Hike #1339; Port Jervis Area Loop

Hike #1339; Port Jervis Area Loop

7/11/20 Port Jervis Loop with Paul Ferlazzo, Dan Lurie, Stephen Argentina, Carolyn Gockel Gordon, Jennifer Tull, Diane Reider, Jennifer Bee, Dan Asnis, Brittany Audrey, Professor John DiFiore, and Kirk Rohn

Da group

This next hike would be a big loop in the Port Jervis NY area.
I actually struggled with where to organize a hike for this particular weekend, which is out of the ordinary for me. I usually have a huge list of places I’m trying to get to.

The Delaware from the Matamoras side

The difference this time was the big covid scare. It changed everything basically from the earlier part of the year. From all of the closings, to park closings, to groups not being allowed. At this point, groups are allowed again, although they are not necessarily encouraged. I’d been keeping the hikes on the down low for a long while because I didn’t want to hear any more shaming online. Participants cover their faces with masks for the group shots not because they are concerned, but because they don’t want to get shamed by their families when these journal entries come up (mind you, that is NOT everyone, and I’m not disclosing who exactly). It’s created an added stress for sure.

Old Port Jervis rail yard

So much has been happening, and the stress of life has been piling on for sure.
I tell people, if I would just enjoy myself and didn’t care about anything going on, I could really milk this whole covid thing and just be able to enjoy the whole thing. I have my job, a place to live, things are overall okay. But the problem is, I do care, and at least to some degree, people are being taken over the coals. I think at this point, most people don’t doubt that there’s a virus, but I also think that most people are seeing that there is on both sides, government corruption probably unlike anything we’ve ever seen.

Old Port Jervis rail yard

In my day to day life alone, I see things that leave me in disbelief or enraged. One of the seasonal employees had recently been closed into a restroom building by a lunatic wearing nothing but a thong and nipple rings. This after our governor let out all of the jails because its too dangerous for the inmates to be inside. The sister of one of the girls at our boat rental was shot in the head with a shotgun on the Rt 78 exit closest to my house. During the closures, an old friend grew up in my neighborhood was found dead in a swamp.

Decker's Fort

There is so much more that just defies logic, and the latest thing was the stress of potential furloughs for state employees. Up to two hundred thousand people laid off.

Decker's Fort history marker

It could happen at any time, and I have been holding off on doing a long group trip that I’ve been wanting to do on the Great Allegheny Passage. It has seemed like every day there is supposed to be something happening with these furloughs, and then they change their minds. Schedules change, and everyone is just on edge not knowing what is going to happen. They told me I was to be off, but then changed it around. They gave out days, but gave too many to some departments and they had to be re-divided among other employees.

Delaware and Hudson Canal

So, because I’m never sure of what is going to happen next, I’d been postponing doing any larger trip.
It came down to between Port Jervis and White Clay Creek in Delaware. The latter was one of the states that, if we traveled to it, we are forced to self quarantine for fourteen days. While the prospect of that could be fun, I didn’t need to be causing any problems with work. We decided that was not the hike to be doing this weekend.
Port Jervis it was, and so I chose a spot with on street parking in Matamoras PA.

ADA accessible trails call for 36 inches wide, but five feet every 1000 ft.

We met by a beer distributor, but they really didn’t have anything I was interested in, so I didn’t get anything.
Once everyone had met there, we hung out in the shade a bit, and then were on our way.
There were several possibilities for this hike, but the bulk of what I had planned was in Elks Brox Park on the mountain above town, as well as the Port Jervis Water Authority lands, which had had many trails installed by mountain biking groups over the last several years. We had touched on those a bit when we did the last Delaware and Hudson Canal hike through Port Jervis.

Along Turntable Trail

My plan toward the end was to take some back roads to the D&H Canal again, head north to Sparrowbush and what was known as Bolton Basin, and then take the Erie Railroad tracks across the Delaware. We could return by way of back roads on the Pennsylvania side that I’d never walked.
I figured this would be a good route, and we could cut it short if need be depending on the timing and mileage.
We walked up Rt 209 and crossed over the Delaware into Port Jervis on the road bridge.

