Hike #1285; Ragged Ridge to Phillipsburg

Hike #1285; Warren Highlands: Ragged Ridge to Phillipsburg

1/1/20 Warren Highlands/Ragged Ridge to Phillipsburg with Matthew Davis, Ken Zarouni, Jennifer Berndt, Thomas Bourgault, Kirk Rohn, Sarah Jones, Kralc Leahcim (Lerch), Patrick Gilliam, Justin Gurbisz, Jeremy Neumann, Mike Adam, Susan Adams, Pam Patton (and Charlie), Kyle ?, John DiFiore, Stephanie Koles, Robin Deitz, Ellie Zabeth, Diane Reider, Thomas Rozmerski, James Quinn, Dan Lurie, Wayne Sherrer, Red Sean Reardon, Serious Sean Dougherty, Don Mayberry, Daniel Trump, April Autumn, Jen Wanisko, and Deidre Supple

It’s hard to believe another year has already gone by. In a way, this was an appropriate hike to start off the year with, not only because we had new sections of the Warren-Highlands Trail - NJ completed, but because it was kind of a personal year in review.

The invitation thing Deidre made

It’s nice that I get to post these things through my work rather than just through Metrotrails. It can often be a major frustration, and this was no exception, but it does have its rewards also.
In this case, it meant making several near friends who might join in on future hikes.

The map Deidre put together

The story of the Warren Highlands Trail goes back to the 1990s, with the inception of the regular Highlands Trail.
When the Highlands Legislation came about and brought with it much attention to the geological province known as the Highlands, it was decided by New York/New Jersey Trail Conference that a trail should be created along the spine of the region.

The group on Ragged Ridge

The original plan was for the trail to connect the Hudson River to the Delaware River. By the early 2000s, the trail was already completed from Storm King Mountain in New York to Allamuchy Mountain State Park in New Jersey.

The Student Conservation Association crew that worked on this project

At the time, they were not sure which way the trail was going to go.
The decision was between either going through Warren County to reach the Delaware River in Phillipsburg, or go through Hunterdon County and reach it at Riegelsville.

Verdon Pensyl, who helped built a major part of the trail with me

At the time, Hunterdon County had the better greenway, and so the decision was made to bring the trail down to the Delaware there. Also, Gary Hoagland from the Trail Conference really loved the Roebling Riegelsville Bridge, and wanted that to be the crossing.
I do love the Hunterdon route, but a lot of land had been purchased in Warren County, and it seemed sad that the trail was never put in.
There was a way of nearly connecting many of the parks with only a short bit of road walking, so I started organizing my own hikes between the sites in about 2003.
By 2005, I was coming up with routes off of Marble Hill in Phillipsburg and ran several hikes on that. It was just too cool an area to be ignored, and yet there were no official trails.

Warren Highlands on Ragged Ridge

After attending a Morris Canal Committee meeting, some of the commissioners asked me to attend the Warren County Board of Recreation meetings.
I of course attended them, and they asked me if I would be willing to join the board.
The Board of Chosen Freeholders approved my appointment as Commissioner in 2009, and asked me to help them develop their trail system over the next three years. It’s amazing to think this was over ten years ago. In 2011, they made me Chairman.

Warren Highlands on Ragged Ridge

After developing much of the trail system at White Lake Natural Resource Area, I asked for the board’s support to begin development of the dormant trail project where the Highlands Trail was originally intended. They had been referring to it as the “Warren Trail”, which I didn’t like. I think it creates confusion with the Warren Railroad, which should be its own trail, and the fact that some of the Warren Highlands would follow the Lehigh and Hudson River Railway right of way would create too much historic confusion.

The view from Ragged Ridge

I opened the first section of the trail in probably 2012 after having run many different scouting hikes. At one point, Cory Salvesen actually walked with me carrying an open lap top computer to try to figure out location. Much of what we came up with became the trail.

