Hike #1305; Phillipsburg Area Loop

Hike #1305; Phillipsburg Area Loop

3/12/20 Phillipsburg Area Loop with Justin Gurbisz, Ellie Zabeth, Alyssa Lidman, Kirk Rohn, Mike Piersa, Professor John DiFiore, Joel Castus, Jennifer Tull, Carolyn Gokhale Gordon, Ken Zaruni, and Mike Merunka

The group in P Burg Mall

This next hike would be a large loop around the Phillipsburg area, hitting a lot of favorite points as well as a few things I’d never walked before!

Some old rails near Union Square

The hike came about following a short afternoon trip I’d done up to Mt. Parnassus in Phillipsburg recently to take some then and now photos.
I had posted the photos on line, and John was really into them. He said he’d never been up there but that he wanted to go.
I had actually never brought a group on any of my hikes to the top of the eastern portion of Mt. Parnassus I realized, and figured that this could be the justification for part of a hike.
Additionally, the Phillipsburg Mall was soon to close, and so we could go once more.

Former CNJ bridge

We had already done like four Phillipsburg Mall hikes recently, and I didn’t want to push it too far with them. I was glad we’d gone in and seen it through its decline, but adding it to the middle of the hike instead of making it one of the highlights was a better way of going about it this time.
I figured we could do Parnassus, and focus much of the hike again on the historic route of the Morris Canal, always a nice walk, and use that to get us over by the mall. From there, we could head north by way of a somewhat new route that would get us to Lopatcong Park and then Warren Highlands Trail.

Former CNJ bridge

We could then follow on or close to Warren Highlands Trail right back to where I started for about a fifteen mile loop.
The hike would be part historic route, part designated trail (which I laid out), and then the rest would be a mishmash of random stuff I pieced together to connect the other two. I was feeling pretty good about this one.
Instead of meeting at the Phillipsburg Mall, we again met at the Phillipsburg boat ramp, where we would begin by walking south toward the canal terminus. I was surprised to have such a large group show up for this one.

Morris Canal Arch

Alyssa was running a bit late, so she would meet up with us a bit later and miss just the first bit.
Once we were ready, we started heading south from the boat launch parking area and across Northampton Street next to the free bridge. We cut through the parking area for the Sand Bar, in the building made to resemble a sort of old rail station. We crossed the forer Lehigh and Hudson River Railway tracks, which led to its bridge over the Delaware River, and then followed the former Belvidere Delaware (Bel Del) southward toward the platform where the excursion train riders get on.

Historic view from Parnassus

I didn’t want to dilly dally too much in this area, along the railroad tracks. We hurried through below the high stone walls to the south.

View from Mt. Parnassus to Morgan Hill

Soon, we neared the little path which leads down to the Morris Canal Arch, the western terminus of the former canal at the Delaware River.

View from Mt. Parnassus

The Morris Canal once traveled 102 miles from Phillipsburg to Jersey City. It was the greatest climber of the world’s canals because it employed inclined plane technology. Multiple locks would have been necessary to accomplish what these short portage railroads did much more simply.
There were 23 Scotch Turbine driven inclined planes over the route of the canal, and the western terminus was where boats were connected between a basin at present day Delaware River Park and the river itself.

View to former Kent Yard from Mt. Parnassus

On the Easton PA side, the Lehigh Canal continued up the Lehigh River as far as Port Jenkins above White Haven. The Pennsylvania Canal Delaware Divison continued another sixty miles south along the Delaware to tide water at Bristol, just north of Philadelphia.
Boats could lock out of those canals via an outlet lock, and be ushered across the Delaware River by way of a cable ferry, and then up Inclined Plane #11 West. The stone archway we walked out on top of was constructed to protect the inclined plane from flood waters.

View from Mt. Parnassus

I gave a little history of the area, and soon a train came passing by on the former Central Railroad of New Jersey bridge over the Delaware.
Originally, a double decker rail bridge passed over the Delaware at about this site.
Transportation history in Phillipsburg in general is very interesting, but the bridges themselves at this point were particularly so, with the first double decker one having been built in 1855. This bridge was replaced in 1871 with two separate bridges.

Parnassus view

After that time, Central Railroad of New Jersey and Lehigh Valley Railroad both had their own crossings over the Delaware River. In 1889, the Lehigh and Hudson River Railway constructed their bridge to the north of this site. In the early 1900s, both CNJ and LV replaced their bridges with newer spans. Today, CNJ bridge is still in service because they had the stronger deck truss bridge. The old pinned bridge of the Lehigh Valley Railroad was not considered to be as strong, and so it is abandoned while the other two remain active.

