Hike #1296; High Bridge and Bunnvale Loop
2/12/20 High Bridge and Bunnvale Loop with Justin Gurbisz, Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell, Sue Bennett, Ken Zaruni, and Kirk Rohn
This next hike would be our next night hike, after my work hours at Spruce Run. As always, I try to plan these things for someplace I can get to within a half an hour of being let out.
Uncle Soup parked on the old tracks
In this case, I could do it in under fifteen minutes, because I chose to start out in High Bridge, just up the hill from Spruce Run.
I’ve done a whole lot of night hikes through this area in the past, but it had been a while since I did something directly out of High Bridge so I decided to do a variation of some of the past hikes I’d done utilizing mostly the same places, but also throwing a couple of other things in there that I had never done before.
The weather had been quite forgiving for a February, and there was no snow on the ground, so foot paths were totally something we could get away with doing.
I decided the loop would incorporate the Taylor Steelworkers Historic Greenway, which I helped to develop with Union Forge Heritage Association in 2010, the former High Bridge Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, Voorhees State Park, the Nassau Tract, and the High Bridge Hills golf club.
New cuts in the rails
As is typical of days like thise, we just never know what to expect or what might happen to us along the way, and this hike was no exception.
I sort of changed some things up right form the start. I hadn’t thought too hard into the route we would take through town at the start, but I based it on who showed up.
Everyone seemed pretty into the history when we got there, so the first thing I decided to do was to follow the old High Bridge Branch, which was developed as a main artery to carry the iron ore out of Morris County to be processed.
High Bridge Branch and coal trestle siding
The High Bridge Commons lot where we met is an interesting place in that this was the “wye”, or where the line split to connect to the main line of the Central Railroad, either heading eastbound or westbound.
Uncle Soup parked right on the westbound tracks, which are partially covered by the gravel surfacing of the parking lot. The eastbound track is still in place along the edge of the parking lot, although this time someone had come along and cut off the rails to make way for a connecting path from the main street. It was totally unnecessary because they could have just graveled over it. Some people just need to be destructive.
The coal trestle
We followed the old tracks into the woods, and passed the old coal trestle off to the side, which also still has rails on it. It’s amazing that any of this is still standing. It’s been rotting there badly for at least thirty years. I remember going out on it back in 2002 and my legs falling through some of it.
We continued past this, and soon the tracks crossed a bridge over the former spur line that came off of the CNJ main line to the Taylor Wharton facility. It would have descended from the main tracks, now NJ Transit, and then weaved under the High Bridge Branch. There are still rails in down there, but badly covered over with debris and such that had been dumped there.
Crossing the Taylor Wharton Spur
We crossed the bridge and then descended to the railroad right of way below, which passes between buildings out to the main street. I had somewhat recently done a huge series of then and nows on this with photos taken and provided to me by Bill Jentz.
I was actually supposed to meet Mr. Jentz in person for the first time the previous Thursday. In fact, I was supposed to have this hike the previous Wednesday, but I was so sick following the trip to Connecticut that I decided to postpone to this week.
Taylor Wharton spur underpass
I took the entire week off of work because I was feeling so bad. Improvement didn’t start to come until Friday, and then I hiked Saturday which seemed to help more.
Unfortunately, Justin was the only one on that Connecticut trip that seemed to get any of the sickness from me. The others all still appear to be very healthy. On this hike, Justin’s voice had only just barely begun to come back, and sounded a bit off.
Once on Main Street, we turned left briefly and headed to the liquor store on the corner. I saw they had Weyerbacher’s Blithering Idiot, and so I grabbed a four pack. Uncle Soup insisted on treating me to this one, so I insisted he would have to have some.
The guy working the store chatted with us for a little bit about where we were going, and asked if we were heading up onto “the trail”. I let him know there wasn’t just “a trail”, but many trails through the entire area and that we were doing a big loop. I tried to tell him how awesome the area is.
My then and now with photo from Bill Jentz
The guy seemed pretty interested, and he said he wanted to try to arrange a pub crawl with other local business owners. He said he wanted to have people do shots or taste wine or something at his establishment, then go to the brewery, the restaurant, etc.
I thought this seemed like a pretty cool concept, but unfortunately I did not have my business cards on me. I’m actually running low anyway.
I told him I would come back in to discuss it with him at a later time, because that could actually be a fun event to be a part of.
We headed to McDonald Street and turned left. I then pointed out where the old trestle used to stand that carried the Taylor-Wharton Spur over both McDonald Street and Washington Ave, and where a smaller one went over Center Street. I have a huge series of then and nows of this bridge thanks to Mr. Jentz.
TISCO building
We headed to the east abutment of the bridge, and climbed to the top where we followed the railroad bed out to the TISCO site, or Taylor Iron and Steel Company.