The group on Ragged Ridge

We opened the Marble Hill section with speeches from the Freeholders, and the county got National Park Service grants through the Martins-Jacoby Watershed Association.
I barely ever had any work time to do anything trail related in the past. There was really no interest in it because there was always so much stuff to do at Spruce Run, as well as of course Voorhees and Hacklebarney. The previous Supervisor even put in writing that I should not be doing volunteer work on the trails in my own time, that it was taking contract work away from the Union, and that “the woods are better off without you”.

Ragged Ridge

Fortunately, most of that negative stuff from the past has passed by, and the current Supervisor is a true steward to the land who seriously loves the properties under his management.
With that, as well as my Superintendent being regional Superintendent, support for these properties has grown a lot.
We had been trying to get Student Conservation Association to do work on this section for a couple of years, but it hadn’t panned out until this past year.
I knew exactly where I wanted the work done: Ragged Ridge.
The beautiful piece of property has incredible views of the Blue Mountain, Kittatinny Ridge, and Delaware Water Gap, and I’d already begun work on the trail there.

The group on Ragged Ridge

We had the SCA come in and look at the project, and they began working on the stone steps and stabilization to connect an old logging road with the top of the ridge. The area was previously very hard to navigate due to loose rocks.
While they were working on the area on the north side of the ridge, I used the time not only to oversee the work they were doing, but to construct new sections of trail on the south side. We had met with an adjacent land owner, decided where the trail was coming out, and then I would have to construct it up the hill.

Going over the maps with DEP and my grandfather

My grandfather had first taken me up there when I was little, but I didn’t know of any good way of going through the property for the trail. I had to scout it and build it all.

Descending Ragged Ridge

For this major undertaking, I recruited Verdon Pensyl, my brothers former brother in law who I got a job at Spruce Run. He’s quite the worker, and I knew he would have the stamina to be able to rip into this trail in short order. Together, after I did an initial cutting, we built nine switchbacks and lots more foot path in only one day. I was then able to blaze the entire new section in a single afternoon, and went back with my boss, Bruce, to walk through and do the follow up chainsaw work to get it 100% clear.

Vandalized trail marker post

I was afraid the trail would be destroyed in short order, because it seems like every time we put something up on this site, someone tries to destroy it.
Because this one was posted through the state, I had the ability to do a bit more in terms of preparation, where I usually just go for it and that’s it.
We had heavy rains a couple of days before, and there are a couple of stream crossings that had me concerned.
The south branch of the Buckhorn Creek below Ragged Ridge, and another bit of the Lopatcong Creek don’t have bridges. The latter did have a bridge, but it had since broken.
So, I got several old pallets with Larry Phillips and we dropped them off in the creeks so we could get across dry. We dropped them off the day before.
We also removed a gate that had been destroyed earlier this year by vandals.
As if that were not bad enough, the vandals defecated and smeared their own feces all over the park gate, the park signs, and even the chains and locks.

At the time that happened, the gate was left in, but it was recently pulled out of the ground completely.
When Larry and I went to pick it up, we found that it had been defecated on yet again, right by the lock, and Larry accidentally put his hand in it (he bleached his hands raw afterwards).
It’s a constant fight to try to keep sections of the trail open, so I was curious as to what we would find passing through the new sections.
Additionally, we procured the fifteen passenger van, and Deidre offered to drive it to shuttle hikers.
Deidre also created an excellent set of maps as handouts for the hikers at the beginning. I had taken a series of maps using the tax map lot and block number parcels, and traced the trail as accurately as I could onto them without GPS, and she made it so we didn’t need as many sheets, and created a key with interesting tidbits about the trail along the way.

Bob Ross in a happy little tree!

I dictated to her one day several interesting historic points along the way, which she quickly typed in, and then worded appropriately to take up the correct amount of room when they were printed.
Deidre has also been a moderator for the Spruce Run Facebook page, so we would not have the issue we had last year with them putting out the wrong information and only less than twenty four hours to correct it...or so I thought.
I got a call from someone saying that the state posting read that the hike met at the Spruce Run boat launch, and that it even described that the hike would be going by the club house and on the shore of the reservoir. I think someone e mailed them about that.
In the morning of December 31st, I looked into the trip postings through other resources because I was concerned the state might not have made any corrections before sending out a press release. The first one I came across was the one for Get Outside NJ.

