch WMA

We crossed over the brook, then came out to Lazy Brook Road. The culvert I thought was a development was actually the entrance to a single farm. I didn’t want to hang out there for too long. I picked a few more hitch hikers off of me, and we made our way up Lazy Brook Road heading to the north.
We soon turned right onto Summer Road. One of the few parks I had never incorporated into my hikes was the Summer Road Park, which connects to the Pleasant Run Greenway of Readington Township. We followed Summer Road for a little bit, then all of a sudden there was a trail marker to the left heading into the woods.

Sue in the fields

I was not expecting to find a trail so soon. It was not shown on any of the Readington maps, but I wasn’t going to turn it down. We turned left onto the “trail”, which soon disappeared for all I could tell. It was getting darker, so seeing any trail route or blazes would get harder.

Interesting big tree in South Branch WMA

We headed through woods basically to the east. The undergrowth was sparse, so it was easy to walk through for the most part, there were just no blazes anywhere whatsoever. I watched my google maps on my phone which showed that there would be a trail section on the other side of the next driveway.
I just followed where the map said the trail would be, and it took us around the outside of the fields to the north, then the east. They had not been mowed down at all that I could find at the first field, but when we got to the second field, it was much more recently mowed and very pleasant to walk along. There were even posts to mark the trail route.

Lazy Brook

We followed the trail along the fields, and then into the woods on the slope above the Pleasant Run. The entire trail was just as wide and well mowed as along the edge of the field, which impressed me. The township has really gone to great lengths to make sure the trail is clear enough to follow and easy to find.
We continued along for a while, and maintenance wasn’t as good the farther we went, but it was still overall pretty nice. It wasn’t until the route to the north that it was somewhat obscure.
It was necessary to cross over part of this branch of Pleasant Run heading to the north, but the turn wasn’t obvious, down hill steeply and then up to the edge of another field.

Sunset over South Branch WMA

We headed down through it, then up the other side into the farm fields. From here, we turned to the left, then to the right up hill and through more of the fields.
The trail entered more woods parallel with fields, and then soon went down to cross over part of Pleasant Run. The route we were to follow was rather obvious going to the right a bit, while a spur trail went off to the left, which we’d have to explore on a future hike.
We continued to the north, and there may have been another trail here going another way, but I can’t quite remember.
The trail took us to the north, to Pleasant Run Road across from Hoagland Road. We turned left to follow Pleasant Run Road for a bit.

Pleasant Run Greenway

We followed the road only a short bit to a right turn on Hillcrest Road. A conversation about “what these crazy people must be doing” ensued as several cars drove by and certainly must have been befuddled at why people were walking down their road at night.
We reached a power line crossing, from which some of the Cole Road Greenway is accessible. There was a good sign and such there, but the trail wasn’t as obvious as what we had been on with Pleasant Run.
This section simply followed the power lines to the west. It was really quite a fabulous section.
It was John’s first hike with Metrotrails, and he commented on how great it was out there in the open on this awesome night. Although it was his first group hike, he had also done trail work and has taken the lead on more Warren Highlands Trail stuff. He helped us to install posts on the section at Fox Farm.
We followed the trail on the power line for a bit and looked for a trail going to the right. The route we were looking for passed through a narrow swath of woods and field edges between Morning Star Road and Pine Bank Road. Another route continued along the power line heading to the northwest toward Cole Road.
We found the trail intersection and followed it into the woods to an indecisive spot. We couldn’t see enough markers, and it was pretty dark. We spotted another looking like it was going the wrong way, but we followed it anyway. We took it out to the power line yet again, a trail not shown on the map.
This didn’t work, so we went off trail for a bit, then went back to the trail we were on before. Everything looked like the wrong way. I decided to just watch my phone GPS closely and target for dead between those two roads. We came out to a field with no markers, then skirted it to the right. At the end, we stepped into another line of trees and found the trail. A left turn had us back on track heading to the north. This was probably at least a half hour detour.
The trail took us through to the north, and came sort of uncomfortably close with a weird house. It looked like a sort of barn, but all of the windows in the front of it were ful length floor to ceiling panel windows. You could see into every room of this house facing toward the trail.
The trail system broke out into several other trails. I wasn’t sure which way to go, but one went along a very steep slope along Holland Brook. We followed this one because it looked like it was going more in the direction we wanted. There were other side trails too, but we seemed to take all the correct routes.
The route we took got a little questionable, because we came to part of Holland Brook, and then crossed on some sort of cylinders, beyond which the trail was not obvious. I came back to the crossing and found a sort of light treadway, which I could take to where I could see the kiosk out on Pine Bank Road. We followed this out to the intersection with Roosevelt Road. Both were more lightly used old dirt roads, wonderful for walking.