View on Turntable Trail

From there, we turned to the left, upstream along the Delaware. This took us along a very nice little paved path, although it was quite sunny. This was probably the hottest day of the year we’d experienced yet, and even though it was only about 9:30 am, it was brutally hot.
The last time we were in Port Jervis was very similar to this, and we ended up spending quite a lot of time swimming. We’d have do do a lot of that on this one too, we could tell already.
The paved trail continued a bit, but we turned to the right abruptly when we got ot a path that went toward the former Port Jervis rail yards for the Erie Railroad.

Along Turntable Trail

The former rail yard still actually had a few rails left in it, to my surprise. We walked to the east a bit, and soon came to the active tracks where NJ Transit comes up to Port Jervis. A train was actually arriving right about at this time. For that reason, we chose not to go up and cross the tracks here. We instead turned hard to the left, and then came out at the dead end of a road known as Railroad Circle. We followed this to a right on New Street which led us over toward Main Street, which was what I planned to take us over the tracks.

View on Turntable Trail

Just a little ahead, there was a handsome old stone building on a corner. We couldn’t just turn right on Main Street, we had to go and have a closer look at it. I was quite glad we did, because it tied in to so much history we’d explored before, from the Battle of Minisink stuff, right on to the Delaware and Hudson Canal history.
The house was originally Fort Decker, built before 1760 by Dutch settler Frederick Haynes, during the French and Indian War.
Haynes left the area in 1775, and the fort was burned during a raid by Hessians and Native Americans led by Joseph Brant. This was just before the Battle of Minisink to the north.

View in Elks Brox Park

The Battle of Minisink was the only major Revolutionary War skirmish to take place in the upper Delaware Valley, and we had visited it on our Lackawaxen area hike.

This apparently used to be use for a seasonal star

The house was rebuilt from the remains of Fort Decker in 1793. During construction of the Delaware and Hudson Canal a couple of blocks away, the building housed engineers including John Jervis.
The settlement, originally known as Peenpack, was renamed for Jervis in honor of the celebrated canal engineer.
Fort Decker was purchased by the Minisink Valley Historical Society for use as a museum in 1958. It is now the oldest structure in the settlement.

View of the bridge we crossed in Elks Brox Park

We continued from Fort Decker on Main Street and across to where the Delaware and Hudson Canal used to cross. Kirk met up with us here, having run a bit late.

View in Elks Brox Park

The canal was completed through from Kingston NY, through Port Jervis on the Delaware, then up the Delaware and Lackawaxen Rivers to Honesdale where it met the Delaware and Hudson Gravity Railroad. The canal was completed in 1828, and the gravity line in 1829, which made for a revolutionary new means of carrying coal from the mines to market on the Hudson River. The canal remained in service until 1899-99 when it was abandoned, and the Delaware and Hudson reorganized as a regular railroad company.

The group in Elks Brox Park

This is a really odd section of trail, but there is a reason for it being the way it is.
It is paved, but only done in a narrow path. Oddly, it widens every so often just a bit.

View in Elks Brox Park

This is because ADA accessible trails are required only to be thirty six inches wide, widening to five feet once every 1000 feet. They literally did the bare minimum necessary on this trail.
We walked this bit into the woods, and the canal was filled in at first. After a little while, the prism opened up and started looking a bit more like the canal. It even was holding on to some water from time to time.
We didn’t go to far on this. My plan was to go to the right when there is a causeway built over the canal, and then climb uphill to Route 42 at the intersection of Skyline Drive.

View in Elks Brox Park

When I found what looked like about the right spot, I started making my way uphill. I tried to choose a way with no poison ivy so no one would end up getting in any, though I am immune it seems at least since I was about seventeen.

Port Jervis from Point Peter

I was spot on, and we emerged on Rt 42 directly across from the entrance to Skyline Drive, which ascends into Elks Brox Park.
This is a pretty interesting park, which has been a prominent point on the Appalachian Range back to the settlement of the area. When parks became popular, there was a plan to purchase the property, with its east and west edges known as Mount William and Point Peter. It was voted down initially, but the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks raised the funds to purchase it about 1914.

The old Erie turntable from above

The property became known as Elks Park. Improvements were made to the park which included the Skyline Drive, as well as picnic and camp grounds.
In 1932, Sarah Belle Thorne made a donation to the land in memory of her Brother In Law, Charles Brox, and so it became Elks-Charles Brox Memorial Park.

