Hike #1352; Califon to Changewater
9/3/20 Califon to Changewater with Ken Zaruni, Justin Gurbisz, Brittany Audrey, Professor John DiFiore, and Kirk Rohn
Changewater bridge
This next hike would be another point to point, this time in northern Hunterdon County, and featuring trails that I often do on one of my holiday hikes through the area.
Old rail spur in Vernoy
The main reason for this was because I realized I’d not done any hikes in a while along the Musconetcong where there are great swimming spots. I try to do a night hike every year that will include those spots and Point Mountain.
I made the meeting point to be the Changewater Bridge, at the site of the former Changewater Trestle, built by the Warren Railroad in 1856, and it became the Lackawanna soon after.
The trestle was abandoned in 1955 and removed in 1959. The parking lot was the former site of a graphite mill associated with Asbury Graphite.
A section of the old mill still stood until the 1990s when it was demolished. The site is now the parking area for fishing access, and some of the base of the building can make your car bottom out if you drive over it.
The other side of the river was the site of a grist mill that stood until about 2002, then collapsed I think under the weight of snow, so the rest of it was demolished.
The bridge at this point is also scheduled to be torn out and replaced. It’s a double stone arch across the Musconetcong River constructed in 1900. This one is rather heart breaking that they’ll remove it. The downstream side was replaced with concrete I think in the 1970s, but the stone facade is still clearly visible on the upstream side.
We shuttled from this point to Califon, and we parked close to the old train station on the former High Bridge Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey. We probably started at about 4:30. The handsome stone station is one of the earliest stone stations, if not the earliest, on the entire CNJ system.
Old eel weirs in the South Branch
When the railroad came to town, then known as California, the townspeople wanted a stone station. The CNJ said they would only build the stone station if the town provided the stone necessary for the job. That stone was harvested from the nearby quarry in Vernoy, the little hamlet east of Califon.
The stone station in Califon, (shortened supposedly because the sign maker for the station sign didn’t make the board long enough to fit “California”) became a sort of standard for the CNJ.
The rail bed
Other stone stations like the gothic revival one in Somerville and the Richardson Romanesque one in Raritan followed.
We started walking the rail grade across the main street in town, and then past Calfion Lumber. We skirted the Vernoy Road just ahead, but then turned left on it rather than remain on the railroad bed.
The High Bridge Branch is now the Columbia Trail, because Columbia Gas laid their pipeline under it in the 1990s. For some dumb reason, Hunterdon Parks thought it was a good name.
Pony truss in Vernoy
I had been talking to my buddy Randy Rumpf at work during the week, and he told me there were kilns or something built into the hillside on the old Vernoy Quarry, and I wanted to see what was left of it if possible, so we walked the road for a little bit.
We got to the point where the railroad spur that broke off of the High Bridge Branch used to cross the road, and then crossed the South Branch of the Raritan to reach the quarry on the other side. The rail cut was very obvious, but the site of the bridge was not.
Old lime kilns
I had hoped to wade across and have a better look at the rest of the right of way and the quarry, but the weeds looked like no fun at all on the other side, so I decided against it. Much of the land on the near side of the river through this area is owned by Hunterdon Parks, but the other side is owned by former Freeholder George Melick who has is orchards on the other side. I wouldn’t want to get caught in there anyway. We just stopped and I related some of the history regarding the quarry to the group, and a guy came out of the nearest house.
An old house by Teetertown
I let him know what we were looking at and why we were there.
He seemed interested, and he told us that up until the 1950s, the bridge was still there over the river. He said that several years ago, the wooden footings of the bridge were still in place along the river, but that flooding since then has taken them out completely.
I found it surprising that remnants of this quarry spur remained in place for that long. I checked it myself, and the bridge can still be seen crossing in the 1957 images, but it was gone by 1963.
Irony?
The guy told us there are also still a couple of buildings standing across the river, but that you can’t really see them until Winter.
Along the stretch of river I noticed some old eer weirs. These were triangle shaped things in the river meant for capturing eels. Although this technique was used by settlers, it was also a native American thing, and it may be the most prominent remnant of aboriginal habitation we have in NJ. I’ve found many stone stoppers made by native Americans in rivers near these.
We walked along the road a bit more along the road, to the crossing in Vernoy where the tracks closely paralleled. We then followed the rail bed to the northeast. People warmly greeted us as we walked by their houses, which was nice. It’s always better when people are starting to behave more normally.
We crossed Vernoy Road again and continued out to the county line at West Valley Brook Road and turned left.
Vernoy Road turned hard and crossed the South Branch of the Raritan on an old through pony truss bridge, which is one of my favorite times of bridge to come across.
