Hike #1299; Ragged Ridge to Phillipsburg

Hike #1299; Ragged Ridge to Phillipsburg

2/20/20 Ragged Ridge to Phillipsburg with Justin Gurbisz and Kirk Rohn

This next one would be another point to point, this time a variation of the same hike I did for the First Day Hike on New Years Day, only with a lot of different stuff for the second half.

Sun going down on Ragged Ridge

I was kind of surprised that only Justin and Kirk were interested in it. Maybe it was because much of the group had already seen some of this section of trail on that day.
Still, I had just put in a new section of trail between work and my own time that made one of the bits of this a bit better.
I had had some problems with the Warren Highlands Trail in Harmony Township for a long while. It seems like as soon as I get a new section opened up, there is another problem with another local trying to rip it all out and ruin it.
The latest problem we had faced was that someone went so far as to remove bolts holding together trail markers on the section just to the north of Ragged Ridge.

The view from Ragged Ridge

They had messed up the posts and such, and so the section at the bottom of the mountain closer to Rt 519 was going to be a huge problem too. I decided that wherever possible, if I could move the trail off into deeper woods, they would not screw with the trail markers as much. I was only having problems really where the trail was out in the open, at least on this property.
I was able to get some time at work to get the project going. Verdon Pensyl, my brother’s former brother-in-law had been working for the parks since the Summer, and he recently got the call that he was going to be a full time employee at Round Valley.

Bud working the trail

Before that time came and I couldn’t get his help any more, I asked him to come in and work with me for a day to get some of this new trail section going. I know he’ll work his ass off and won’t complain one bit about going up the mountains or for miles through the woods to get the work done (which is all the more amazing I haven’t been able to rope him into doing one of the regular hikes yet). I had him help me with the Ragged Ridge segment, and in just one day we constructed nine switchbacks and even more trail to connect to the Student Conservation Association work area I’d set up over the Fall.

Tom helping me build the trail

I got extra lucky with this project, because not only did I get Verdon, I got Tom Rozmirski, who just started full time with me a couple of months back. He had helped out on the first day hike as well, and never had a problem with all of the crazy back woods trail stuff before either. When he was just a seasonal, I brought him all through the Marble Hill state properties and got a ton of chainsaw work done as well. I didn’t remember until he reminded me, but I also brought him to both another Ridge Road tract and Harkers Hollow tracks to do some work as well. As such, he’s seen more of our Warren County properties than anyone currently in the full time system at the parks.
We worked almost the entire day Friday, and managed to get the entire new section of trail cleared above the fields parallel with Rt 519. We also managed to clear much of a new route out of the rear of the Van Nest-Hoff-Vanatta Farmstead.
Since this was just finished, I figured I could go up and check on the rest of Ragged Ridge and see what more I need to do, as well as bring a group through the newly constructed stuff.

Warren Highlands Trail; Ragged Ridge section

I made the meeting point/end point the boat launch in Phillipsburg, where we had gone so many times before. From there, we would shuttle to the pull out parking off the corner of Ragged Ridge, on NJ Conservation Foundation lands on Fiddler’s Elbow Road, where we had started the First Day Hike.
When Justin and Kirk showed up, we headed out to the start point.

Along the trail

We walked down Fiddlers Elbow Road to Harmony-Brass Castle Road, the worst part of the hike. I always forget just how far this road walk is between sections. I really need to get a new off road trail section between there. It’s going to be a ton of work.
We soon reached the driveway where the trail comes off the end. We made our way up along the switchbacks that Verdon and I built, which all looked pretty good all the way to the top. It wasn’t until a little ways up over the top that we reached some trees that looked intentionally bent over the trail. This is getting into the area where there is a lot of ATV use, and where some of the locals want to keep all of this land to themselves.

Sunset on the trail

We continued on without problems other than that, to the very top of Ragged Ridge and the cut out stones that the local Lenape tribe used as their smoke signal sequence communication center. The view from the top was really good this time of day, with the sun setting to the west. Our view was mostly to the north.

View to Wind Gap on Ragged Ridge

I got a photo from the far west side of the rock to send out to Ernie Kabert, Superintendent of Worthington State Forest. As it turns out, the view from here features the power plant over in Martins Creek PA area, and as such, would also have the area of the proposed warehouses they want to build in Hope. This makes this trail more imporant.