View in Elks Brox Park

In more recent years, more trails were added throughout the area. I had done several hikes through the area in the past, but not very much was done. Now, there are mountain biking trails that go all over the place, and I’ll probably do a lot of hikes to cover all of them.

The group in Elks Brox Park

We walked up Skyline Drive for a bit, around the first switchback, and gradually uphill. When we got to the second switchback, rather than continue up the paved road, we cut into the woods to the southeast. This took us gradually up, and we could see people riding their bikes on the blue blazed trail above us in just a short bit.

Elks Brox Park view

The trails have some odd names. This first one was called “Throwing Stones”. We followed it to the south for a bit, and the grade was pretty good. There were little ups and downs, but it was never very tough at all to walk.

After crossing a power line clearing, we came to a trail intersection. The red blazed trail was called Turntable Trail, probably because it leads out eventually to a view that overlooks the old Erie Railroad turntable below.
There is another one called Towpath Trail, which Kirk was particularly unhappy about because it was misleading with the nearby canal trail. “This trail isn’t flat” and stuff to that effect he kept on saying.
The trail led us around a big bend, and then to a pretty great overlook of Port Jervis.

Dejay Downs Trail

We continued from here across the top of Mount William, and then came to a large metal framework in the middle of the woods. This, I was told a while back, was a framework that they used to put a lit up star on during Holiday season, but today it’s totally overgrown and would be pretty much obscured by trees.
We continued a little further ahead, and the trail had been rerouted a bit since the last time we were at this point. We went down on the old trail, which led to another better view over Port Jervis.

Stream along Dejay Downs Trail

There was a couple sitting on the rocks, probably none too happy to see us, but oh well.
I pointed out some stuff at the view, including the High Point Monument in New Jersey, which sits on the Kittatinny Ridge at 1,803 above sea level, the confluence of the Delaware and the Neversink Rivers, and I traced over the land where the Delaware and Hudson Canal used to go, just to the east of the turntable, and then through town in a route that has been absorbed into the modern street system.

Cascades

We continued around a corner, and back into more dense woods again. We headed slightly down and up, and then ended up at Point Peter. Thee was a new trail heading down from that point, and a few others that had not been on the official map I was using, so we’ll definitely have to make some more trips.
We headed uphill on rocks, and then came to the nice parking area and the memorial plaque to Charles Brox, with an outstanding view of Port Jervis, and the Shawangung and Kittatinny Ridges (same ridge).

It was nice to follow these trails because it was seriously so well marked. Many of these mountain biking trails are just marked like garbage, but every trail in this place had been recently reblazed to the international standard, with turn blazes and everything. They not only went to the trouble to do this, they did it with shapes to help determine the difficulty level. Truly a fine job on this trail system.
We made our way beyond Point Peter, down from Skyline Drive, which accesses the parking lot at this point, and turned right into the woods on a trail known as Hula Hubbard. I was surprised only to see one car at the overlook on Point Peter this time.
Hula Hubbard is a mess of a trail, weaving all over the place, and it might have been easy for me to get lost off this one if I wasn’t paying attention. I wanted to follow the most direct route out to Skyline Path.

Along Dejay Downs Trail

Skyline Path is the original route of Skyline Drive, which is now closed off to vehicles, but it leads downhill the way we needed to go to get to the northern trail system.
We eventually took a shortcut on an informal trail that led us right up to the old roadway and turned right.
Other trails joined in along the way, but we followed old Skyline Drive downhill easily toward Reservoir #1, which has somewhat recently been redubbed “Brewer’s Reservoir”. I made a shortcut downhill to the left to the next trail.

Cascades

That trail was a white one known as Beginner’s Berm, which is a woods road along the west side of the Brewer’s Reservoir. We walked along this for a time, and I went down to the shoreline to see if there was a good place to take a dip. It was getting really hot.
I tried going in, but there was a mess of muck and sticks on the bottom, and it almost immediately stank when I tried to stand in it. I decided it was too gross to try to swim there, and we could wait for another opportunity further along.
We continued to the north side of the lake, and passed yellow and blue trails.