WRONG

The thing said to meet at 68 Van Syckles Road, the address of Spruce Run. I sent a message to the site saying that it was incorrect. They asked for an e mail with the correct information, but then I guess because it didn’t come from an official state e mail, they did not change it.
I did get a response form the page manager that they had simply copied and pasted the information from the state’s official posting.
I went on to check other sites like newspapers and such. Some of them had the right information, but many of them just said it was hosted by Spruce Run Recreation Area with a meeting time of 9 am.
I then went to the hikeNJ website, and again there was one that said that the hike was meeting at Spruce Run at 9 am.
The more sites I checked, the more annoyed I got. I couldn’t waste the entire day telling all of these different pages that they had the information for my hike wrong. The last one I checked was stateparks.org, which not only said it was at Spruce Run, it gave a map to navigate to.

WRONG

At that point, I decided that I could do no more, and I went to the administration building and asked them to put up a sign in the window saying that the hike was not at Spruce Run, and that if the wanted to join they should call me, with my cell number. I didn’t think much more of it, and went to my old friend Rich Pace’s retirement/new years eve party.
In the morning, I headed to the meeting point at Union Square, Phillipsburg. There were already a lot of people there when I arrived.
I usually don’t have or even need any help when I run these trips, but this time it was actually very helpful to have both Deidre and my buddy Tom Rozmirski from work helping out.
Deidre was already there taking attendance; we needed to have a photo release to use pictures on the social media page, and she handled that. Despite having a fever, she drove the van, and did the first part of the hike up Ragged Ridge.
Tom was a huge help because he could serve as sweep, which was handy with newcomers.

Ragged Ridge lower view

This was going to be a complicated one to start, because I’d had to go ahead and create a parking spot out of almost nothing at the NJ Conseration Foundation property on Fiddlers Elbow Road. We have no parking at the one side of Ragged Ridge, and so something would need to be created for parking the van and I figured my van and another vehicle. I was surprised to see more people had showed up than anticipated. With 31 of us in the lot, and three planning to meet up by the start point, I’d need to do something else.

Red Sean and his voodoo friend

The drivers would be Deidre in the fifteen passenger van, myself in my van, and Diane in her car. I had Diane park at the point where we reached the Merrill Creek property, and Deidre and I dropped everyone else off at the start. I then drove back and picked up the passengers from Diane’s car, as well as Don and Serious Sean with the van.
Once I got them back to the start point, I did a brief introduction to what we were doing, and we headed down Fiddlers Elbow Road to the intersection with Harmony-Brass Castle Road.

Van Nest-Hoff-Vanatta Farmstead

The property to the right of us trough this section is all NJ Conservation Foundation for which we have permission to place the trail. I plan to begin work on this tract in March after having an on site meeting with property managers.
There are a ton of trees down there from when Super Storm Sandy hit. It’s going to take a ton of work to get it all open. It’s going to pass through that tract and down to the road past a tiny cave spring that looks really awesome, then cross and follow Lopatcong Creek.
When we were walking the road, Red Sean pulled up in his SUV and said “Hey gorgeous” (I was wearing my tuxedo I had recently purchased to go along with the entire roaring twenties theme). I told him to head to the state lot closer to Swamp Road and backtrack to us.

Van Nest Hoff Vanatta Farmstead

I had thought to do a bushwhack on this first section, but then decided against it because we were already behind on time. Some of the folks were pretty hung over, and so we were off to a very slow start.
We followed the narrow road to the private driveway on which the state has official access, and headed up to the first new sectons of trail. We then climbed to the nine new switchbacks that lead up the southern side of Ragged Ridge.
I was pretty happy with how it was looking. I had raked out the trail completely when we built it, and now it was covered in leaves, but still not too terrible.

Van Nest-Hoff-Vanatta Farmstead

I held up when we go to the top of the incline, where a hunter made use of the new trail to get to a deer stand. Lerch climbed to the top of it as soon as we got up there.
We soon moved along, across two old woods roads and followed one of them. We cut the trail a bit further to the north on the ridge for the privacy of the one house nearby up there.

