Hike #1348; Mt. Olive/Allamuchy/Byram Loop
8/20/20 Mt. Olive/Allamuchy/Byram Loop with Ken Zaruni, Professor John DiFiore, Justin Gurbisz, Brittany Audrey, Joel Castus, and Jennifer Tull
This hike would be a big loop once again starting in the Mount Olive area. The criteria for a hike is typically just that it try to cover something new, but in the Summer there’s more.
Morris Canal at ITC
Of course, Summer has to include swimming.
For that, I just can’t get enough of the old Tilcon Lake over near Waterloo. Fortunately, there are so many trails throughout that area that I can keep it up and always see something new.
This time, I planned out a loop that would take us past the lake, but instead of going west like we had done on a lot of the previous ones, we would go to the north. I did something like that a couple of years back and quite enjoyed it, so this time I tried adding some new stuff.
Morris Canal
The last couple of times I’d done the Morris Canal hike series, I’d left out quite an important spot along the way due to the inconvenience of reaching it.
Inclined Plane #3 West is sandwiched between International Trade Center and Interstate 80, and the route has been severed by the superhighway in that stretch, right at the base of the incliend plane. As such, when we went to hike the section on the Morris Canal series, going both east and west, we bushwhacked along the south side of 80 for a bit west of ITC.
Morris Canal
A lot of people don’t even know that there’s a rather nice stretch of the canal still extant back in that area. I decided this time that we would tack that section onto the hike at the start. It would be something I’d not brought anyone to in over a decade.
The hike started at the Mount Olive NJ Transit station like so many others in the area had.
We walked from there directly along the NJ Transit tracks, because the canal comes right up alongside it just a short distance ahead. A train had gone by before we started walking.
Morris Canal towpath near ITC
I didn’t want to be on the tracks when the train started heading back, and we considered waiting a little bit, but it’s a good thing we didn’t because it didn’t show for forever.
Overgrown towpath
When it started to look good, I climbed a slope to the right and we could see a short watered section of the old canal below us.
We did have to descend to the tracks one more time, as I believe the railroad fill overtakes the canal prism a bit briefly, but then got to where there was good towpath to walk.
It only remained nice for a little bit of time before it started to get pretty badly overgrown. It looked like in the past there wer efforts to clean the towpath section, because chain saw work had been done on fallen trees.
Top of Plane 3 West
The saw work was very old, and there was lots of other abrasive vegetation out through there. We managed to push through it, and we turned into the canal prism at the plane top.
I could see the sleeper stones from the top of the plane with the recesses where the hardware would have been. A couple of the stones were moved out of the way, seemingly from when someone was trying to drive an all terrain vehicle through in the past.
I had considered maybe walking down to the bottom of the plane, but it was getting too badly overgrown. If I knew there was another path to get us out from down there, I might have tried it, but the way it had gone, it was best to backtrack just a bit.
Top of the plane
The train we had considered waiting for rumbled by when we were back in the woods. We headed along the towpath just a bit, then cut downhill through the woods off trail.
Old stone culvert
Justin smashed glass bottles we walked by along the way through here, and then we spotted some sort of stone structure near the railroad fill base that merited further inspection.
Former westbound Morris and Essex
It was a huge stone box culvert that went beneath the extra wide double track right of way of the railroad. It looked like the made it wider than necessary, extending well out beyond the fill, with possibly anticipation of the track beds being widened at some point.
The tracks are already wider at this point because the former east and westbound Morris and Essex division sit at slightly different levels and break apart quite a bit both to the east and west of this point. It was big enough I could probably have gone through, but didn’t try.
Former westbound Morris and Essex
We climbed up the slope from the culvert to the track area, but remained on the former westbound grade, which is slightly overgrown in this area, but still easily passable.
Yums
Some of the group went up to walk the tracks above, just out to Waterloo Valley Road where it crosses both grades.
From there, we continued walking the now clear former westbound, except Justin and Brittany decided to stay on Waterloo Valley Road. I though that was silly because it goes up and down a bit, and we were clear and level.
We continued on the grade, and I pointed out where the scales used to be at Waterloo Junction. The Sussex Railroad, later Sussex Branch of the Lackawanna, joined here.
Waterloo cattle underpass
Just a little past the scales, an old road came up from Waterloo Valley Road. Justin and Brittany rejoined from there. I pointed out to the right where the turntable used to be. The turntable pit remains stone lined and intact just off in the weeds.
