Hike #996; Princeton to Pennington

Hike #996; Princeton to Pennington

12/22/16 Princeton to Pennington with James Quinn, Annika Krystyna, John Kosar, and Sandy Westermann

This next hike would be another point to point night hike. It was actually the hike I had planned for the previous week, but changed the route. Starting on time and with a larger group, this was the better week to do it. It was also much warmer.
We met at Pennington Market and Annika was running behind, so she met us at our starting point, on street parking on Birch Avenue.

Ruins at Community Park North

We headed north a block and crossed a bit of a parking area that goes along with Community Park South. This was the right of way of the old Johnson Trolley Line, which operated between Trenton and Witherspoon Street in Princeton, just a couple of blocks to the east. It was the fast line trolley that was mostly off road. We went over it and headed down across the grassy field of Cummunity Park, and then crossed a crosswalk over Rt 206 to reach Community Park North. We took a brief break at restrooms, then walked out a trail to a driveway road, which had another trail in the woods parallel with it. We followed this to where it was necessary to cross a brook on the road bridge, then cut into the woods to the left onto another trail.

Mountain Lakes

The trail took us soon past some old ruins in the woods to the left. I assume this had something to do with the former ice industry that used to be there. Greater Mountain Lakes Open Space was up next, which is about three tiers of ponds on which ice was harvested back in the day. The trail took us to the dam of the southernmost lake. We climbed it, then crossed it to the left. The sun was setting and it was quite beautiful on the water here. A car had gone by when we were on the driveway section, probably a caretaker for the house, so I didn’t want to stand around in an area that might cause people to get nervous. We went left and then onto a trail above the lake on the west side.

At Mountain Lakes

The trail along the west side was really nice. I don’t know that I’ve ever followed that section before. It was on a slope high above the lake and the other trails. We could see the dam and the next lake from up there, and beyond that the third lake is off into a more wooded setting. The trail took us to a split, and we went to the left, heading west into more of the open space property.
We made our way to a fence line where trails went to the left and right at Coventry Farm. I had been to this point before with the group. In fact, I’d done a group photo there.
We turned to the right on the trail; it had been majorly improved with wooden walkways clos to the fence around Coventry Farm. We headed north through Coventry Farm Park beyond the end of the fence to the north.

Mountain Lakes

There is a trail that connects the Coventry Farm Park with the Stuart Day School area called the Stuart Trail that I’d followed once in the past. I had not been on it in a very long time.
We continued north through the park, and when we got to the sign for Stuart Trail, turned to the left.
It had been majorly improved. The section we were passing through was named for the brook that passed through it, which now escapes me. A trail went across to the right, heading east, over a little stone walkway bridge, where the Stuart Trail went left. We followed Stuart Trail along a lovely slope above the brook, and multiple side trails went down and over it. The little bridges seemed to lead nowhere, but the whole thing was quite nice.

Mountain Lakes

One of the bridges was built oddly with a single tree growing out of the decking. There was also a side trail that said that it led to a sculpture garden. Clearly, I have to go back and explore more of this because there’s just so much to see that we couldn’t get around to.
The trail continued with less markers to where it emerged at a path connecting the Stuart School to the north with the fields to the south. We turned left toward the fields, then crossed a wide grassy one that was surprisingly not all full of goose shit (the previous field at Community Park South was, and at Stuart the geese were all in an adjacent field).

Mountain Lakes

We cut across more fields, then past a baseball field, and through a line of trees past a tennis court. We somehow had lost the trail I was actually intending to use, and ended up at Stuart. We just had to go to the left a bit to come out to Great Road.
Once at the road, we crossed quickly, then went directly into a swath of trees. In there, we came to the PDS Trail, through Princeton Day School lands. The trail is not well maintained any more, though it used to be better the first time I followed it several years ago. Still, I was able to follow it well enough. It took us to the right, parallel with Great Road, then remained in the woods parallel with the west branch of Great Road where it turned. We crossed a PDS entrance road, and continued through woods heading to the west. Eventually, we turned away from the road and more through woods. It was easy to lose the trail there. Occasional white blazes, as well as crummy looking blue ones showed the way.

Trail along Coventry Farm

At one point, we went up over a knoll, and I tripped pretty bad coming down. I landed hard on my right elbow trying to fall gracefully. It hurt for several days after that, which was bad because I ended up having to operate a chain saw quite a lot.
The trail eventually came to a scenic little pond, and another path came in from the left. We were then on Pond View Trail. There are two little retention ponds together in this area, which I’ve gone by on several hikes. We got to the causeway dam that separates the two of them and crossed. There’s a cage in the middle that keeps debris from flowing down to the pipe to drain the thing. We once climbed through that on one of the hikes.
The trail over the dam then led into the Woodfield Reservation. We headed very gradually up hill on a trail that weaved back and forth a bit. There were junctions with other trails that make loops to the east, but we continued to the west as best we could. It wasn’t always easy to find the way, but we managed, and once we got to the Tent Rock, we were alright.

Coventry Farm Park

Tent Rock is a giant boulder that looks incredibly out of place in these woods. If we were further north, it would be more common, and easy to write off as a glacial erratic, but this one was really odd. James climbed up to the top of it for some reason. If it were daytime, I would probably have done the same.
The trail is not well marked, but was fortunately rather obvious to us heading to the west. It took us out to a paved pathway that connects Stuart Road West and Cradle Rock Road. There is another Stuart Road on the other side of PDS area, and I figure the road probably went through at one time, but who knows where exactly it was.