Along the trail

The trail meanders with some lovely seasonal views to the Delaware valley to the north, and then comes out to the system of old woods roads which were either used for logging, or maybe even at one time for the colliers creating charcoal for the Oxford Furnace.
The trail follows one of the woods roads up hill to the west to reach the top of Ragged Ridge, which has the epic view to the north. We held up here and let everyone catch up.
It was at this point that I had visited recently with my grandfather, cousin Mandie Snow, and her husband Tom Snow, with DEP Green Acres head Rich Osborn and my Superintendent Jenny Felton. She really wanted me to hear what he had to say about the history.

Native American smoke singal site on Ragged Ridge

I was able to impart some of the story Mr. Osborne shared with me that day to the group on this visit.
He told us that the owner before the state, Mr. Marden, figured that the site had some sort of native American significance, as it had circular chiseled recesses in the rocks of the ridge. He befriended a Native American, and asked him to come with him to his property and have a look at the site.
The Native American said that he knew exactly what it was, and that it was a “main communication center”. The recesses in the rocks were intended for fire building, so that smoke signals could be made in sequences to communicate with tribesmen on the Blue Mountain and Kittatinny Ridge, both clearly in view form the top of these rocks. He said that it was a sacred site, and he began chanting.
Marden told Osborne that as the native American was chanting, a funnel of vultures appeared above him in a display unlike anything he had ever seen.
When asked what he had witnessed, the native American said he was communicating with his ancestors.
He said that no one likes the vultures, but that they are important because they clean up the ground, they eat the dead. Because of this, somehow they could communicate with the dead through the vultures.
It turns out there is a major vulture rookery on the Ragged Ridge property as well, which is one of the reasons the site was so sacred.
Marden didn’t want to sell that section of land to the state, because he wanted it to be some sort of sanctuary site, and I wanted to build a memorial or monument.

View along the trail

Marden never got around to building the memorial, and the state got the land anyway.
The smoke signal sites are quite interesting, and there are others on other ridges as well. In fact, there is one up on Point Mountain where I grew up hiking.
After doing my best to pass on the story, I pointed out the Delaware Water Gap and Wind Gap, both in close view, the Martins Creek PP&L power station, and then the secondary gaps in the ridges. I could go on about the view forever there, but I tried to keep it a bit short.

Matt and I feeling happy

At this point, Deidre was going to head back to the van, and she took one of the participants back with her (I forget her name, but she worked with me at Hunterdon).
The rest of us continued on along the spine of the ridge with its lovely rock outcroppings. We then cut to the right down the steep section over the bit constructed by the SCA in the Fall.
We reached the woods road section, turned left at the first intersection, then right at the third I think it was. All of the blazing remained very good through all of this. The pallets were also still in the branch of the Buckhorn Creek we crossed at the bottom, thankfully.
Everyone waited up at the crossing of Ridge Road before we moved on to the next section.

On the trail

I had blazed the next bit with big green metal posts, and I affixed blocks of wood with the light blue blazing on them because every time I try to put more wooden posts in, people destroy them. Rather than waste so much time, this was a quicker way to do it. I figured they might be alright this time.
We crossed the road where I could see ATVs were bypassing the gate through thick mud, passed the old spring house, and then found my first metal post had been twisted up so that the blaze was facing the wrong direction. I was surprised to see a piece of angled metal twisted so badly.

The old Miller Farm

I tried twisting the thing back, and at least got it so that the blaze was facing the correct direction rather than toward private land.
We moved on further down the trail, and then the next post was pulled out entirely.

On the trail nearing Merrill Creek

It was laying right there on the ground, so I tried to put it back in at least temporarily. At least the blazes that were on the trees were still in place.
I think another post might have been missing, but the next bunch of them were still in the ground with the wooden blocks removed from them.
I was blown away. EVERY SINGLE BLOCK from here to the end of this field section had been completely removed and thrown off into the adjacent weeds.
In order to do this, someone would need to be traveling with a socket set or hand drill, remoe the nut, and continue to the next one. Someone really planned out this destruction.