Merv Griffin's house
The road walk from West Valley Brook to Teetertown Nature Preserve is marked as a connector trail to the rail bed. It owes its existence to John Trontis and myself, because I discussed the idea with John the day I met him in September of 2002. I was impressed with his passion from the start, and he actually took my idea and implemented it which was great. We walked that route this time from there, past some old lime kilns, and then out to Route 513 where we crossed and continued to the north on Trimmer Road.
Stone arch in Teetertown Ravine
This is really a pleasant road walk that I always loved. I did my first hike on the route back in 2002 the day I’d met with John, and that eventually paved the way for my job in parks.
Hollow Brook Road
The road turned ninety degrees to the left and passed some nice old homes before reaching Maple Lane. We turned right there.
The sign at the end of Trimmer Road was completely loaded in vines and someone commented the sign needed a trimmer. I think that was probably Kirk.
We followed Maple Lane uphill and past the farm with lots of goats on the right, and then reached the intersection with Hollow Brook Road. At the northwest corner of that road, I pointed out to everyone Merv Griffin’s former home.
Geology Trail
The actor, talk show host, and game show magnate lived in the house during the heyday of several of his shows including the Merv Griffin show, which featured the house in its opening credits. I remember seeing the talk show on early in the day when I was little, and my cousin Colleen saying “Here comes Merv” when he would walk out from behind the curtains. Griffin’s company name was Califon Enterprises because he lived at a Califon address but he actually lived at this site, in the little hamlet of Teetertown.
Crystal Springs Preserve
Some of his former property was added to Teetertown Nature Preserve several years back.
We walked up Hollow Brook Road and crossed the lovely little stone arch bridge, and then went over to the creek and laid in the deepest spot we could find to cool off. It was much hotter this day than was anticipated.
After a good cool off, we headed a little further uphill, and then turned left onto the Geology Trail, which is among my favorite trails in the preserve. It had been abandoned and closed by the county a few years back, but I was very happy to see it had been reinstated. It was looking great.
New connector trail through Pelio 2.
We went up to the other trails, turned left at the first intersection, then right at the next through more dense woods and eventually came out in the camping areas.
The area isn’t getting as much use as it did when John Trontis was the director, but they’re still nice. His son had made a handicapped camping site that actually won an award years back.
We walked through that award winning site, then across the open fields into the area where the shelters are. We then cut through more field and to he parking area off Pleasant Grove Road. There, the trail continued orange blazed on the north side into Crystal Springs.
Da group
This trail had been in bad shape the last time I was on it, but this time it looked like it had been well rehabilitated.
There is turnpiking work done on it to keep it high above the wetlands, and was always a very nice trail.
Throughout a lot of this hike, we saw some of my old orange paint blazes on the trees, still holding on well after I guess about 12 or more years. The log bridge over the small tributary before the trail reached fields was not doing so well, as one of the two logs had now broken.
We turned right into the fields, which was somewhat overgrown, and we had to walk over a large pile of debris at one point. We did however make it through, and then down across the little causeway to where the driveway was to the buildings that used to be there.
Crystal Springs house in 2007
The houses were in the process of being demolished the first time I went through in 2007. One of the large barn buildings had already been taken down.
Demolished barn at Crystal Springs
A secondary building was a mess and in the process of being taken down, and a third house building sat close to one of the ponds.
The day I had met John Trontis, he explained to my brother and I that he was trying to convince the Hunterdon Freeholders to purchase the Crystal Springs tract, which was no easy task because a portion of the property was in Morris County. He was trying to work out a plan so that they could acquire it, and either Morris County or another land holder could acquire the other piece. John said that it was some of the head waters of the South Branch of the Raritan, and was an important watershed piece. Indeed, the area was full of steps of little ponds.
Abandoned in Crystal Springs, 2007
Well, John did convince the Freeholders.
I knew the land was preserved, but hadn’t gone back to the old houses.
We had gone through the remaining main house completely before they tore it down just in time.
One of the buildings, the one directly along the edge of the pond, was allowed to remain standing because the county knew they would never be able to get permits to put something like that in again, so it was considered to be important. Regardless, several years later they tore that down anyway.
Crystal Springs house in 2008
After I started working for Hunterdon Parks, the houses were mostly gone and they wanted a trail system in place. For their annual trails day event, I was able to put together my own crew of volunteers to make one of the trails, which meant cutting through field perimeters. It was a successful trip, and we managed to get the trail system all in place.
My late friend Russ Moyer in the bandoned house, 2007
One thing we kind of quietly worked on during that trip was the new connection, which would have been a connection out to Point Mount.
There was an acquisition known as Pelio 2, the second tract of land purchased from the Pelio family. Once that tract was acquired, we had an agreement with Crossroads Outdoor Ministries as well as Camp Bernie to allow for the trail to pass through.
There was a degree of confidence that this trail was going to happen because these other greenway plans depending on it, so we conducted some of the clearing work ahead of time.