Stuart Trail

We turned left to come out on Stuart Road, then followed it to Province Line Road. We turned left there.
The first part of the road is used as a dead end. It was the road that made up the “province line” between the colonies of East New Jersey and West New Jersey prior to the Revolutionary War. To the north, the road exists but is abandoned for a short distance. To the south, there is an access in between, but it too is abandoned before getting to the bridge over the Stony Brook. We would continue on the lightly used Province Line Road heading south. We soon got to where it crossed the Stony Brook on the triple pony truss bridge, now rehabilitated as a trail. We paused there for a break, always a nice spot.

Tree growing through a bridge near Stuart Trail

Once on the other side, we headed up hill a bit, then cut off of the road to the right on the Laura Chauncey Trail, in ETS property (Educational Testing Service).
This is a particularly beautiful trail along the Stony Brook almost the entire way.
We remained on the trail until it finally turned up hill to the left, toward ETS. We had to turn left along the entrance road briefly, then right into the woods to continue on the trail. We paralleled the ETS place for a bit, and ended up turning off of the Laura Chauncey Trail briefly to another trail system that just weaved us through the woods on the south side. We eventually came to the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail’s marked route on the south side, which we were able to take south to Rosedale Road. We continued straight across on May Drive, which went into a little development. The Lawrence Hopewell Trail then turns right from May Drive onto Benekek Road, which becomes Bellevue Terrace. After that it turns off of the road to the right into Carson Road Woods.

Lawrence Hopewell Trail

Carson Road Woods is actually more field than woods at all times. We simply followed the trail route through the property to near the south side of it. When Lawrence Hopewell Trail continued south toward Briston Myers Squibb property, we took to another grassy trail to the west, which led us further along Carson Road itself. We came out to the road and followed it to the right, which was quite busy.
We turned left on Carter Road, which had a road closed sign on it, so that part of the road walk was actually about as nice as it could get, because only local traffic would be on it. It was sort of like walking a trail. I suppose this was the absolute best time we could have chosen to do this hike for that particular reason.
We turned right onto Tall Timbers Drive, followed that through and came out on Van Kirk Road where we went right. This was also a lightly used road, so it was quite nice. It was the longest road walk of the entire hike, but it had some interesting points. I showed everyone where the Johnson Trolley Line used to cross it along the way. Before we reached the end of the road, the group was checking out the horses in a field to the left side.
The next intersection was Cold Soil Road. We went straight across here into the Mercer Meadows, formerly the Pole Farm that was associated with the early telephone stuff (see past notes). There are a lot of trails through this, and we’ve covered completely different ones every time we’ve visited it, which has been more than I’d ever imagined since my assignment to Washington’s Crossing.

Mercer Meadows

We followed the trail directly through fields, with really nice views of the stars and the moon. The trail intersected with the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail again, which we followed to the right.
The Lawrence-Hopewell Trail as shown on all of the maps differs from what I have found today. It shows the trail turning to the right, up Cold Soil Road, then around the edge of Blackwell to go up to a farm area, but the signed route we have always followed on these hikes has never taken us there. It goes to the left, then crosses Blackwell Road to the west, closer to Rosedale Lake. I figure the trail route might have been chanced because there might be someone living in the home.
Somehow, we ended up leaving the LH Trail briefly. The surface changed from it’s normal crushed stone to grass. Either way, we got back on it pretty quickly, and soon we were crossing over Blackwell Road into the Rosedale Park section.

LHT symbol

The trail took us to the north for a bit, and we accidentally went the wrong way, straight ahead when it turned left. I figure this must have been the former route of the trail. We backtracked and soon found the LH Trail, which took us down hill and over the dam for Rosedale Lake. We kept lights off going along the dam of the lake, then on the other side we crossed the access road and reached Federal City Road. The LH Trail goes directly across and around part of the Mercer Equestrian Center, but I think someone lives there, so I didn’t want to go through that. Instead, we turned right for a brief time on Federal City Road. The LH Trail comes back out to that at the entrance anyway, and follows Old Mill Road. We turned right to rejoin the route, and followed the lightly used road across the Stony Brook. After a brief climb on the other side, the trail went off of the road to parallel it to the left.

Omnom

To the right of the trail and across the road, a farm house had an out building close to the road onto which was projected some sort of movie or sports thing on TV. I couldn’t believe anyone else would want to be out in the cold, as it was getting colder at this point. It was also much windier in the fields.
The trail cut to the left across open field for a bit, then came to Route 624, Pennington-Rocky Hill Road. We crossed, and Lawrence Hopewell Trail went off to the right parallel with the road, while it’s Pennington Connector went to the left. I had followed this on the previous night hike with James and Red Sean.

LHT

We followed the trail to the left for a bit, and soon reached the bridge over the Stony Brook yet again. We crossed, then turned to the right onto King Goerge Road parallel with the brook. When we went left on Park Ave, James went up King George Road to find some Pokemon, and then caught us again soon.
We turned left on Eglantine Avenue, then right on Delaware Avenue to get us directly to the center of downtown Pennington. The pizza place was still open because we had gotten done just before ten PM. I’d have stopped with everyone if they had wanted to, but most of the group didn’t want, and I suppose I knew that I needed to get up early as well. Ended up stopping for Taco Bell later anyway.
We followed Delaware Ave just the short bit further across the tracks to the Pennington Market lot to conclude the hike.
If I hadn’t realized it already at this point, this hike really made me realize that being in Washington’s Crossing doesn’t always have to be a drag. The weekly night hikes are so interesting, diverse, and really the perfect routes to do on Winter evenings. It kind of makes the daily commute a little bit more worth it.