Hike #1362; Allerton to Whitehouse

Hike #1362; Allerton to Whitehouse Station

10/8/20 Allerton to Whitehouse Station with Kenny Zaruni, Professor John DiFiore, Brittany Audrey, Kirk Rohn, Joel Castus, Jennifer Tull, and Carolyn Gockel Gordon

This next hike would be another point to point, this time set up because of my recent experience hiking at Round Valley on the night hike.

Bundt Park

There are always a few places I hadn’t walked before that I’d like to add to the repetoire, so I had some of that stuff in mind as well as wanting to walk through the entire Cushetunk Trail out of Round Valley Recreation Area to see how I want to go about blazing the trail. I offered to do the entire thing, even if I have to do it as a volunteer, because it’s just so badly done. I had made several phone calls after the last hike to report some of the issues I’d seen there, and it really sounded like no one knew just how big an issue it was.

Bundt Park

I came up with a route that would incorporate part of Bundt Park, as well as Valley Crest Farm and Preserve, both of which had bits of trails I’d not walked yet.

Patrick McGaheran School yard

I was originally looking at parking in a strip mall down to the south a bit more, but then realized I could get away with parking at municipal offices just a little south of Red Schoolhouse Lane, so we did that, walked along the back of the lot, and across the road into Bundt Park.
This park was formerly part of the farm of my friend and coworker Deidre. I didn’t realize that her mother’s maiden name was Bundt, but I did know that the park had been part of her family’s farm.

Playground at the school

We headed pretty much through the center of it, and then got on some paved trail that went back to the east a bit, then a sort of informal trail that went north to an area of a community garden.
I thought maybe there might be a way back out to Rt 31 from the north end of this area, but there was not. We went up and around the community garden, but then had to turn back around and cut through a swath of high grass with a short mowed path through it, out to the jughandle at the end of Molasses Hill Road.

Nice big tree

At that corner, there used to be a little restaurant I’d eaten in before. We had stopped there after some hikes, but now it appeared to be completely closed, although I think it was a catering place up until the start of the covid crap.
We dashed across Rt 31 at the Molasses Hill Road crossing, and then turned left to walk north for a bit. We turned right into a small side road to a couple of houses, and there was a closed parking lot just a bit further up that I think is affiliated with the school property beyond.

Big tree at Valley Crest Farm

The Patrick McGaheran School was just beyond a line of trees from this lot, which looked like it had been closed off for a good while. We headed across it to the tree line.

Valley Crest Farm Trail

We pushed through the edge of the trees and emerged onto the yard of the Patrick McGaheran School, and Brittany ran ahead to climb on the playground.
We continued from the south side to the east side of the school property, and then continued north out to Allerton Road.
From there, we turned right on the road and headed right.
The road took us gradually uphill for a bit, and then we came to one of the entrances of the Valley Crest Farm and Preserve on the left side, next to some nice big trees.

Valley Crest Farm and Preserve

Valley Crest Farm and Preserve is a sort of stewardship center that grows and donates food to people in need, and open the property up for recreation and education.

Valley Crest Farm and Preserve

There are trails all along the edges of the property for hiking and horseback riding.
I had meant to hike this preserve for a long while now, but hadn’t figured out the way I wanted to do it, and it just fit in with this hike perfectly.
This first trailhead was pretty obvious, and we turned to the north with some really very nice overlooks of pastoral settings and farm buildings below. I think people driving trucks through were pinning us out and watching what we were doing.

Valley Crest Farm

They’re probably not used to anyone just wandering up there, or even hiking at all. I’m not sure many people realize there are an public trails back there.

Valley Crest Farm

It was really a beautiful first stretch of the property, and there were more fields to the left when we came close to Valley Crest Road. There is another loop over on the north side, which I’d have liked to do, but we didn’t have the time if we were to head to Round Valley.
We turned right before Valley Crest Road, and continued hiking along the north side of the property, which skirts a fence for horses most of the time.