On the trail

Because the viewshed from the trail is effected, it is now of more interest politically to block this warehouse from going in. The fact that Interstate 80 cannot handle the additional truck traffic is, or at least should be, reason enough.
We continued along the trail from here, with the rock outcroppings along Ragged Ridge. We walked over the stone improvements made by Student Conservation Associating to connect the cusp of the ridge with the old logging road system a bit further below. The sun continued to set which was quite lovely.
We zigzagged on down and crossed over the brook at the bottom, which is actually a tributary to the Buckhorn Creek I believe rather than Lopatcong as I previously believed. The pallets I had thrown into the creek for crossing with Larry Phillips before New Years were now gone. I don’t know if someone picked them out and threw them away, or if they had washed down stream in one of the storms we’d had since then.

The map of the section that I have now rerouted

We reached the parking spot on Ridge Road, and there was a bunch of garbage dumped. Mostly just bags of cheap liquor and stuff laying there.
There had been a lot of heavy ATV use on this section since last I was on it, and they went directly across the street and up onto the state land on the other side. This created deep ruts into the springs along the access lane on the other side.

Missing blaze on the post.

We passed the old spring house on the right, where there used to be a farmstead beyond, and the first post I’d put in the ground to signify a turn had had the wooden block with the blazes on it removed. When I was there last, it was still on it, but the metal had been twisted so that the blaze was facing into the wrong direction. I had straightened it that time so that it was at least correct. I soon found the missing wooden block and was even more disheartened.
Someone had not just torn it off, they’d shot it apart. This one had the entire top left corner of it blasted to bits, and the rest of it full of holes from what looked to be bird shot.

Shot up Warren Highaldns marker

I was pretty angry about it. Of course, it is the individual that is responsible for destroying this, not the gun, but there are a lot of people who will try to blame the gun and try to use this as more reason to take away gun rights.
This is a very heated thing right now, as many different counties and municipalities are declaring themselves “2A Sanctuaries” out of concerns that their right to bear arms be taken away.
Clearly, discharging firearms so close to the road, and at times toward the road, is unsafe, and destruction of park property is just awful, so these people shouldn’t even have guns.
I posted the photos of what had happened on Metrotrails, and of course I got some lip from a complete moron calling everyone that said this was awful “little girls”, and making comments about Bernie Sanders. All I can think when it comes to this is that a person like that, who feels the need to assert himself so heavily on a post where I clearly was trying to support gun ownership, is probably not safe to have out there should her assert himself with a gun.

Another trail marker blasted away

Whether we like it or not, we all represent someone other than ourselves with all of our actions. Why not make it good?
People can categorize me as a state employee, as a hiker, as a Republican, or as a Liberal, depending on what the issue at hand is. Or as so many other things.
All I want is to have a well marked trail so that people going up there won’t get lost. Unfortunately, there are people who think that even though this is fully owned state park land, and even though the trail is not even visible to any private homes, that they should have exclusive rights to use the property.
People have been saying “Oh it’s just NIMBYs, I wouldn’t want a trail going through my back yard either”. To that, I have to keep saying “IT DOES NOT GO THROUGH ANYONE’S BACK YARD HERE!”. Plain and simple, this is entitled, selfish pieces of garbage who don’t deserve access to this property at all let alone something exclusive.
I was even more annoyed when we walked up to the next trail marker, and it too was blasted into unrecognizable pieces of kindling. Every one of the trail markers up to the top of the first fields had been removed or shot apart. When we got to the top of the hill and cut through the line of trees to the next field, the metal post had been broken just below the wooden block with the trail marker on it. After that, where the trail goes back into the woods, all of the blazes were still in place with no problems at all.
We continued along the trail to a seasonal overlook, and then down hill on the switchback woods road.
There were a ton of trees down over the woods road now. Some of them looked like they might have been intentionally pushed over. There was evidence of ATVs going up the hill, and we could see where one of them got stuck and could not continue further up.
Closer to the bottom, we reached the new trail section and started walking it.

The new trail section

I was glad that someone got to see this work before leaves come up and blow over it, or before lots of vegetation starts to grow through. This was a lot of work that went into it, and almost the entire long section is completely raked out. It was really very good foot way. At times, it was very hard to get it clear because I was kicking so many rocks out of the way.
For a lot of it, we found an old woods road that had not been touched in many years, and sawed off as many of the fallen branches from it as we could. There were a couple that were just too big to be worth it though.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to get up there with a chainsaw and a coworker and get some of the stuff back off the trail again. There are I think a total of 18 trees I’d like to cut through on the stretch we walked on this hike.
We reached the end of the new section at the corner of the corn fields, and then followed that back out to Rt 519. I realized when we got there that the shoulder of the road is far narrower than even it seemed on the first day hike. I would have to cut some new trail off the corner of the fields out to the road, because there is just no line of sight there where the farm access lane comes out. Ultimately, I would like to get the trail on the other side of the road through some of the state land there, and maybe eliminate some more of the road walking, but that’s a lot more work and a ways off. I don’t have time to maintain what I’ve already installed, and they can’t commit more time from me through work to get it done.