Moon Rise over Pine Bank Rd

We didn’t have far to walk to the next trail section. We turned right on Pine Bank Road with the moon now visible to the south. We passed a single farm and then turned left onto the Lachenmeyer Tract, at a bend in the road. This trail followed a farm lane in a swath of trees on an old farm road heading to the north.
We skirted the backs of houses on Swackhammer Road, and then continued on the left side of fields, following the tree lines. It was another very easy to follow, wide open trail section. It led us easily up hill and then gradually down the other. Headlights out on a driveway far to the right could be seen, but we knew they couldn’t see us that far off. It’s one of those odd feelings that we were invisible to the world and all of the lives going on all around us, but we are very much more aware of them.
The trail reached the corner of the fields, then cut to the left, down hill into a little gully and over a small stream. The trail continued on the other side, and we kept to the left. This took us out to another overgrown field section with the trails skirting the outsides. A few trails passed through this area in loops, but we followed the way that would most obviously take us out to where we needed to be. Our next destination would be Heath Road, where the trail came out at a cul de sac.
We emerged onto Heath Road out of the trail, which was barely visible from the road, then headed to the west. We passed one guy walking his dog, who was friendly but somewhat bewildered that we were out for a hike. Uncle Soup stayed behind a bit to chat with him. The guy seemed quite fascinated that we were out on such a long hike at night I recall.
Heath Road took us to Roosevelt Road, and we turned right and directly across to Readington Middle School via it’s access road, followed immediately by Holland Brook Elementary School. The road had a wide grassy swath on both sides making for a pleasant walk route.
We took a break at a porta john, then continued to the north to the edge of a walking track. We were only on it briefly before continuing to the north side of the fields associated with Holland Brook School. Here, another trail led from the walking track out to Barkelow Road. This was the end of the trails for this particular hike.
We followed Barkelow Road to the right, then left on Selover Road. We followed this to the intersection with South Honeyman Road and took a break. It was here that Jillane met up with us to finish the hike.

Giant tree on Honeyman

We all followed Honeyman Road from the intersection, which had a stunningly beautiful giant tree in the yard. We followed Honeyman all the way to Pulaski Road and turned to the right.
Pulaski was still not too busy, even though it was the more main road for the area. We followed this to the less busy Ridge Road and followed it to the left. We crossed over the former Central Railroad of NJ main line, now NJ Transit, and then continued out to Rt 22 directly across from the Wal Mart to complete the hike.
We all chatted a bit about my stress level with work and how to deal with all of that. I’ve been feeling confident with how things have been progressing, but I feel much better when I’m out with my hiking friends. Especially on a trip like this, not only with great people, but with a new route so close to home that I’d managed to leave untouched for so long, it was easier not to focus on problems.
It was quite an amazing route, with so much to see. I commented to the group that I could post almost the same hike again, with similar start and end points, and still not cover most of the same ground. The trails through these township preserves have so many alternate routes and other sections of fields that it would seem nearly like a different hike. It’s another good feeling to know there are other good options coming up. I never seem to run out of those.