Cascades

We turned right on the Dejay Downs Trail, red blazed, which turned right up a power line clearing briefly, and then turned into the woods to the left.
This turned out to be a very pleasant trail, and very little used compared to the other ones. It continued along a picturesque little brook that had several pretty little cascades along it. When I saw a particularly good looking little pool, just barely deep enough to sit in, I went over and cooled off. Many from the group found spots all up and down the stream from me to sit.

Small falls on Dejay Downs Trail

Once we were adequately cooled off, we headed back to the Dejay Downs Trail, which continued upstream a little ways further before crossing on a footbridge.

Dejay Downs Trail

The two Dans were falling behind a little bit in this area, but were still doing okay.
we crossed the bridges, and then ascended a little bit to where the blue blazed Juda Hunter Trail turned left. Dan Asnis caught up with us there, but Dan Lurie was behind. He was going to make his way out to a road and then try to uber or taxi back.
We continued up Dejay Downs Trail, which ended at a white blazed trail known as Lenni Lenape Trail. It was kind of like a woods road I guess at first, but we got off of it.

Old stone building

I don’t know at what point we lost the trail, but we ended up wandering past some sort of stone looking building that must be for some sort of pumping facility. Just above is Reservoir #2, now renamed Mirror Lake.
We walked uphill off trail, because we lost the route somehow, and then climbed up part of a dam berm to Mirror Lake. This looked like an awesome spot to swim so we took a very long break here between the dam and a little peninsula. It was amazing that literally no one else came around while up there.

Old watershed building

It was quite a beautiful place. Dan Asnis caught up with us, we spent a good while here.
When we were finally ready to go, we headed up the berm and found our way back to the white trail. The section going west from there was known as the Brant Path, for the aforementioned Brant that led the Hessian and Native American soldiers to Battle of Minisink.
Up to this point, we did a lot of the perimeter of the watershed park, but from here we would end up cutting a bit of a corner. There is just so much more to do up there.

Mirror Lake

We continued away from Mirror Lake, and into more woods. The blue blazed Moranigan Trail turned to the right shortly after the Dejay Downs Trail came in from the left. We turned here.
We followed this trail out to the vehicle accessible Box Baum Road. A cop car was going by just as we were approaching it, so we held up a little bit. I figured it was probably a good thing that a big group didn’t go by. We didn’t want to hear anything from him as much as he probably didn’t want to deal with a large group swimming nearby.

Mirror Lake

We went directly across this road, and onto the yellow blazed Mahackamamck Trail. We only followed this for a short distance until we got to the blue blazed Lost Bear Trail. This took us on a winding route through the woods and eventually to within view of the Reservoir #3. Like the other two, this one was also renamed, the Deerpark Dam Lake.

Deer Park Dam Lake

The white blazed Delaware Trail was directly below the Lost Bear Trail, but did not officially connect with it at this point. Instead of taking the long route to that spot, we bushwhacked the short distance down to the white trail within sight, and then turned right.

Deer Park Dam Lake

The lake was beautiful, and there was a good spot to go for another dip. This spot was rather secluded, so there was no one around to bother us again.
We had a very nice swim, in a large cove that was not visible from really anywhere else that we’d get in trouble for. By this time, it was obvious we made the right choice of hike for this day.
Once we were done swimming, we headed along the trail around the north side.

Delaware Trail was basically like a woods road along the shore. Easy to follow. Dan Asnis caught up with us while we were there, and we all continued together along the shore of the lake.
Yellow blazed Tufted Trail came in from the right, which was a continuation of the Mahackamack Trail from earlier, and we continued on the shore out to vehicle accessible Upper Brook Road. We walked along the pavement here for a bit. My original plan was to do a long loop around to this, then head down on the road.

Deer Park Dam lake

We would then end up in Sparrowbush on the canal. I asked about everyone’s GPS mileages they had gotten so far, and I think we were ore than 9 miles in at this point. With the amount of distance back to Port Jervis, and the winding of the inner trails, I decided it smarter not to try to do the original planned route, and instead to stay in the Port Jervis Watershed property back to town. We cold then get something to eat at one of the establishments there on our way back. Everyone seemed into this.