The new trail section

I still need to get up there and paint out the old blazes, and then paint the new ones on the new section of trail, but for now it’s quite easy to follow anyway.
We followed 519 for a ways to the west, and then turned to the right toward Hutchinson, a little community on the Delaware River named for descendants of mine.
We made a wrong turn on the road toward Brainards and had to backtrack just a bit, but otherwise did fine.
We went under the railroad underpass in Hutchinson, across from the dive bar known as “The Hutch”, and turned left onto a dead end road that leads to some riverfront homes.
I figured it would be easy to climb up to the Bel Del Railroad bed from down there, but there was always a high stone wall on the left side until we were near the end of the road. We should have just tried to climb up at the bridge across from The Hutch!

View across the Delaware to former Con Agra

From here, it was very easy and straightforward. Just follow the old Bel Del line.
The stretch is quite nice on a shelf above the Delaware, often with high cliffs to the left. We passed by the Merrill Creek pump station, and then made our way further onward to Brainards, on the NJ side from Martins Creek where there was a connection with the former Lackawanna/Bangor and Portland Railroad. There also was once a station on the Bel Del there.
We followed the line parallel with the street and a couple of houses, and there was a truck with its headlights on the tracks straight ahead. We chose to leave the tracks and follow the parallel road for a while as not to alarm anyone, because there was a fence ahead.

Martins Creek Station, built in 1906. This image was taken in 1955 by John Dziobko Jr.

Once we were passed the grade crossing, the truck pulled out and turned the other way. Oddly, it did not leave. It followed a parallel street a block to the east, and then headed back toward us along the road beside the tracks. We moved a little further ahead, and then headed back down. There was a train parked along the tracks at the junction, and partially on the trestle over to Martins Creek PA. We went along that for a bit, but couldn’t get across to the other side because it was probably across the entire bridge. Instead, we headed to the end of the train on the NJ side and continued on the tracks from there.
We were soon away from town, and passed by one other farm with some lights on, but had no problems. We then moved on to the south, across from Con Agra former facility, which was well lit along the river.

Former Con Agra site

We soon reached Harmony Station area, which has a nice little road parallel with the tracks for a while.
I’m not sure what became of the Harmony Station itself. Some say it is now a shed in someone’s back yard, which does resemble several of the small old shanty stations that existed on the line. There is also another station type building along Rt 519 nearby, and no one seems to know where it came from, but looks similar to the Martins Creek station.

Historic image of the Hutchinson Station from Patricia Pasch collection

We continued south, and at some point we skirted a junk yard that I did not know existed. I’d walked this stretch of track so many times, both on day and night hikes, and just never really paid attention to it.
It turns out it is one of the Shandor properties. The Shandor family has been a big land holder in western Warren County for a long time, and Shandor’s junkyard up on Montana Mountain was known to be one of the best junk yards to go to for parts.
We continued walking to the south, passed the marble place at the bottom of Marble Hill, and could see the ambient light shining through Weygadt Gap. We continued on the railroad grade twice when the road came close to the tracks, and then turned off when we got to the Phillipsburg Riverview Association property to the right. We then walked along the Delaware down stream just a bit like we often do, and went through the long pipe under the industrial site.
The pipe this time was loaded with cave crickets, which I’m not used to seeing in there. Justin made a funny sound because he was so grossed out by it.
We emerged on the other side, and a cop went by while we were walking. I was surprised that he didn’t come back to ask what we were doing walking out there. He did slow down when he got further away, but then never came back over.
I told the guys about when I walked this stretch and was picked up by the cops in 2000, because there had just been a prostitute from Easton killed and dumped along there.
We continued along the official trail route to JT Baker Way, and turned left on Chintewink Alley to do something different. Immediately, there was a bunk of junk out along the alley at a back yard. It looked like a house had just been cleaned out. We looked through some of the stuff, and there was probably some that was actually good.
Kirk found a razor scooter, which was actually good, and he rode it to the end of the hike!
We made our way to South Main Street, and cut across the tracks to the lot at the boat launch. There were cop cars everywhere when we got up there, which was quite odd. Justin drove me back to my car, and they didn’t give us any hard time about getting out of the lot. I still don’t know what was going on there.
It had been a nice hike and I’ll have to do another variation with another section of the Warren Highlands in the future as I continue to improve it. The first bit is quite good and worth repeating a few times, as long as there is something of interest to do after that.

HAM