Valley Crest Farm

Soon, we crossed a main access road to the farm preserve, and the trail entered woods. It at first had a wood chip surface, but then got harder to follow.
I couldn’t figure out where we were supposed to be, and the trail blazes seemed to have disappeared. I was about ready to call it quits on this trail and cut back to the Valley Crest Road to our left, so we stepped over a small creek and then up the other side, and we found the trail. We had been just barely off of it. We followed it from here up a gradual uphill.

Valley Crest Farm

Soon, the trail came out along yet another fenced in area and turned left to follow it to the east. The trail followed along the fence until coming out on Allerton Road further up.

Valley Crest Farm Preserve

We turned left on Allerton Road from here, which was slightly further uphill again, to the intersection with Valley Crest Road.
We turned right here, and Valley Crest was lined with many stately large trees. We found a thing of free stuff on the left, including several teaching books. Within it, I found I think it was a map detailing Civil War battles, which was really cool, so I kept that one.
We continued just a bit further up the road, and soon came to the intersection with Stanton-Lebanon Road, directly across from the property of Round Valley Recreation Area.

Valley Crest Farm and Preserve

This crazy intersection, it was pointed out, had three stop signs for a single stop site. I suppose it must be a continuous problem in order to justify that.

Valley Crest trees

There was no way to go directly into the park from the intersection. We turned left here, and then got to the entrance to Round Valley. We skirted the right going in, and then made our way to near but not at the start of the Cushetunk Trail, which runs over seven miles partially around the reservoir.
There’s a pretty great overlook from a piece of Cushetunk Mountain close to the parking area, where we all stopped to look.

STOP STOP STOP!!!

From there, we just started walking the trail gradually downhill to the south a bit. It just continues east, and then north, all around the reservoir, but does not loop.

Cushetunk view

Cushetunk is supposedly a native American word for pig, even though there were no wild pigs in America. They were brought and release by colonists supposedly to have game to hunt.

Cushetunk Trail

The trail emerged in a bit of a meadow clearing, and I didn’t recognize it at first.
It turns out, this was the old sled hill and was a nearly clear overlook area with a mowed path to the top years ago. I had run to the top of it during a hike in 2004, and seen it other times before that!
Everything has changed so much, it’s unbelievable. The trees are even so much larger all around than they were back at that time. It doesn’t even look like the same place, but I know that it is.

Cushetunk Trail

The trail gained some more elevation and went into some more back woods from here. We crossed an access road soon.
The trail weaved around for a while before eventually come to a utility line clearing. From there, it went sort of downhill, and then came to an area between chain link fences, closely parallel with Stanton-Lebanon Road. We walked through that, and then on the other side the trail used to go super steeply uphill. In more recent years, the trail was redeveloped to the east for a more gentle climb for bikes.

The hill in 2004

Ken and I took the roundabout route and then took a break for everyone on the shorter, older trail to tell everyone else they could take it and cut a corner.
From here, we continued through more woods out to where there is dam work going on at the reservoir.
The Cushetunk Trail used to go straight through this area in the past, but it had been completely rerouted, which makes it a bit longer.
I had never done any of the reroute until the last time we had been up there. I honestly didn’t even know the reroute had been happening.
We turned right to continue on the reroute, which eventually took us down to the Mannon-Souerland Pond, where we had turned away the previous time.
At the end of the pond is the access to what was the scout camp, although I don’t know what’s going on with that any more due to the covid crap. I’d done a camporee there back in the 1990, and it was fun.

The hill in 2020

The trail went uphill from the access road, and then through somewhat of a clearing near a farm section, which gave us some good views as the sun was going on beyond the barns and such.
I had been told that the entire Cushetunk Trail had been re-marked, and that there were mile markers up on it. This was totally untrue. There was not a single mile marker after 1.5 mile. The blazing wasn’t even that consistent. Every now and again we would see one, but the route was rather obvious for the most part.
We continued past the barns, and then back into some more woods again. The original route of the Cushetunk Trail comes back in from the left.
The trail continued to weave around, and we passed the intersection where the Lower Cushetunk Trail, unmarked, heads downhill and reaches the campgrounds. We had done tha route the last time there.