At Merrill Creek

The trail follows along the south side of a field, then turns right to follow a tree line along another. The posts were all there, but with no blocks on them. Ken found one of them on the way, and I stuck it back on a post. He found a second one and then stuck that one through, but I’m sure at this point that it will be gone as well.
I tried not to let this garbage get to me. We had a great group and were already having a really fun time. Serious Sean was carrying around this hilarious cardboard life size cut out of Bob Ross, and carried it up into a tree stand at the end of the field section.
The trail turns left through a line of trees, skirts the north side of another field, and goes into the woods on another old woods road. It then turns left on it and climbs slightly.

Bale pile

There was another tree down over this as we went up. Most of Ragged Ridge was good, but the rest of the entire hike requires a lot of chainsaw work.
We turned slightly right on a section of footpath I built to a seasonal overlook. Eventually, I would like to move most of the trail off of the woods road and onto this nice shelf with the seasonal views, but I need to get the rest of it open first.
The trail returns to the woods road, then makes a right turn on another road that leads down hill gradually. It reaches a hard switchback with a nice wooden deer stand, and continues down hill to the right, and the seasonal views continue the entire time.

Bale pile

We reached another intersection, and the trail goes down hill to the left, toward the fields off of Belvidere Road/Rt 519.
This is another section where the crops are planted right up to the edge of the tree line.
As it turns out, the state contract states that the farmers are supposed to be maintaining an eight foot field edge on the leased property, but none of them ever do it.
I was thinking I’d like to cut new trail inside the wood line to the end of the fields through here, but I was on the fence about it because it’s so much more work.
After seeing how many posts were screwed up below, I think I’m more open to creating the new trail because it’s easier than trying to keep posts in the ground.
We entered the fields, and a ton of people were already ahead of me off to the left. I took a direct route across, toward the opening to Rt 519, and the others turned to head that way.

Farmers Fair fields

We soon reached Rt 519, from which point it is necessary to walk 0.3 mile to the next bit of state land. It’s a crappy section, but there’s no other way really around it right now.
After that distance, there are more state owned fields to the left. We climbed up, and then made our way along the field edge parallel with Rt 519.
We soon reached the historic Van Nest-Hoff-Vanatta Farmstead, which is sort of like Warren County’s Living Historical Farm, maintained by the Harmony Township Historical Society.

Geiger tract

The farmstead was first settled by the Van Nests in 1763 when the oldest structures were built. The farm house was added upon and other buildings erected through the 1850s, when the Hoff and Vanatta families expanded upon them.
The site was restored with both state and Warren County Municipal and Charitable Trust grants. At one time, I sat on the MCCT board as Board of Recreation liaison, but had to step down from it because of schedule conflicts and the fact that it was conflict of interest for me to be voting on properties that were under management of Spruce Run.

A view of the hill we had come off of, Scotts Mountain

The main house and the Summer Kitchen had been well restored, and when I was on the board, we funded the moving of three buildings close to and in the right of way of Rt 519 back from the road. The foot prints of all three buildings were moved back over twenty feet I believe, still the same distances apart, but away from the road.
We took a break here for a bit longer because it would be the only place we’d pass a porta john for the entire trip. We then made our way up past the beautiful old barn and into the fields.
None of this section is blazed yet, because there’s a lot more work to do. Eventually, we’d like to have a sort of “story walk”, where the history of each building could be told along the trail route, but set back enough on a route that does not detract from the historic ambiance.

Outstanding in my field?

We passed through two fields, and at the end of the second one, cut through a few weeds to get to the blazed and completed trail section.
This was the section I had not been on in over a year. I did not have the time to check on it prior to this hike, but I figured it wouldn’t be too terrible to get through.
It definitely needs some work. There are a lot of little trees down along the entire way, and several spots where briars have grown over a bit. Still, it all remains passable and overall pretty nice. The switchbacks were all easy enough to see except for the one where we cross over a little creek.
It was difficult to locate where the trail should go in this one bit, and I built a side hill down one side. Coming from the west, it can be hard to tell where to turn, but from the east it is quite a bit more obvious.
The trail took us up to where there used to be a house, close to the pipe line right of way for Merrill Creek Reservoir's pumped storage. I was walking with Tom at this point, and didn’t realize I had already brought him here several years ago!
When I was first building the trail, it was one of only two days they ever let me come up to do chainsaw work prior to Bruce Hockenbury becoming Supervisor.