The building on the lake that was allowed to stand for a while, 2007
To our great surprise, the Freeholders canceled the Pelio 2 acquisition.
The entire trail connection plan fell through. I once led a hike through on the tract in 2008 when we still had it flagged off, in a variation of this hike. I then did the route again a couple of years ago as part of a night hike, and it wasn’t too bad to get through.
I figured we would try to go through again this time as well, because finally, all these years later, the Pelio 2 tract had been acquired by the county. Unfortunately, it had been too long and the agreement with Camp Bernie was no longer valid, but at least the tract was public.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Xb8v3ccuIVM
Here is Commando Tom's video from the first hike through the tract from 2008
We headed up the driveway below Norway Spruce Trees where the house used to stand, and then along the edges of the fields to the north. Ken was telling me how he tried to get his son to hike some of that with him recently, but he just wasn’t having much of it.
As we walked along the trail, I was shocked to find that the connector trail we started to develop was now in place and blazed!
They did not use much of the original route we had put in from further uphill from what I could see. They went through woods down slope a bit more which required cutting through a lot more weeds, but at least it was there.
I had considered cutting through Crossroads Outdoor Ministries off trail and out to Schearer Road, but then decided to find the old trail route instead, and I’m glad we did.
We followed the route out through some woods, and then came out to the edge of a field. There were no blazes in there showing us where to go, and so we just skirted the edge and looked for the next blaze. We unfortunately couldn’t find any.
We ended up cutting into a tree line and then skirted the edge of another field on the left side, trying to stay out of sight from the nearby farm.
We had no problem, and then cut into the woods again on the other side following as best I could remember where the trail was supposed to go.
In these woods, we again came upon the blazes. It must have gone into the woods at the end of the first field section.
This bit took us through the woods, across a small stream, and then out to the fields that lead to Mount Lebanon Road. None of the field edges had been cleared yet, but we managed to follow through some of the corn and such to the north to get to Mt Lebanon.
The group!
I think it was raining a bit by this point, so it was good to be on the road for a bit.
The last stretch was not really terrific, and nothing I want to try to do again until there are less leaves on the trees. Maybe for the Holiday North Hunterdon hike.
The abandoned house with our late friend Russ, 2007
They will probably end up putting a parking lot in on Mt. Lebanon Road I would imagine.
We turned briefly right on Mt. Lebanon, and then turned left onto Turkey Top Road and started heading gradually downhill.
It was starting to get pretty dark by this time.
To the left of the road was the Pitha tract, which was another Hunterdon park acquisition that was to be part of the Teetertown to Point Mountain greenway that got delayed for several years. That one at this point has been preserved for quite some time though.
We continued on down Turkey Top Road and eventually came to the intersection with Penwell Road where we went straight, or to the left sort of.
Destruction machines at the houses in 2007
We continued to walk down Penwell Road, and I considered going into the Point Mountain Reservation by way of the white trail on the left, but there might have been a lot of water, and it would have been a mess to go through some of the trail through the woods. Instead, I figured we would be better off just staying on Penwell Road a bit to the gravel driveway that leads up to the end of the blue trail.
We did that, headed up the hill, and then continued on the trail along the field edges.
I love that there are still posts in the trail that I put in back in 2008 to mark the way.
Changewater Church
We turned right to continue on the blue trail along the Musconetcong River heading downstream. I can see pretty well in the dark through sections like that, and went into a light run for a bit.
I got way ahead of everyone, and got to where the blue trail splits in two to wait for everyone. The upper one follows an old road route and comes out by the parking area off of River Road. The route I wanted follows the river closely and goes to some nice deep spots for taking a swim.
I was surprised again that no one wanted to come in and cool off but me. I layed in the water for just a little bit, and then got out so we could continue on.
We followed the trail out along the river past the former site of the Pidcock-Skinner Grist Mill, and then came out on Point Mountain Road/River Road at the new bridge.
My then and now of the mill
We turned left on River Road, uphill slightly, and then to the right. I texted my buddy Darryl from work to see if he was interested in having any visitors, but he never got back to me in time, so we just continued on.
I pointed out my father’s old home and proudly remarked that it was where I was conceived, then continued along the road over Mowder Hill to the east.
Changewater Church
It was a very pleasant walk along the back road from this point to Changewater, and it went by overall pretty quickly. I always quite enjoy walking River Road through this area.
We got back to Changewater where the ambient light from the buildings shone on us. We passed Hollow Road, and a couple of doors down from there on the left was the old school house where my Aunt Flo had attended school.
We soon passed the old Methodist Church and then reached the former Changewater Trestle site and the bridge over the Musconetcong to our cars. Ken got me back to my car in Califon to close out yet another super fun night of hiking.
HAM
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