Abandoned rails in Kent Yard

I pointed out where the doors used to be in the canal arch, and then we crossed back over to the other side. I instructed the group to head down below to the former inclined plane, and that I was going to go down by way of the ladders down a concrete thing that was built after abandonment of the canal along the arch. I think Justin and Kirk followed me down that. I started running around trying to get some then and now photos of the inclined plane.

Plane 11W

I don’t share all of the photos I get on these things on the journal entries any more, because I find that people steal them off of the posts and then share them all over other groups as if they took them, before I get around to posting them on the Metrotrails page.
Once at the bottom, we headed up between the piers, and we could easily see how there were vacant piers from the predecessors to the current bridges. we climbed up to where the inclined plane used to pass beneath the Bel Del Railroad, but I couldn’t locate the mostly buried abutments.

At the canal arch

Once on the other side, we continued up the former site of the inclined plane up to the former canal basin where there was a toll house, the power house, and other buildings. In the years following the canal, the site was used as a town dump, and today a skate park occupies the site.
This was quite a busy area from 1824 through at least the 1960s.
It’s hard to imagine, but there was a large iron furnace along the Delaware River, and countless docks and piers along the canal beside the railroads.

View from Parnassus

My next goal was to take the group from the canal out to the top of Mt. Parnassus. We ascended to Riverside Park and I pointed out where the power house would have been. We then made our way out to the fence at the end of the park with a walkway through it.

The old canal in P Burg

We passed through, and then reached the rock cut through the middle of Mt. Parnassus created to connect the Pennsylvania Railroad with the Lehigh Valley Railroad.

The Andover Ironworks at Phillipsburg

We made our way through some of the cut, and then cut to the left to start climbing up hill on the east face of Mt. Parnassus. This one is a rather steep climb, but we managed.

Looking toward the ironworks site

The eastern face actually has a somewhat better view toward Morgan Hill featuring more of the surface where the Kent Yard was, while the other side features best views north and west.

Abandoned tracks of Kent Yard

We paused at the top for a bit, then headed down the back. I followed a vague path out to the right, to get some other views of the Phillipsburg vicinity, and then we all switched back and forth down the slope to get back into the rock cut.
Alyssa kept calling me as I tried to direct her to where we were. She started going north when I meant for her to go south from the lot, so that set her behind a little bit.
After reaching the rock cut, we started climbing the west side, which had a really steep ascent utilizing some tree roots. It levels off a bit to a great view toward Morgan Hill.

Historic map of P Burg

We moved on down a bit, and then took in the view of the former basin on the north side of the rock. While up near the top, we could see Alyssa walking the Bel Del tracks.

Old canal basin

I called out to her and she saw me, and I tried to motion her to go the other way to meet up with us, but she misunderstood it as straight. It didn’t matter, we could still meet up that way as well.
I started leading the group down the rock. The way down from the north overlook would seem crazy from afar, but it’s actually the easiest way to get down.
Except for one spot where you have to swing on a tree branch, it’s quite easy to do.

Old canal below Mt. Parnassus

Once we were all down, I motioned everyone to start following the paved trail which follows closely to the old canal towpath. I walked back toward the north side of it briefly to set up some more then and now shots before moving on.
We continued below Parnassus and then past the entrance to the park by the shooting range. There was no sign of alyssa ahead here, and we continued on the rather than exactly where the canal was. I had several photos on my phone showing the sites, but I cannot for the life of me figure out where several of them might be referring to.
We continued along the path, and soon saw Alyssa through the weeds to the right. I told her to stay parallel with us, and we would soon connect where the paved trail ended.

Canal aqueduct

Soon enough, we reached that point, where there is a hole in the fence. We walked through and Alyssa joined us. From there, we followed an ATV path east and up hill into the former rail yards. There were a lot of kids up in this area riding bikes, and a lot of garbage was strewn about from the broken up tent cities that still exist there.

Along the old canal

A few cyclists went by me at this point and looked cautiously. I must have again looked like a cross between a bum and an official, with my beat up and folded clothing, but it was a blazer.
we continued along mostly the prominent main path through the middle of the former Kent Yard.
I climbed up a slope to the left briefly to see if I could get a now version of some historic photos that showed the Andover Ironworks, but I could not quite emulate it.
We continued to the right and headed onto the old Bel Del tracks to start following them to the south for a little bit. We continued on this until past lumber center or something.