I went over some of the history here, how it started as the Union Ironworks, just outside of town, when William Allen and Juseph Turner purchased thirty thousand acres of land for charcoal production and called it the Union. This is why much of the area there is now known as Union Township. Main operations shifted from the area that is now Spruce Run to High Bridge around 1760. In 1769, Irish Immigrant Robert Taylor became iron master at the site, which provided munitions for Washington’s army during the Revolution in 1775. Taylor purchased control of the company in 1803, and the name changed.
Kyle's memorial
The site only continued to grow after the advent of the railroad.
When I met Bill Honachefsky in 2008, we became immediate friends and I loved the Union Forge Heritage Association plan of linking a public greenway between all of the historic sites around the High Bridge area.
One of the necessary connections was an 1890 Carnegie truss bridge over the South Branch of the Raritan that would connect segments. Metrotrails volunteers helped UFHA to remove all of the old planking and put on new, and then I helped Bill to blaze the entire trail system. We had a grand opening of it in 2010.
Sadly, my best friend Kyle Zalinsky was not able to be a part of that. He passed away in May of 2010, and his memorial is along the trail just beyond the bridge he helped us to rehabilitate. We crossed over the bridge, turned left on the greenway on an easement donated to UFHA by Custom Alloy, which is a newer metal fabrication organization still operating in portions of the original Taylor-Wharton facility.
Solitude House and company store
We stopped at Kyle’s stone, where people had added more stuff to the site. There was an ornate piece of marble that looked like part of a grave stone, but not sure where that came from.
We headed along the trail to the west, and stopped next at the bloomery forge, of which wall remnants are still in place.
Everyone was into it enough that I decided we would continue on the side trail to the Solitude House, which was the old iron master’s house built in the early 1700s. It was heavily added upon over the years, but retains beautiful historic ambiance.
UFHA was very successful operating the house as a museum for many years, but the greedy and foolish town leaders were always at odds with the group. Even when we were doing greenway work, they would send cease and desist orders basically because they couldn’t take any credit for it.
The history of Union Forge Heritage Association goes back to how their historic group was basically a coffee and talking group, but members wanted to do something more.
Solitude Dam
UFHA was formed as a non profit to get this dream to come true.
They brought over one hundred thousand dollars worth in grants to the town and created an amazing museum.
The original mayor and council at the time was all for all of this, but when he was ousted, the new leadership was not so friendly.
They wanted to turn the Solitude House into a Bed and Breakfast and try to make some money on it (although with Green Acres funds, that was not legal). The disagreements with the non profit continued until the time had come to renew their lease on Solitude.
Collapsing walls at Solitude
In order to understand what happened here, you have to have an understanding of how these grants work.
In order to be eligible for state and federal grant moneys, an organization has to have what is defined as a “long term lease”, which is a minimum of fifteen years. It’s fair enough, because they want to be sure that the investment is something that will substantially benefit the public.
UFHA relied on grant money for all of their operations, all of their improvements they made to the Solitude House, to the trail, to the TISCO building, and more.
Walls collapsing
The town under then mayor Mark Desire offered UFHA only a five year lease, with the caveat that they could dissolve that lease at any time if they saw fit. In doing so, they cut off the group from basically all grant money. There was really no choice but to reject the offer. As such, the town can legitimately claim that UFHA left on their own accord, despite the fact that they really had no choice.
UFHA got an even longer term lease on the 1760 Joseph Turner House even closer to the original site, and took their collection of historic artifacts from Solitude House and placed them there.
The town was under the impression that they owned the collection, but they did not, and so they basically lost everything that made the site a draw. The community garden that the organization had implemented is now gone. The trail to the lower end of the Solitude dam is grown over. The walls along the driveway are collapsing. The slave quarters is collapsing.
Along the Springside Farm trails
The town simply has no way of managing the property without some sort of dedicated organization in place to protect it.
There is a lot of ignorance as to how important this site is to American History.
It was at Solitude House that John Penn, last royal governor of Pennsylvania, and his assistant Banjamin Chew, were sort of held “prisoners of war” during the American Revolution. Penn was of course of the peaceful Quaker beliefs, and he could stir up political trouble if allowed to remain in Philadelphia, and so he was brought to live as a “guest” of Robert Taylor.
Old building at Springside tract
It is supposedly Penn who nicknamed the site “Solitude”, which became the original name for the settlement until about 1853 when the Central Railroad of New Jersey buit its high bridge over the South Branch of the Raritan River.
We continued past the Solitude House, where at least it was obvious work was being done on the northern porch. The stone walls lining the driveway were collapsing very badly. They had been in pretty good order only a couple of years ago.