A message at the Tilcon Lake
Just a little ahead on the right of way is the former site of Waterloo Station, which is pretty obscure these days. I had a rather hard time finding the spot myself.
Morris Canal near Starport
Old Station Road used to cross over both sets of tracks by way of a sort of steep switchback, but I had thought it went under a serious bridge right near the turntable site. I found out later that the underpass was actually for cattle, and that the road had crossed at grade. Some of the old road route can be followed up and over Mount Olive to the north side of Budd Lake. We checked out the cattle underpass, and then headed back down to Waterloo Valley Road, which had been rerouted here when Rt 80 was built.
Abandoned house
We turned briefly to the left, and then to the right on a trail that leads out along the west side of the Tilcon Lake. This area is a big problem with illegal dumping, and Justin recently caught someone (his job) for doing so again in this area.
Abandoned
We continued along the lake for a bit to the southwest corner, and then stopped to take a dip. I never used to consider using this spot until Brittany recommended it since it was so much farther away from the more popular spots.
Abandoned
It was great to cool off, but we didn’t hang out for too long.
We continued along the south shore of the Tilcon Lake heading to the east, and out to the paved former quarry access road, which was now covered in all sorts of odd graffiti. Like most places, the normal F Bombs and phalluses have given way to inspirational sayings and such. I wondered if this would turn into another major “graffiti highway” like abandoned Rt 61 in Centralia PA. That spot had gotten so popular that it had to be completely covered in dirt.
Abandoned
We headed out the gate of the Tilcon Lake, and I was blown away at how many cars lined the edge of Kinney Road. We didn’t see anyone else swimming, but I suppose a lot were either fishing or mountain biking. We did see a few of them go by.
We turned right on Kinney Road and crossed the Musconetcong, then turned right on the Morris Canal again, which is a greenway trail in this section. It took us down and over an old weir site where the canal could be drained for maintenance, then out to Waterloo Road.
Abandoned
Waterloo Road obliterated a section of the canal for a short bit here, and then it turns away to the right again to Starport on its way to Waterloo Village.
Abandoned
We were originally going to go that way, but instead decided we would walk the old route of Waterloo Road from before Interstate 80. It’s still paved, and there is an abandoned house on it, so we figured that would be something we hadn’t done in a while.
The access to the old house was rougher than I’ve ever seen it. The paved road had trees fallen over it, and several years of leaf litter and such has caused weeds and grass to grow over top of the pavement. We climbed over and through to the house.
Abandoned old Waterloo Road
The house was in the worst shape I’d seen it. We’d been going into it for years, and the first time I was in it almost looked like it could still be liveable. Not now though.
When we had done an episode of Driving Jersey on “Beauty of Decay”, we filmed here, and then the mountain biking groups had laid out a trail that went right through the building, complete with ramps where the stairs are and such. The ramps are still in there now, but no one has accessed the house at all in a while.
We pushed on to the door, and the entire left side looked like the roof was bowing out badly. The inside had more damage to the walls, certainly from hoodlums coming in.
Allamuchy Mountain view
We checked out every room, and then made our way out and back to the abandoned road.
There were trees over it even when it went under a better canopy. We had to take to a path that went down to the right, along the berm side of the Morris Canal, and then back up to the road again. Another trail turned to the left, which then took us up and around a little loop to reach a giant pipe beneath Interstate 80. This was apparently put in for flood drainage and/or in case they ever built the reservoir that was once planned on the Musconetcong, which would have flooded and destroyed Waterloo Village.
A view from Allamuchy Mountain to Tilcon Lake
After we passed through the tunnel, we turned left over a grassy swath and crossed the current route of Waterloo Road onto the Highlands Trail. From here, it climbs rather steeply up Allamuchy Mountain. We turned right into the woods and began climbing.
I did the ascent very quickly this time. I really needed the exercise, and it felt good that I could still push so hard to the top. Ken wasn’t all that far behind me, but he’s always fast.
We paused at the overlook, which was especially clear at this time looking east.
The Musconetcong River weaved around gracefully in the area that used to be the Mountain Ice Company lake, and further east to Waterloo Village, Interstate 80, and the Tilcon Lake beyond. It was quite perfect timing.
1890 view of Mountain Ice Co. at Waterloo
There was only one other couple that showed up while we were up there.
I noted to the right of the best view point that there were recesses carved into the rocks, and I figured these must have been more native American carvings for smoke signal sequences, similar to what we’ve seen on Ragged Ridge and Point Mountain to the west.
