Hike #1416; Tamaqua to Jim Thorpe

Hike #1416: 5/22/21 Tamaqua to Jim Thorpe with Professor John DiFiore, Justin Gurbisz, Kirk Rohn, Jenny Tull, David Adams, Robin Deitz, Caroline Gockel Gordon, Serious Sean Dougherty, Robin Deitz, Lisa Tuccillo, and (Lisa's friend).

Sometimes I have these hikes, and the personal investment in all of this stuff is so much to express, and I can't come to terms with how to express the way I feel about it, being too insufficient or too much.

I know I'm going to end up leaning more toward too much, but that is kind of an analogy for my life. It is definitely an analogy for it with regard to this hike. 

When I look at the hikes I'm planning for upcoming seasons, I always consider that I want to have a swimming spot on every Summer hike. I also consider what things I want to do and prioritize those, but will try to save them if it looks like they will have ideal swim spots.
This ended up being the right hike on the right day, because it was really insanely hot out. We'd get the worst, hottest stuff done in the morning, and then have cooler shade and swim spots later on when we need it.

The main reason for this hike was the fact that I have been tying up loose ends. As I've been preaching in previous journal entries, there are countless series I have started and never finished. Railroad lines that we touched on going back to the very beginning of the group that I just never got around to finishing.

One of these was the Lehigh and New England Railroad.

Much of it through New Jersey was developed in 1886, and I had been hiking it since long before I started Metrotrails. After that, we started tracing it westward into Pennsylvania and north through NJ. I didn't leave much time between segments of it, and I hiked all of it as far as out near Andreas Station in PA by 2007, and as far as the NY/NJ state line. But then I stopped. I didn't revisit the Lehigh and New England again for almost a decade, save for repeating stuff I'd already done and hitting a couple pieces of spurs.

I finally did the Tamaqua extension just a couple years ago, and traced it all the way from the Blue Mountain into Tamaqua in a day.

That left only a bit I still had to do. Basically, it was the section from Tamaqua to Summit Hill. Another little branch went north through Haoto Tunnel, but that is blocked off now so we couldn't do that anyway.

So, I planned to get up to Summit Hill tracing the Lehigh and New England. From there, we would take the old Mauch Chunk Switchback Gravity Railroad down from town to Mauch Chunk Lake where we'd take a side path and get wet.

The route would then lead us to Jim Thorpe, and we would hike the D&L Trail, mostly on the Lehigh Canal, down to Weissport.

We shuttled with as few cars as possible to Tamaqua from our meeting point on the canal. 

The route I set up for us through town was to start on River Street on the Little Schuylkill Walkway. The path led to Cedar Street where we turned right, then left on Route 209. We crossed Panther Creek, and then the tracks are right there for the former Lehigh and New England. Tracks are still used in this area because a connection was made to the former Reading line out of Tamaqua.

Most of the Lehigh and New England was abandoned October 31, 1961, the second major railroad in America to completely abandon in one day, after the New York, Ontario, and Western in March of 1957. These certain sections, due to businesses, remained in place.

The section was acquired later by the Lehigh and New England, but it was built as the Panther Creek Railroad here.
Where we reached the grade crossing on the road was the former site of the L&NE Tamaqua station. The historic photo I found of the station is from the 1980s, so it did survive until somewhat recent years. I'm not sure when it was torn down. 

From here, we started following the line to the east. There were once two tracks at least through this area, and my understand is is that a lot of the length through here was a yard much of the way.

The line ran very close to the Panther Creek, and it went right over active coal roads from strip mining areas immediately to the north. The creek crossed from the north side to the south side, then back to the north side again. 

The bridges were once double tracked, and we were able to cross on the adjacent bridge that is vacant of ties or rails.

It was getting very hot out, and there were many rail cars parked on the existing track, which ended up helping us a lot because they were just tall enough to provide us with some shade.

This train parked on the tracks was about a full mile and a half long. We were quite thankful for it.

We continued past the end of this train, and the tracks almost immediately disappeared into the brush.
This was in the little settlement of Coaldale. Locally, these were known as "mine patch towns" or "coal patch towns", or sometimes just "patches", as they were patches of homes for workers and their families directly in the vicinity of the coal mines.
We crossed another coal road after that, which had signs reading to stay out and that "death may occur", and then entered well shaded woods. The tracks were still in place, but got more and more grown over as the time passed by. There was also some concrete ruins on the right of us.

After a bit, we came to a washout spot on the Panther Creek where the tracks were suspended in the air. We could see where a siding used to go to the north, and part of that bridge was still in place. Water was along the left side of the tracks, and the ties of that side were somewhat suspended.

A path re-started along the tracks a little bit ahead of some of the bad washout. Ahead, there was an old railroad tower, maybe for signals or something, with platforms still in place but all other hardware removed. 