We continued from there past the old company store. I pointed out the slave quarters, which was actually considered to be quite luxurious among others at the time. The building was quite tiny still.
We headed up to see the Solitude Dam, and I told everyone about jumping off of it in years past. We then made our way back past Solitude House, down the driveway, and then back to the Greenway, which turns from the Custo Alloy easement and up Nassau Road.
Old barn ruin.
Cyclists have for years been cutting the corner around the actual easement, which is totally illegal because it was defined as an easement only where UFHA still owns it.
We headed up hill on Nassau Road to where the greenway is supposed to cut into the woods, and I could barely see any of the blazes beyond the entrance. They had caution tape up over the entire trail system saying it was closed, but that was only at the one road crossing. The access before that had no such sign.
I was immediately annoyed when I saw that someone had painted out the yellow greenway blazes we had put in in early 2010 and late 2009. The cylcist group that has been constructing new trails there have built them all so that each curve is tight and only a few feet from the previous ones. These trails basically used about as much of the land as possible, but they have closed off the direct through hiking route we had previously used.
I was as annoyed as can be after a bit seeing where our trail had been. No one would hike through on this greenway today. It’s garbage for walkers. It weaves around annoyingly so, and doesn’t really showcase anything. It’s just a thrill ride for bikes.
We started just cutting corners trying to follow these trails, and headed generally the way the old trail used to go. I could see where at times sticks had been placed to cover up where the old trail was, but even finding the paint blazes was pretty much impossible.
I can understand cyclists closing their trails down as not to rut the place up too much, but it should have been that the main greenway should remain open to hikers. It is now an elitist, exclusive clique park that only a small contingent of people will enjoy.
The trails are not even marked well. Occasional routed signs read “Matt’s Trail”, or “shortcut” or whatever, but they don’t really tell us anything at all.
We eventually just cut through an open meadow and out to Nassau Road where we continued straight. When I saw the trail headed where we were supposed to come out, we turned around and started walking Nassau Road back to the west. Eventually, we came to the entrance road to Springside Farm, where the trail used to turn in the driveway. Some of those blazes are still in place. We followed into the driveway only briefly, next to a huge old white home, and then cut into fields immediately. We walked directly across on a cleared path, and then came to the wood line where there was more caution tape blocking the way.
The trails in this area weave around even more than before, and we had to just cut over them countless times in order to make our way to where we were going. I wanted to swing by an old barn building back there we had seen previously. From there, we just headed down hill and crossed over a small brook off trail to reach Wilson Avenue.
We turned left on Wilson and headed back down hill to the intersection of Nassau Road and Washington Avenue. We then continued straight onto the Taylor Steelworkers Historic Greenway, and followed it back across the Carneige Truss to the TISCO building.
The group above the dam
We turned right and continued on the greenway beyond TISCO and gradually up hill above the Solitude Dam, where I got a group shot, and then on to the western terminus of the trail at the old High Bridge Branch of the CNJ (this is now the “Columbia Trail”, but I won’t refer to it as that beyond this point because it never should have been named for a gas line that used the rail bed for ten years prior, instead of the railroad that used it for 100 before that).
We continued on the railroad bed from here heading to the east, through Readingsburg, and then into the Ken Lockwood Gorge. It’s a really pleasant place to walk through.
We continued through the gorge until we got to where the Highlands Trail comes in from the right.
The Highlands Trail is a 170 miles trail that connects Storm King Mountain on the Hudson River to Riegelsville on the Delaware. I love that route for its diversity.
This section has been problematic ever since it was put in. Hunters using Ken Lockwood Gorge Wildlife Management Area, which it traverses from here, constantly remove the trail markers to keep people from walking through. They always have to be repainted or tags hammered back up.
This had not been a problem for a while, but they clearly just ripped them down again. The blazes that had been painted were even to a great degree scraped off of the trees. I watched closely to try to find the. Fortunately, the trail had been delineated by rock placing, which helped us to stay on it for a bit.
As we got to the spot where the guy has his hunting stand (we know he’s the problem), and we headed up hill just a bit more, we saw flashlights coming toward us.
This was a bit unnerving. I never see anyone on this segment of trail, at night or otherwise, and here were some people.
We chose to sit still for a few moments as the figures moved slowly toward us. I decided we would just continue ahead and see what was going on after a bit.
The people were two students from Voorhees High School. I told them we were surprised to see anyone out there at all.
They told us they were out searching for their lost friend that had been missing since around 3:30 when school let out. Apparently he had had a meeting with a counselor or teacher or something and his parents, then got angry and ran off. The kids told us that he threw his car keys into his car and took off with no phone, no nothing, and they had been searching for him since.
I asked a few questions regarding whether he was armed, any history of mental illness, etc. We of course were heading through he area and if we saw something we could then report it.