Cushetunk view

We continued on the upper trail at this point, which gained some elevation, and had an occasional red blaze, but nothing really at all.
We had a nice section ahead, where the terrain was gently undulating but nothing too bad.
It got dark pretty quickly, but I was still able to navigate it pretty easily. I knew when we were getting close to the Round Valley Road, a former through road to the little settlement of homes that used to be in Round Valley, and held up to be sure everyone caught up with us there.

Cushetunk Trail

Once everyone was there, we continued across the road on the Upper Cushetunk Trail. This bit was a little rockier, but we got through. After all, this is open to mountain bikes.

Cushetunk Trail

After we had regained more of the Cushetunk Ridge, we came to a spot where the official trail dips back down again to the left, but the informal one, which we had emerged from the county property on, continues ahead along the ridge. It might have been an earlier route of the Cushetunk Trail, because it really is so well built, but someone definitely had come along and improved it even more in recent years. I didn’t recall it being like it was, and there had been some somewhat flat rocks placed in some areas for treadway.

Cushetunk Trail

The problem with this trail and the trail work is that it looks like you’re going to right way to continue on Cushetunk Trail. The informal trail is poorly blazed with white spray paint.

Cushetunk Trail

They were just sort of splotches. There were also some red ones I noticed, more rectangular. These matched the Cushetunk Trail blazing, which wasn’t good but a bit more standard on that trail.
The informal trail leads to both the red trail and the white trail in Hunterdon County’s Cushetunk Mountain Nature Preserve, so having this informal thing blazed in two colors leading to formal trails in those same two colors will really throw someone off. Neither of the two park maps acknowledge the trails of the other park let alone show connection.

Sun setting along Cushetunk Trail

In addition to the informal trail having some good work done, it also leads to some really good stone step work done by Student Conservation Association.

Cushetunk Trail

This would not be a problem except that the Hunterdon trails are pedestrian use only, and the state ones are open to mountain biking. The informal connector was redone to a degree that it’s good for mountain biking, hence the flat stones. The ridge trail in Cushetunk Mountain Nature Preserve is certainly NOT suitable for mountain bikes, and thus, the informal trail creates another liability. I think the informal trail should be formalized, but that there should be a sign reading that there are no bikes allowed beyond the intersection.

Da group

We followed the trail along the slope, and had to watch closely for the good treadway. The blazes even on the main trail were scarce, and surprisingly this unofficial one was better.

Cushetunk Trail view

Soon, we came to the intersection where the red blazed trail came in on the right. We had hiked this my previous time up there. The white trail went straight ahead.

Cushetunk Trail view

This trail ahead was a bit rockier and required a bit more attention. The treadway was not done over as much and it had a lot of protruding rocks. I ended up falling once. We also got off the trail by accident a couple of times, but always found our way back to it rather quickly.
The stone steps delineated the route pretty well in areas that didn’t have as much blazing. Hunterdon uses the plastic trail markers, which in the dark stand out a little bit better than the bad paint ones done on the state side.

Farm view on Cushetunk Trail

The trail descended over more steps for a good while until we reached what we refer to as The Saddle. This spot in Cushetunk Mountain was where a road once crossed the ridge.

Cushetunk Trail

This was more of a woods road or logging road, not really a vehicle road.
It was a perfect spot to take a little break, because there was a nice long log there that was good enough for everyone to sit on.
After a while, I asked everyone what they’d prefer to do. We cold continue on the white trail over the ridge, which would be a bit harder in the dark, but if everyone wanted to we would do it. The other option was to head down into the saddle road, which is now part of the blue trail.