Field view

On that day, I took Tom up to Marble Hill, opened up the entire section there, as well as to this little bit, and the bit behind Harkers Hollow golf course.
It’s really cool that he’s now a full timer, because he’s into this stuff, and he has already been to more of the sites than anyone else on staff!
We came out to Ridge Road, and then crossed onto the paved pipeline right of way road for Merrill Creek, still on state land.
There was a great view of Wind Gap up behind us.
I took everyone up slope on the giant mound which Merrill Creek uses to access the pipeline, with a giant garage door. From the top, we could see all the way out the Blue Mountain beyond Little Gap and Lehigh Gap. I’m pretty sure even beyond Lehigh Gap, we could see all the way out toward Hawk Mountain and the Schuykill Gap. There are tons of dips in the ridge visible on such a clear day as the one we had.

On the trail. Photo by Dan

We continued through the field section ahead, and almost every post I had put in this section was also removed, probably by the farmers moving equipment through.
We turned to the right slightly from the pipeline, and then used the old farm lane to get to the old Miller Farmstead (or at least that’s what it was in 1874.).
We took a little break here for everyone to have a look at the ruins. I pointed out how there were vent holes in the building to keep the hay from combusting, and pointed out where the old farm house used to stand.
We soon reached Harmony-Brass Castle Road again, and some of the girls stopped by Diane’s car where they had left their backpacks so they could have an easier time.
From here, we headed down hill across the road into the Merrill Creek land and crossed more pallets over the Lopatcong Creek. The bridge I had built there out of an old lifeguard stand has been wrecked for a while now and I have to get around to putting in another.
From there, the trail is mowed by Merrill Creek along the pipeline heading up hill. This is by far the steepest section of the entire hike, with no switchbacks.

1874 Beers Atlas showing where we were walking. Jas. Miller farm is shown.

The road becomes paved after a building and climbs a bit more gradually. Along the way, an abandoned road comes in on the right. This was the original main road, which connects to Harmony-Brass Castle below at a point where there was a Woolen Mill. It was also called Allow Mill Road, and was closed off when the reservoir was built. A bridge can still be seen where it crosses the Lopatcong Creek, now blocked by a large shipping container.
The trail continues up hill on the road, and then reaches Fox Farm Road, which was also moved when the reservoir was built. Celeste Fondaco Martin with her dog Benny, and her friend with her dog joined us for a little while from this point.

View in the Geiger tract

We headed across the road, then up to the west dike of the reservoir, in view of the pumped storage area. We waited when we got to the little dam top for everyone else to catch up.
From there, the trail is not yet blazed with Warren Highlands markers until we get some signage in place that says where the trail goes.
In addition to that, someone did an absolute horrible job of marking the Merrill Creek trails with spray paint. It looks like absolute garbage. I wonder if they actually paid someone to do it, or if someone decided to just rogue reblaze the thing. It looked just awful.
We remained on the Merrill Creek Perimeter Trail until the access to the Fox Farm lot, and then turned right. It was getting later, and I was afraid we wouldn’t make it out of the tract behind Harkers Hollow Golf Course before dark.
It usually wouldn’t bother me, but we’ve had some major issues there and I didn’t want to give any adjacent land owners any legitimate reason to complain, like us being there late.
A lot of the group climbed piles of hay bales while we waited.
Once everyone was together, we followed the marked trail along Fox Farm Road and down to the intersection with Wester/Decker Road, where the trail goes into the open fields.
This spot as well as the spot on Ridge Road where we reached the pipeline are both going to be getting official state park parking lots in the near future.
We walked out across the field section to the building where they do the hawk banding, and I pointed out the epic view of the Delaware Water Gap.
We then continued through the fields and down hill through woods on the former Shandor Tract.
The former property owner, Bob Shandor, is kind of a legend in Warren County.