Green's Bridge

We turned to the right away from the tracks, and down hill to where the canal used to go. An intersection known as Morris Canal Way follows the former route from the Andover Morris School. They were originally going to name that road “Towpath Road”, but it actually is in the canal, not on the towpath, so they changed the name before it became official.
The Morris Canal Greenway turns to the right closely tracing its historic route, but then dips below it to the left a little bit. This is because the canal continued over an aqueduct across a road that led to the river.

Historic view of Lock #9

It’s a rather unknown fact that this aqueduct, a stone arch structure, is still intact. It is the only remaining aqueduct on the canal that was designed to carry a road beneath the route.

Lock #9 today

There are several other examples of aqueducts still in place of stone construction, but none that pass over roads. That makes this a pretty interesting spot. Only the top of the arch is visible today, and a homeless man was living in the little part of it you can get in.

Canal remnant

We tried not to bother him much, because he might have been in there, and continued to follow the greenway to the east.
The canal joined with what is now the Lopatcong Creek just ahead of here. The two flowed together ahead, and some sort of weir must have existed for water to flow out into the Delaware in this area. The whole area has been much disturbed through the creation of a water treatment plant there many years ago. We could see some rip rap rock along the former canal when we started to come parallel with South Main Street. In this area, there was the canal and also a separate mill race that used it.

Approaching Lock #8

The mill race brought in water from the canal for use, and the new crushed stone path follows the edge of both to the east.
We followed the trail out to the end and the parking area, where we stepped over and into the parking area for Nortons Cork N Bottle to get some refreshments.
They only had Merry Monks when it came to Weyerbacher in there, so I opted not to get anything, until I saw they had the “five hour schnapps”, so I got some of that. Most of the group waited inside while some of us went in.

A happy group!

While inside, some loud people were saying “what is going out out here?”, regarding the large group of people that was waiting outside for the rest of us to come out.
When one woman got particularly curious, rather rudely, I told her we were hiking.

P Burg Mall

This of course led to a mess of jokes and such. They did seem interested that we were doing what we were doing. One woman was saying to her boyfriend or husband or whatever that it was cool that we were doing something and that “we don’t do anything”!
We headed out and continued along the canal route to the east.
This took us out to Green’s Bridge, the stone arched bridge of the former Central Railroad of New Jersey built in the 1850s, with the later Lehigh Valley Railroad right next to it.

Former canal

I walked everyone down to beside the pier of the older Lehigh Valley Railroad bridge. The original bridge for that line had stone piers and a deck truss superstructure. It was replaced in the early 1900s with the current deck girder bridge on concrete piers.
Along the old stone pier, the wooden bases of the former towpath walkway can still be seen in the water, and I walked out onto them. I then stepped into the creek and waded to the other side to get a then and now photo from one of the points I had a historic shot.

Former canal

I climbed back out, and we continued under the bridge and over the Lopatcong Creek on South Main Street. The site of the current bridge was originally the site of Morris Canal’s Lock #10 West, now destroyed. The creek and canal were still one at this point.
I took several more compilation photos at this time, and the others continued ahead. I walked ahead a bit, and then realized I had another photo I needed to get, so I ran back to take it from the bridge. Just then, a car pulled up along the road.

A drink in the mall...

“That must be the Path Finder” the voice said.
It was my friend David Mashburn, whom I had not yet met in person. He has been doing outstanding volunteer work on Marble Hill sections of the Warren Highlands Trail system, and regularly reports in with me when people dump garbage and such.
He said when he saw someone on the bridge taking photos, with a group of people just ahead, he knew it had to be me! As soon as I heard “Path Finder”, I called out his name, because I knew it had to be him.

Da mall

We chatted for a few moments, and I had to be on my way to the rest of the group just ahead. I walked a little piece of towpath near the road again, and then we turned to the left on Lock Street.
Just after the bend in Lock Street, we approached the former site of Lock #9. The lock is now buried by the road, but a slight rise can be seen. The lock house is still standing as a private residence to the right, and is in altered but good condition.

Phillipsburg Mall

We continued past the lock house and down the road past the park on the right. The road forked, and Lock Street continued to the left past an historic stone house built long before the canal, called Springside I think.
There was a girl walking her dog toward me while I was taking my last then and now photo of the day, toward the former site of Lock #8. The lock house is still standing on this one as well, also altered but very recognizable from the two windows on the upper attic level.