From here, we continued on the Highlands Trail over the rolling terrain of Allamuchy Mountain.
When Bob Moss laid out this section of trail, he had never done GPS work on it, and so when I did a scouting hike as one of my weekly hikes with him and Rich Pace, he saw the GPS for the first time, and was shocked at just how circuitous it all is!
That was back in 2003, and now the Highlands Trail passes completely through all of what we scouted that day, with a few substantial reroutes as well.
After a few ups and downs, we reached the white blazed Waterloo-517 Trail.
On Allamuchy Mountain
We were to continue on the Highlands Trail straight across this, but Ken was having a tough time. It was hot and he was wearing long sleeves because he’d gotten what he said was Poison Ivy so bad that it blistered his arms. He had been treating it, but it wasn’t quite doing well.
Looking at a part of it, I realized that he might actually have gotten into some Giant Hogweed, not Poison Ivy, because I don’t think it should have gotten quite that bad.
The group on the trail
Ken took Waterloo-517 Trail back to the right to get done early, and the rest of us continued on down the Highlands Trail to the northeast, and then came out on the Sussex Branch Trail. It was starting to get a little darker, but it wasn’t too bad.
I had wanted to get through this section with enough light to get around to the Byram Shop Rite area, and I figured we should have enough time for that.
We crossed the Sussex Branch and the bridge over the inlet to Jefferson Lake, and then lost the trail for a few moments. I told everyone that the trail used to have to cross on rocks when there was no bridge there, which was really tough. I knew that the trail turned left after the bridge site, because there are potentially hazardous iron mines in the area. I ended up finding one I’d not noticed before, and so I climbed up a slope to it. It was nothing I could get inside, but was pretty cool.
We eventually found the trail, and then followed it up and down through meandering woods, and over a nice fat rock with a cedar tree on top.
It had been a while since I’d been on this section, and it’s quite nice.
We came to an area of swamp land on the other side of the hill, and then reached a teal with black dot side trail to the left. This leads to the Salt Gastro Pub.
When I first started working for the state, the pub was about to open and asked if they could have a connecting trail heading over to it. Regional Superintendent Steve Ellis asked my opinion of whether it was a good idea, and I mentioned that it was actually a pretty good opportunity to raise awareness to the trail, and to provide access. He approved it, and the route heads through some really pretty nice terrain.
I had never hiked this bit before, but I posed the question to the group whether they would like to make a stop at the pub or not. They said unanimously yes, so we went.
Salt Gastro Pub
The trail came out of the woods and went over a little foot bridge over a spring before reaching their outdoor seating area. It was totally dark by this point.
The covid stuff was still going on, and so outdoor seating was the only thing we could do, but it was still nice. I ordered an IPA and no food, and Joel ordered some sort of cheese thing that was actually quite good, and offered a bite of one.
The venue has some live music as well, so maybe I’ll end up back there at some point.
We talked to some guys at the table next to us, and they’d done pub crawls using the trails out of the area, which was pretty cool. They were interested in what we were doing.
From here, we did not go back on the trail. We walked out to Rt 206, and then into the development to the right where the main Highlands Trail as well as the Byram Bike Path comes out. Rather than get back on Highlands Trail, which is rough this time of night, we followed the Byram Trail over easier terrain through woods and out to the access to Jefferson Lake. The trail turns left on the road, and then right along a dead end one past a boat launch. We paused there for our last swim of the evening.
I love this spot, because the water is always a little warmer than the air at nigh, and it’s just so relaxing. Several of us went in for a swim before moving on.
From here, we headed onto the side road, which becomes abandoned and is part of the Byram Trai. It goes by a few houses, I think no more than three of them, on the way, so we were all quiet until we got into the woods. From there, we headed to Sussex Branch Trail, abandoned since 1966, and turned left.
The original Sussex Branch continued southwest to Waterloo Junction, but a cutoff to Stanhope was built in 1901 which the trail follows.
This took us out to the intersection of Waterloo Road and Continental Drive.
My then and now
We headed straight across here along Continental Drive. The road bridge over the Musconetcong utilizes the old railroad bridge abutments just ahead.
After a bit, a paved trail goes along the left side of the road, an extension of the trail. We followed that for a bit up to International Trade Center and turned right, then crossed 80 and turned right on Waterloo Valley Road to return to the Mt. Olive Station.
It was quite another great night, with a lot of stuff we’d not done in a long while, and a few things here and there I’d never done.
HAM
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