Bob Shandor's favorite spot

His favorite spot was this peak along this section of the trail, which I would like to name “Shandor Heights” in his memory. He was a good friend of my grandfather’s, and one of my predecessors as Chairman of the Board of Recreation. He was still active in local politics when I first got involved in these issues myself.
Mr. Shandor’s favorite spot is along the trail in this section.
As the story goes, a young Bob Shandor ran with his friends to the top of this part of Scott's Mountain, and proclaimed that he would one day own that land. He went on to do just that, and the property has since conveyed to the State of NJ for use on the trail.
When the property was conveyed, it was put on as a stipulation that the Bob Shandor memorial, at the point where his chair sat, was “under construction”.
The chair isn’t there any more, but it’s still something we would like to create something on.

The Jersey Woodsman at the bottom

There was quite a bit more chainsaw work to do in the areas ahead. Several trees had fallen down we had to climb through, and one section of a switchback was grown in pretty badly with Autumn Olive. I pointed out to Tom that these were places we were going to have to come back to. The trail uses old logging roads to get down to the bottom.
At the bottom, we pass through a corner of Harkers Hollow Golf Course where they had encroached a bit. We have a good relationship with the new owners, who have been very supportive of our endeavors.
Unfortunately, not everyone likes it, and such is the case with this guy Kenny that lives across the course. For years, every time I came out of there, he would come out of his house screaming at us. It was as if he forgot who I was every time. The second to last time his wife yelled at me and called me a “freak” for hiking in a suit.
Every time we repainted the blazes on the road walk section, he would come out and paint them out. He even used a paint thinner that made all remnants of it deteriorate at one point. This year, he put up “no trespassing” signs that read Harkers Hollow Golf Club on them, and then called up the golf club and let them know “I posted your property for you”.
The problem was, he posted the state park property as Harkers Hollow. He knew he was doing it, because he used to post it as his hunting club. He tried telling me that it was his club. I told him it wasn’t. He then told me that his club leases it. I told him it doesn’t. He then said “Well my sister is a state trooper” to which I told him I don’t care. He’s just hell-bent on keeping people out of there.
Recently, my buddy the Jersey Woodsman was doing more volunteer work with me, and we reblazed and put a new post in the ground for the trail, and he used Quick-krete to get it in there permanently. Kenny ripped it out by the next morning.
So, park police were called, and since that time everything has been alright. No blazes have been painted out again, and the post remains in the ground to this day.
We walked out of the property with no problem, and this was the first time I’ve ever brought a group through there I think without him coming out screaming at us.
We walked down hill, turned right on 519, and then left on Strykers Road.
The one weird thing that happened was that this same pickup truck kept driving by us fast and revving its engine. It went by on Strykers Road, and then again on Belvidere Road further up, so whoever it was knows where the trail is supposed to go.
We followed Strykers Road to the Farmers Fairground tract, and walked the field perimeters. We cut through the first field, and then into the woods between the second and third to the Warren County owned Geiger Tract. It was a bit rough, but not terrible at all. There were some great sunset views along this bit heading out to Belvidere Road.

Warren Highlands posts

The group started to split up at this point. Some of them went ahead of me much more quickly on the marked trail route. Some of the others decided they would just follow Belvidere Road to the end (LAME), and others decided they were going to get a ride out.
I was just surprised that we made it to the entrance to the Marble Hill properties prior to it getting dark.
We turned right at the nice routed sign into the property that John Kosar made, and then headed up through the woods to the field sections. I had painted the posts there entirely the Highlands Trail teal color to make sure they could be seen, and they were still standing well in place from when I put them up a couple of years ago with Beau Lia.
We went up hill on the abandoned former Kelly Lane, and I pointed out where the old school house used to be on the left side. Someone told me somewhat recently that this was called the Buttonwood School. This might make sense, because Kelly Lane used to be a sort of through route over the mountain, and it would probably line up with a road called Buttonwood Lane on the other side of Marble Hill, off of Marble Hill Road.
We continued uphill through the old farmstead, and then reached the peak where there is a great view over Lopatcong Township.