The missing person report
The guy’s name was Joseph Delusant, age 18, and was wearing a red hooded sweat shirt we were told.
If I were running off, I think I might have tried to hide in the abandoned house in Ken Lockwood Gorge WMA, which was pretty close by. I thought I saw another flash light further up the hill and figured someone was checking it.
I asked the kids if they knew about it, and they said they did not.
Now, either they just didn’t want to admit to knowing about that place, which is entirely possible since it’s off limits, or kids these days are entirely too boring. Whatever the case, I figured it has to be sort of common knowledge, so I decided at that moment we would reroute the hike a little bit to check and see if we could find this guy.
The two kids put me on the phone with Joseph’s father, and I asked a few more questions. It old him where we were headed, and let him know I would check the abandoned house for him.
We continued on the trail up hill, and the blazes were still rather poor for a time.
One thing that was kind of different was some other little trails through these woods. One of them, from what the kids told us, goes toward “the pit” by Voorhees High School. I wasn’t aware that there was a new connecting trail back in there, but it was quite nice. We accidentally turned left and ended up following it to a section of woods closer to the high school. When I saw there were no blazes, we had to backtrack quite a bit.
We made our way back to the trail, turned left, and followed it a ways. There was a fallen tree over it, and it was less pronounced than the one to the high school, so I had to watch close for the blazes. Eventually, we found our way back to the old road that leads to the house. Highlands Trail goes right, but we went left to the house. I called out to Joseph just in case he was there. I said that we weren’t the police but that people are worried. We went into the place and looked around every room, but could find no one inside. Part of me honestly thought he might have been in there.
The house was more trashed than it had been on every other previous visit, which is really sad. The place was really nice the first times we had seen it.
We headed back down the old roadway to the Highlands Trail, and then continued out to Rt 513. We then turned left slightly up hill to the mini mart in Bunnvale where we stopped for a break for a bit.
Uncle Soup shared some popcorn he had gotten there, and we all hung out and ate a bit. I talked about how I mess with people at work and such and get them to think there’s something wrong with me. Shaking water bottles like crazy pretending like I have no control over them, losing control of vehicles. It’s good to be silly to get through the day.
We continued from the mini mart out past the Bunnvale church, then a little bit further where we turned right into Voorhees on the Highlands Trail route. We did not continue on that trail, but rather continued right down through the fields, to the right of the old farm pond, and then down hill to the lower end of the field. We then turned to the left and headed out toward Loop Road, and turned right on Brookside Trail.
We continued on the trail, and I shared some brown sugar cinnamon pop tarts gifted to me from Ken. We continued along this away from the Willoughby Brook and up hill to the Highlands Trail. We turned left briefly, then right on Hill Acres Trail.
We followed Hill Acres Trail from there all the way across the park to the camp grounds. We took a brief break there for a bit at one of the cabins, then moved foward along the access road to the red blazed Observatory Trail. We took this to the pink blazed Vista Trail, next to the observatory itself, and turned right down hill.
Vista Trail is somewhat rocky, but we handled it pretty well. It took us back out to Observatory Road near the intersection with Fine Road. From there, we continued to just walk Observatory Road down hill to Buffalo Hollow Road.
We turned left on Buffalo Hollow and remained along the brook heading south. We headed gradually up hill and then out to Cregar Road. We turned right and crossed the bridge over the former CNJ railroad tracks, then cut across the road and into the High Bridge Hills golf club.
We had done a hike across this once before, but there are so many more cart paths I would not mind following. We did di a couple of them I’d never done heading through the center of the course. We headed all the way to the south side, and then followed the perimeter of it to the east, then north again to come out on Sunset Drive, around a giant net made to catch errant golf balls.
We followed Sunset to Hillcrest and turned left, and then turned right on West Main Street. We went slightly down hill, and then slightly up where a paved path went up to the left. This took us to Central Ave, and that brought us right to the middle of town at the railroad underpass. We turned left and reached the main drag through town.
The underpass in town
We turned left up the main street, and after not too long reached the Commons lot to finish the hike.
While we were there, a cop pulled in to ask what we were doing. He asked if we had been on the trail. I told him we were just on the roads but were on it earlier, and I let him know we went looking for Joseph, the missing kid. The officer told me that they still had not found him yet, and that’s why he had stopped to ask us about it. He took off to continue looking. I was rather surprised the kid handn’t been located yet.
By the morning when I woke up, they had found him safe, about 11:30 pm. No artcles detailed where he had been found, but at least he was home safe.
It had been a pretty good night. The weather held out in our favor overall, with just a little bit of rain and sleet the entire night. I got to cover a few thins I’d never done before, and lots that I already had, and enjoyed a very diverse route most would not consider ever being an option.
HAM
No comments:
Post a Comment