Irony in the mall

I said hello to the girl walking toward me, and felt it awkward that I had just taken a photo that might have seemed like it was of her, when I was trying to get the historic scene.

Holes in the ceiling...not much time left

As she came closer, I turned my phone around to show the photo that I was attempting to emulate, and she said “Oh I know! This is my family’s place, they lived in that house!”.
She was apparently a descendant of the lock tender! She extended her hand and introduced herself, and I regret that I cannot at this time remember her name, but I introduced myself as well and told her I was with the Board of Recreation, and that I was doing the then and now shots as a series. It was a cool little meeting.
We continued past the old lock house and beyond past Lock Street Park, and the roadway narrowed after the next intersection.
Then, we reached the base of Inclined Plane #10 West, which dipped up out of the creek to the right. I pointed it out to everyone, and where the power house and turbine chamber was ahead to the right. I also told them how this was not the original Plane 10. This was one that was moved about 1842 when the canal was upgraded.

In da mall

The upgrade included the Scotch Turbine that was utilized at all 23 of the Morris Canal planes of this type. Before that time, they utilized overshot waterwheels. The original plane 10 is a driveway just beyond the later power house site. I pointed out all of this, and talked about the style of power houses being three tiered structures at the west end of the canal, and regular high peak roofed structures on the east end, which is what helps us to identify older photos of the sites.
A car pulled up and went up the driveway, where Jim Lee Jr. lives. He’s a great historian very involved in the canal, like his father was before him. I don’t know that it was him, because I think if it was he might have come out to have a talk with us about the history.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/7AxhUnKGoE8

Excellent video narrated by James E. Lee Jr.

We continued out walk down Lock Street, which has always been one of my favorite little walks in the county. I was somewhat upset to see that it had been repaved recently. At first only on one side, and then on both. It is still only accessible from the eastbound Rt 22, which means it won’t get a ton of traffic, but it could become a problematic thing in the future.

The full mall directory as of now....

The canal remained above us to the right, and the road slowly gained some elevation to bring us to its level. We then turned right onto a bit of the canal that is now used as a retention pond for the new town house development adjacent to the P Burg Mall.
We walked onto the new trail section and followed it to Rt 22, then turned right into the development to head toward the mall.
We climbed up a steep slope to reach the parking lot closer to the bank rather than around the longer way, and then crossed the lot to the entrance near the former Sears.

In the mall....

We walked in next to the old pizza place and I found a cut to pour some beer into.
The place was totally dead. I think we saw maybe two other people while we were walking in. Joel had some horrible woman just go up to him and give him the finger for no reason whatsoever. Some people are just plain rude.
He was doing pretty well on the unevenness of the route, especially after he’d injured his ankle so badly on the last one.
We passed by the Mall Directory, and there was basically nothing left, just a piece of paper naming the couple of businesses that remained open. I think Bath and Body Works was there, a dentist’s office oddly, and Black Rose Antiques was still open. I think Verizon too.

Spread love, not germs!

Of course, Kohls remains, because they are a separate property from the rest of the mall, and the building will remain after the rest of the mall is demolished.
When Sears closed a few years back, the building collapsed within nine months of the closing. Today, there are holes in the roof, and more bucket are out to catch the water coming in on the floor around the skylight. The drop ceiling high up above one of the exit corridors is wet and drooping, ready to start coming down. Leaving the place open at this point is probably a liability.
We walked over to the restrooms for a pit stop, and we met a middle aged Asian man there who we chatted with for a while. He told us he worked in NYC, and that he was going to get two weeks off work with pay and said he would take it, doesn’t mind staying home watching Netflix. He said that everyone in the city is wearing face masks and are seriously panicking.
He hinted at being in some medical profession, and said that this is all blown out of proportion. I find it interesting that most of my friends in medical field are kind of putting the kebosh on this Coronavirus thing.
Certainly, it’s important to take precautions, but to stay indoors is not healthy either. To be out in the sun should actually help if not in a crowded area.

In da mall

The major mess going on in Italy with it is understandable because of their cultural differences. I’ve had many friends from Italy, and they are a much more physically close and intimate culture. It is not uncommon for your platonic friend from Italy to kiss you in such a way that Americans would consider to be extremely intimate. The same is true of many other cultures. Americans in general are much more standoffish and non-intimate, which in this particular case will probably protect us more than a lot of these other nations.
I would imagine that many of the cases in Italy were already transmitted well before the pandemic started, and that it simply took this long for the virus to manifest itself.