View of Lopatcong on Warren Highlands Trail

We turned left, and then right into the woods on the old road, and then left again on the foot path through the state Marble Hill tract.
Tom had cut out early because Stephanie was having knee problems on the steep down hill. He got his mom to come and pick them up, and said he was going to come back and meet up.
At this point, he had already been out over eight hours with us, and he called back asking if it would be okay if he just went home. I had to laugh; of course it was fine, he didn’t have to do any of it if he didn’t want, but he’s just such a nice guy, he wanted to be sure everything would be okay.
The next section of trail needs a lot of work. I need to get in there with a chainsaw, and have needed to for many months now. I just haven’t had the chance to get up there with anyone willing to do the work. Whoever does it has to be willing to walk the entire tract, and although Tom is totally willing, he does not have chainsaw certification yet. It used to be that I could do chainsaw work with seasonal employees, but can’t any more. I know Bruce will do it, but they keep him pretty busy.

My then and now of Union Square

We continued walking, and it was kind of hard to see where the trail was supposed to go. It’s gotten to be quite a mess with one enormous fallen tree over the way that’s going to take a lot of work. Newcomer Kyle was a big help navigating through here.
Once on the other side, the trail picks up another old woods road and is easy until we got to the utility line crossing.
After the power line, the trail becomes a footpath again. Someone had come through with an ATV or something and widened it out quite a lot back there, which is kind of upsetting. I created a major foot path that took a lot of time back there, and figured it was a good section not to have torn up.
I intentionally made this section of trail so that it would go by all of the largest trees on the property, so it’s a pretty special section to me.
We came out to the yellow connecting trail, climbed down through the drainage ditches, passed the red Lopatcong Connector trail, and then passed over the bad washouts from the high school construction.
I’m not sure where there are with their court case on that now, but the washout has gotten far worse. A deep cut with suspended roots is just below the trail.
We continued along the Warren Highlands Trail past the yellow trail intersection, then up through the Rhododendrons to the Mine Trail intersection. We re-grouped, and I brought everyone on the mine trail past the ore veins and mine operation. We then descended to the Fulmer Mine where we took a break.
Everyone seemed to like it; it’s always a cool spot to take a break and have a look around. It was actually warmer inside for once. It was kind of odd, because locally they call it “The Ice Cave”, but there was no way it was getting any ice today.

We continued down hill on Warren Highlands from the mine trail, with the Delaware River darkly in view to the right. Dan somehow got behind us, and I could see his light moving around, but wasn’t quite catching us. We continued to the bottom, and then I gave the option of doing the giant pipe or doing the road walk section on the “official trail”.
Everyone happily accepted the pipe fate, and we headed across the tracks and down hill into Phillipsburg Riverview Association land. The good path led us along the river, from it being wide to narrow, and then we climbed over the concrete ridged wall to the big pipe I’ve gone through so many times.
Newcomer Pam with her poodle were handling it great. Some of the group were taking bets that she’d be the first not to be able to handle it, but she hung in there right to the end, and through everything. She even was considering doing my twenty miler the next Saturday!

Here are two of my cats because why the hell not

We passed through the pipe, and I sang some Boz Scaggs until the acoustics went away on the other side. I also broke out into a full sprint into the dark when they didn’t seem to believe I’d do it. There’s really no obstacles in the pipe, and so doing this is pretty safe.
We climbed out the other side, and then Dan was heading down the road behind us. We followed River Road and turned right on the official trail route then toward North Main Street, and cut across the tracks to get to the boat launch parking area directly.
By this time, all of the drivers except for myself and Diane had gotten back to their cars. Justin dropped us off, and we all headed to the Draught House in Washington to get some dinner (I had spoken to the owner, Dave English, two days before, and he was prepared to open a full room for us if necessary).
Development of the trail has been very positive in 2019, and I can only hope 2020 will be as positive. If not, I’ll just have to keep pushing for it.

HAM