Delaware Trail

We followed the road past a house which was formerly the caretaker’s house for the Port Jervis Watershed. There was an excellent view across the lake, and then we reached an intersection near the main dam.
Academy Ave came in on the right, and Box Baum Road is the continuation of it to the northeast. We turned onto this briefly, and then soon turned to the right on the yellow blazed Walt’s Keep Trail. I told Dan Asnis to head down Academy Ave and he could skip the curves, them meet back up for dinner with us.

Deer Park Dam Lake

The trail winded around a bit, and eventually intersected with a four way intersection of trails. We turned right on the blue blazed Starcrawf Trail through gently rolling terrain.

Starcrawf Trail

We did a lot more winding through the woods on the meandering paths. These mountain bike trails never really go that direct, but this was pleasant enough that it didn’t matter.
Eventually, we came to another four way intersection known as Skunk’s Crossing. We went straight across at this point on another blue trail called Ohanzee Trail. This one was a bit wider, and weaved around to the top of a slope. Below, we could see Reservoir Road, not open to vehicles, making its way downhill. To the left of the slope, a stream flowed downward with a pretty cascade.

Cascades on Reservoir Road

The Reservoir Road was so close by, and the cascade so pretty, that I decided we should shortcut down the hill a bit to have a closer look. We had recently gotten some rainy downpours, and so the cascade might never look this nice again if we return to this point. We carefully headed down and checked out the cascades along the road.
The stream flowed from here down toward a pipe that went under the Reservoir Road, but it bypassed the pipe and flowed directly under a rock, which is probably an old box culvert from when it was first constructed, now somewhat blocked.

Cascades on Reservoir Road

From here, we followed the Reservoir Road gradually downhill to the south. We crossed over a pretty power line clearing with a bit of a view to the west along the way.

Bypassing the pipe...

We continued downhill and eventually rejoined the Beginner’s Berm Trail again on the shore of the Brewer’s Reservoir.
I wanted to go in for another dip, but again it was kind of gross. I recall running and jumping in but the rest of the group was not as into it this time. I got out and we all started heading down to the parking lot near where we first joined the trail. From here, we left the trail system and started walking Reservoir Road downhill and into the town of Port Jervis again. We then made a right turn into neighborhoods. I don’t remember exactly which street we turned on.

Power line clearing

I remember I had wanted to continue down to walk the road that was built on the Delaware and Hudson Canal, but I think we went to the right before that. We did continue to the east a bit because I wanted for us to go over by the old Erie Railroad turntable more closely.
We headed down into town, I pointed out a bit of where the canal used to go, and then we walked over to the turntable area.
There was still an old deisel, I think an F Unit, parked on it which had been there for many years.
From that point, we decided to walk on into town. We had gotten reservations at the Erie Hotel, which was a railroad hotel in the middle of town adjacent to the historic depot.

Railroad history stuff in Port Jervis

We had not eaten together at a restaurant as a group, unless you count Taco Bell and Sheetz parking lot parties, since the whole covid scare began really. The last time was only a limited number of us over in the Schuylkill Valley, and restaurants closed to indoor dining the next day or something. This place was outdoor dining only, but they had tents and such, so we had to go for it. I figured we would have a lot of time because they said reservations would not be until 7:30 PM. Everyone went ahead of me while I took photos.
While I walked through the town, I noticed that there was a brewery on the main street called Fox N’ Hare Brewing. I decided to walk on in and look at their list.
They were selling growlers, and one of them was just over ten percent. I think it was Night Shadow or something. Whatever it was, it sounded good, so I got myself some.

On the turntable

While I was in there, Brittany rain in the door and told me that they were able to get in to the Erie Hotel earlier than anticipated, that they had made the room for us.
I had already gotten my growler, so I took it and headed over. Fortunately, no one gave me a hard time for drinking it while I was there.
I had some sort of quesadilla things that were really great, as well as some pizza, and we all had a very nice time there. As is usual when I eat and drink after a long day of exertion, I pass out. And I was pretty much out of it at the table!
Dan was able to join us after having made it back to his car. Dan Lurie also managed to get back to us after somehow getting himself a ride despite Uber falling through.
We left the place, and I fell asleep on the park bench outside until getting a ride out. Most of the others had headed back to the cars directly from there.
Someone picked up my tab at the restaurant too (I think it was Jenny?), so THANK YOU for that, and I owe you or whoever it was a beer or several or something.
Overall a really great hike!

HAM