Mall mirror shot

It was surprising to see that even in this dead mall, there was a sign that read “find your getaway at home, spread love not germs”.
We made our way back through the mall the same way we had come, and then back out the same exit. We then headed over to the Taco Bell for a bit to eat.
I had a steak soft taco, a chicken soft taco, and a mini chicken quesadilla melt. I was totally stuffed. I had already had a breakfast sandwich followed by an enormous salad courtesy of my boss and buddy Bruce at work, and although we did a lot of tree work earlier, I was feeling like a pregnant man.
We left the Taco Bell and crossed over Rt 22 next to where Sammy’s Drive in used to be.

In the mall...

We turned to the left along the highway past a couple more businesses, and then descended steeply to the towpath of the Morris Canal again. We followed the towpath from this point to Strykers Road.
Probably the worst part of the entire hike was the walk up Strykers Road. There wasn’t a big shoulder, and it has a lot more traffic than it used to. I talked to Mike M. about when it was narrower and nicer, with much less traffic many years earlier.
We followed this out across the railroad tracks and to Rt 57 where we turned left. There is a good shoulder there on what used to be the Easton-Washington Traction Company’s trolley track, then crossed over and passed a new development site with town houses.
Just after, we turned right off the highway after crossing a small branch of the Lopatcong Creek.
There was a fenced in structure below some apartments. This became a crushed stone trail which remained below those apartments for a time, along a retention pond, and then intersected with a mowed path below, which we turned left on to lead north over Baltimore Street.
We crossed the road, turned left through grass along a wood line, and then right across wide open grassy field behind the Clymer Village building. This took us directly out across Dogwood Lane into the Brakely Gardens Apartments. We crossed direct and either walked on the sidewalks through the grassy commons between the buildings, or just cut through grass basically heading west northwest. At the north side, we crossed Dogwood Lane, and then continued out to and across Red School Lane to follow it to the north.
After about six blocks, we turned right across the yard of the First Baptist Church property, and that cut the corner over to Belvidere Road for us.
We turned right on Belvidere Road briefly, and then left onto Rowe Lane briefly to go into Lopatcong Park.
The park has a lot of paved pathways through it, around ball fields and such. We used some of these as well as just walked across the grass to the northwest.
We soon reached the intersection of the paved trail and the mowed one that connects with the Marble Hill Natural Resource Area and Warren Highlands Trail.
I originally laid out this route with head Warren County Planner Dave Dech and cleared it with my girlfriend Jillane, but then I asked the township to mow it to the end of the grassy stuff. They were really cool about it, and have since taken it from the width of a single mower pass to probably four car widths! It’s cool, but in doing so, they took out all of the carsonite posts with the red blazes I initially marked it with.
We headed up hill and over the peak of Marble Hill past the new high school, and then took a break at a log where we met the Warren Highlands Trail. It was really such a nice night to be out.
We followed Warren Highlands from there up hill a bit more, over the washouts from the school construction that keep getting worse, and then to the intersection with the orange blazed Fulmer Mine Trail.
We followed the trail along the mine areas, where the state wants us to put up danger signs and such, and then over to the mine road area which leads to the thirty foot deep Fulmer Iron Mine.
We took another break at this point in the mine. It was another really cool spot to sit for a while. We chatted for a bit about a lot of historic stuff. Mike P and I have several things to go over when it comes to a future presentation at the National Museum of Industrial History, and when it comes to future interpretation of some important county sites.

In the pipe

We headed out of the Fulmer Mine and down what I feel was likely a tramway, past the office site, and then back to the Warren Highlands Trail. We descended here toward River Road, and Mike M and Ken decided to walk the road the remainder of the distance back to the boat launch lot. The rest of us turned to the right briefly, and then crossed the Bel Del Railroad tracks to the access to Phillipsburg Riverview Association lands along the Delaware. There is a good path along the river from here below the pump house and the intake area, which narrows to a foot path a little ways after. We followed this to reach the giant pipe beneath the former JT Baker complex and out to Main Street.
We simply walked the streets on the designated Warren Highlands Trail route from here back to the cut through that leads to the boat launch parking lot back over the tracks again.
It was really a great night hike that I enjoyed quite a lot, and with a sizable group for a Thursday night. Hopefully it’s a sign of much more good stuff like that to come!

HAM