Sloppy blazed trail

We had the option of following direct trail out to Pickel Park in Whitehouse Station, or we could head to the tracks and go east. Everyone was more into the easier way than more foot path for a bit, and I was more into that too because it would be something a bit different.
We continued down the saddle road to where the next trail broke off to the left. I forget what color it is, but it’s got a good grade to it. We continued on that and eventually found another trail to the north, which led to the power line clearing.

Near Whitehouse

It was pretty easy from here. We turned left on the power line clearing and just followed it all the way out to the parking lot on Mountain Road for the county preserve.
There used to be a trash can there in the lot that always had fresh Softees donuts by Hostess. They must have been some sort of meeting thing or something, because there would always be a fresh, unexpired box there, and I would intentionally freak my coworkers out by eating them. Every time I pulled them out I would yell “SOFTEES!!!” and grab and eat them frantically.

Night hike in the development trail

Hunterdon pulled the trash cans from most of their parks at this point, so no donuts this time.
We continued out of the lot onto Mountain Road, and then to the former Central Railroad of NJ tracks, which are now run by NJ Transit as the Raritan Valley Line. We followed these for a little while to the east, which was kind of parallel with the power line we had just been following.
While we were walking, there was a jogger going by with a bright head lamp on along parallel Mountain Road.
Carolyn said something about it possibly being the son of our friend Valerie Wall Thorpe.

On the development path

She said something about her living in that area I believe, and that her son was some sort of a marathon runner or something, and that something recently got canceled, and he would be someone out there running at that time of night. I think I got that right? I don’t know, she can confirm!
Anyway, I forget his name, but she called out, rather creepily, from the tracks asking if that was him. This poor guy was probably freaked the hell out hearing someone randomly calling his name out from the desolate railroad tracks in this middle of nowhere dark road!

Foot bridge over Rockaway Creek tributary

“It’s Carolyn!” she said. The guy paused for a second, still understandably confused and flashed his light over to see eight lunatics all standing out along the tracks walking through the dark.
“Oh hi....what are you kids doing?” he responded.
I don’t know how “just hiking” is any kind of response to that, but I’m sure it was memorable.
We continued walking along the tracks east to where Mountain Road crosses the tracks to the right side, and Railroad Ave continues on the north side of them.
We walked for a while until the tracks were getting up onto a much higher fill. We then cut downhill somewhat steeply to the left to walk Railroad Ave.
We continued to a left turn onto Dove Cote Lane into a development. We followed it to the right out to the intersection with Cornelius Lane, turned left, and then turned right onto Dove Court Road. This took us past a few more homes, then at the end reached a paved path that went into a swath of woods.
The path turned and took us across a wide clearing with some sort of water building access road, then into more woods where it crossed over a long wooden bridge that spanned a wetland and a tributary of the South Branch of the Rockaway Creek.
Once on the other side, we came out next to a park where the former Rockaway Valley Railroad (1888-1913) used to head north from the CNJ tracks. I had intended to cut left into this park, but I was in discussion and totally forgot about it.
We turned left when we got to Main Street in Whitehouse Station, and simply followed the road north to the grocery store on the corner of Rt 22 to finish the hike.
This was a really fun hike for me, but it also got me thinking about the changes we seriously need to fix with some of these trail systems.

HAPPY

I had offered to re-blaze the trail system at Round Valley, which is badly needed, but the problem is not so much the lack of blazing, but the confusion with the “informal” connections. These connections are never going away. The only way to solve the problem is by acknowledging them and adding them to the maps. Until they are, people will continue to get lost, and the state is liable .
Hunterdon County is willing to talk about formally establishing connection, and Hunterdon only shut their section down because of orders from the state following 911. It seems like it’s time to revisit this for the safety and enjoyment of public.
I’ve got a degree of optimism that with current leadership, positive and intelligent decisions will be made to make this connection a reality.

HAM