Hike #1341; Mt. Olive Loop
7/18/20 Mt. Olive Loop with Professor John DiFiore, Kirk Rohn, Ken Zaruni, Jennifer Tull, Brittany Audrey, Dr. Michael Krejsa, Justin Gurbisz, Luke Fresolone, Ellie Zabeth, and Daniel Trump
This next hike would be a big loop in the area of Stephens State Park and Mount Olive area. I try to do one every year that will involve the area, and there are still tidbits of trails I’ve never done in the huge mix of them back there.
Budd Lake from the fire tower
I made the meeting point the Mount Olive train station for NJ Transit, which I’ve done tons of times before. It seemed like the best place to start out, and we won’t get in trouble for parking there after dark.
The main goal in this one besides swimming was the white blazed trail that connects east to west through the park, in a long loop. We had done the entire southern leg of it, which stays higher up on the ridge, but I hadn’t done much of the lower part.
View from the fire tower
On at least two previous visits, I had tried to get on the lower trail and failed. Both times ended up being different loop hikes than I’d planned. The mountain biking groups just keep adding more informal trails back through there, and it gets hard to follow the official ones. It doesn’t help that they used plastic or metal markers instead of paint, and they’re all pulling off of the trees. They’re also not always the best maintained ones.
We started walking from the station out along Waterloo Valley Road, through the commercial areas loaded with buildings. We tried to stay in the shade through this.
Mike realized he forgot something as we started going, so we all sat under a tree and let him run back and took a break.
When we pushed a little further, we turned left past the new warehouse building that had just been put up, and up toward the Mt Olive disposal area. We had gone in this way before to reach some of the informal trails, and I figured I’d remember how we got in.
View from the tower
We got to the top, then turned hard right, then left again on a dirt road that skirts below the piles of stuff on the top. This took us through a shaded section, and then another wide open area. We cut to the left there, out to the south side of the opening, and there is a vague path entrance on that side. It turns into quite a wide trail just barely into the woods.
We weaved around on these trails, and I turned it over to Ken because he had his alltrails app on his phone. That app, in this case, shows all of the formal and informal trails on it. Our first goal was to get from where we started to the Budd Lake Fire Tower.
Delaware Water Gap from the tower
We eventually reached the fire tower trail after weaving around on the informal trails for a good while. These trails had recently been given new names and had routed signs hanging from trees at their starts. Some of them said “long way around” or something like that, and we avoided those ones.
When we reached the official Fire Tower Trail, it was crap. It follows a utility clearing for a little while, which had not been cleared in a very long time. When we reached close to the tower, it was completely overgrown. It was quite a pain to push through.
The fire tower
The fire tower sits at 1,182 feet above sea level. Originally, it was named the 95 Mile Tree Lookout Tower, because it was at mile 95 on the old state turnpike, now Rt 46.
The site has been a fire lookout since 1905, but the current box tower was completed in 1924.
When we reached the tower, I ran to the top as quickly as I could. It was a good workout because my legs ended up feeling like jello.
Just about everyone went up I think. The view of Budd Lake was nice, and the Delaware Water Gap was also in view despite the hot haziness of the day.
Once we were done there, we headed down the fire access road and then along I think a green blazed trail heading to the west. This eventually intersects with the white, but I think only the southern part of the loop is blazed at the intersections, so it can be hard to find.
On the white trail
Somehow, we ended up weaving around the wrong way and ended up on the power line clearing. That took us over toward the parking area, and we could then follow the trail into the woods and watch for the first turn on left before reaching the second one.
Ken had been up and followed the white trail property after being lost with me up there a few times, so I turned it over to him to get us through and on the correct path moving ahead.
We had almost been on it the previous times, but just barely missed the mark on those hikes. Ken fortunately noticed the correct turn near the start of where we turned off.
We followed the trail, which went gradually downhill a bit. The white trail follows the lower part of a slope, and picks up some old woods roads along the way, but it also follows its own foot path at times. We passed by some deep pits that I think must have been old quarries along this, and then came pretty close to reaching Waterloo Valley Road again. I did actually catch two turns that Ken missed, because the turn blazes are somewhat obscure.
Da group
The trail started going back uphill again before we reached the original section of Stephens State Park.
The main park area had been only the few trails close to the office and such, and most of this other land had been just informal paths and such for many years. The first time I did a group hike on it, there were none of those trails in there. I remember when the orange trail went in which became the biggest loop in that park for a while, probably around 2002 or so.
Luke met up with us again on this one, this time when we got to that main body of trails. We went up and down on the white trail for a bit, and eventually reached the other trails.
The red and white trails ran together for a time when we reached them, and I recall we went left, on the upper red. Luke was perched to the right side of the trail as we started making our way downhill.
Soon, we came out to the main park area off of the back of the park office. I think the main lot was closed off at this time, and I had Luke park over at Hackettstown Hospital and run to catch us on the trail system, so he wouldn’t have a car parked there in the dark.
Abandoned house
There was a lot of loud music playing when we got there, but we couldn’t see the source of it. A lot of people were in the Musconetcong River adjacent to the site, and they were singing, very badly and off key, along with the songs, which were in Spanish. They seemed pretty drunk I would imagine, and so we didn’t hang around there for too long. It would certainly only be a matter of time before park police show up to break them up. It was getting closer to dark, and they usually do the patrols through there then.
We followed along the river heading upstream, along the coaligned Highlands Trail and Patriot’s Path. The Patriot’s Path ends at the end of the park, at Waterloo Valley Road, but Highlands Trail continues.
We took a break when we got to the island in the park, to take a dip in the river. I was surprised to see that the foot bridge to the island was blocked off so people could not get out on it. It’s easy to rock hop or whatever out to that area. I am uncertain if the island was closed due to the covid scare, or if it’s some other reason.
After our dip, we continued along the trail to the far end of the park. We turned left on Waterloo Valley Road to its very end, and then turned right on Waterloo Road across the active former Morris and Essex Railroad tracks. Just beyond that, a long driveway goes up and reaches the Morris Canal Greenway. We continued here, passed the abandoned house, but didn’t go in it this time. It was kind of hot and getting darker, so I wanted to move.
That would be a planet, I think Saturn it was?
We stayed on the towpath until we got to where the canal used to cross Waterloo Road. We then left the canal for a bit and followed the almost abandoned Colony Road, where the Highlands Trail is currently blazed. The canal went into Lock #5 just ahead, and then the Musconetcong River is for a time canalized, up to Lock #4. The trail used to follow the towpath here, but it’s gotten overgrown and no one was taking care of it, so my buddy Glenn moved the trail to the old road ahead.
We headed along that for a bit, past the first abandoned house, and then took a turn to the left to show everyone the second one. It had been overlooked for a while, and not so many knew about it, but it’s much more wrecked than the first time Justin and I went in.
We had a look around, and then left the place, headed back to Colony Road, and then along Waterloo Road over to Lock #4. Elsie’s Restaurant was the last incarnation of the old lock house, which still stands, but in poor condition.
Then and Now with Lock #5
We continued past the old place but walked on Waterloo Road for a bit. There is a section of towpath beyond that I like to walk if it’s daylight, but there is also one house standing in where the canal was, along the edge of Saxton Lake that I wanted to avoid.
It’s amazing anyone is still living in the place which may or may not have electricity.
A then and now at Lock #4
Just ahead, Waterloo Road overtakes the former site of the canal, and the trail goes up and follows the original alignment of Waterloo Road which was changed sometime in the 1930s. Some of us went up and followed the Morris Canal Greenway and Highlands Trail along that, but most of the group remained below on the road. They might have been smart to do that, because it was about the most overgrown I’ve ever seen that section before.
My then and now at Lock #4
Once we were down from the old road section, a job right on Waterloo Road and then back left took us further onto the old towpath. There used to be an ore dock where the canal turns away from Waterloo Road, because there were iron mines just uphill from this location.
We continued through the woods, along the Musconetcong, and the trail at one point leaves the towpath and goes back to Waterloo Road to get past one house that was built over it.
We continued back onto the towpath on the other side, and then made our way out to Kinney Road where we left the canal.
We turned right here and crossed the Musconetcong, and then reached the entrance to the former Tilcon Quarry, now an amazing lake. I usually like to swim at the big beach area near the entrance, but the spot has gotten too popular and there are always people swimming there. She said it was a mess or something now, and recommended we go to another beach area she preferred.
Since she works there, we went with that and followed her further along the shore following some of the old quarry roadways. We ended up using a really good spot at the far east side, which had a little more vegetation in the water than I prefer at first, but it was less likely that we’d see anyone else when we got there.
Someone had a camp fire on the other side, and Brittany played some music, at which point they left.
We hung out here for a bit, and we could see I think a few planets off in he distance across the lake. The was also to be a meteor shower that night. Luke and I swam out the furthest, and I saw several shooting stars while we were out there.
Da group
We got out of the water, and then followed the path along the east side of the lake and out to Waterloo Valley Road again. From there, it was a short walk past the old Waterloo Junction site and up over the active tracks. We turned there for a shorter route to get back to the station where we had started more quickly.
Justin always says he hates hiking this area, and doesn’t know why he always shows up for it, but I find it to be a really relaxing route to walk, and there’s still a ton more trails all through there that I’ve net yet hit completely, so I’ll probably do another variation of it next year.
HAM
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