The creek crossed from north side to south side of the tracks yet again, and the bridge at that point was totally gone, but the rails were not. It seems that the current pushed through and knocked out what was probably a girder bridge, but the rails still remained connected over top. Or maybe it was a wooden bridge or I-beam bridge. Whatever the case, those parts were gone but the connected rails remained.The ties were gone too.

The right of way got really bad again ahead, and we had to head to the north into open coal fields with a massive cut for a bit. We could see some of the rails through the weeds below us to the south.
At the end of this open area, we bushwhacked down to the right, and we came out behind the giant old Lehigh and New England Lansford station building.

It's amazing this is even still standing, but I'm thankful it's there. It was another cool thing to see as we were walking by. The tracks were still in place along this section, but not for much longer.

We continued walking past the back of the place, and then the right of way is partially overtaken by Dock Street. We walked that for just a bit, and somewhere in this area was where a northbound branch turned off to head to the Hauto Tunnel. This was named for one of the fathers of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, Philip Hauto. 

Soon, there was Knocks Hill Road, which led uphill to another little coal patch I think known as Edgemont. The main town of Lansford was just to the south of us.

We got back on the railroad bed, which was a good ATV trail from here heading east. The tracks ended in this area, and Dave and I went uphill to the left here looking for the Hauto Tunnel because I figured an ATV trail going to the left was going to lead to it. There were other things that looked like rights of way, and there were some concrete ruins and such, as well as a disused utility line tower.
When we didn't find anything, I realized we had passed the tunnel site. I wasn't going to head back.

We continued walking ahead on the rail bed below and soon came to a spot where there was an overhead trestle to the right. There were other piers further through to the left of us. This was actually the former site of Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company Breaker #6. The trestle and stanchions for the piers are some of the few remnants left of the site.

It's really easy to get lost out in these areas, and we continued to follow an ATV path that was on the old railroad bed for a bit too long. The rail bed cuts to the left a bit and goes through people's yards and such. We had to backtrack a bit and then make our way out to Rt 209 at Andrewsville Street.

From here, we had to cross 209 and try to find where the line used to go up hill toward Summit Hill. I though it would be more obvious than it was.

Next to the highway, there were bridge girders where an older bridge used to go over another railroad grade, and the cut that carried that line was filled in for Rt 209 realignment at some point.

I've gone over the anthracite railroads kmz file on Google Earth trying to figure out where the Lehigh and New England was compared to where we were, and this cut we found might have been the original Panther Creek Railroad. It was abandoned in 1872, and the Lehigh and New England apparently only took over some of the right of way.

We headed into the woods near this grade and cut, and found other remnants of rail grades out there, some of which were likely what we were looking for.

The woods are full of ATV paths, some of them on the railroad bed some of them not.
The old Panther Creek Railroad operated in this area heading up to the hill as well as the Lehigh and New England, but they were much separate as I understand.
The route we took toward Summit Hill was sometimes very obviously old railroad bed, but other times obviously not. We went west and east, and up slopes to try to get to other grades. Sometimes it was like an odd footpath. I wonder how much of either of those rights of way might have been strip mined out of existence at some point.

At one of the points where we ended up on a questionably semi level section of slope, we came upon a great oddity.
There was this enormous pile of rocks in a big cone shape just sitting there. It looked like it had been stacked and intentionally covered with moss.
Then, there were other things set up through those woods, and it was rather obviously Scout Projects.
We continued along, and somehow we got well off of where the railroad beds should have been. There was at one point quite a steep climb to the south to get up toward Summit Hill. We emerged onto the edge of West N Street where there are concrete abutments, which I think might have been a trolley bridge or something. Someone told me what it was, but I'm not sure any more. I don't think it was the Lehigh and New England grade.
Just before coming out of the woods there, we were treated to a nice view over the valley.
We made our way onto the road, and I had intended to go off into the woods on the right to continue on a portion of the Lehigh and New England I had already walked in the past, but decided against it.

We were already later in the day than I had been anticipating, and so we instead walked directly south through town to pass through the Memorial Park for a break.

After the break, we headed to the south and toward Ludlow Street, which was the former route of the Mauch Chunk Switchback Gravity Railroad.

The railroad started in 1832 as a coal carrier which served mines from near the site Philip Ginder first discovered anthracite in 1792. Loaded cars would move by gravity down from Summit Hill to Mauch Chunk on the Lehigh River, and unloaded cars would move up Mt. Pisgah on an inclined plane, travel to Summit Hill by gravity, and ascent to town on the Mt. Jefferson incline.

When technology and locomotives improved, the line was turned into a tourist attraction, and became the inspiration for the first roller coaster.

It remained in service until the 1930s when it was scrapped. I got a couple of then and now compilations in the area as we moved along.

We walked along the route of the loaded track of the gravity line from town. A lot of this was originally a downhill wagon road that was well graded, which dates back to as far as 1819.

We went to where the station used to be on Ludlow Street, and I pointed out where the old metal fence used to be along the edge where the tracks turned for the return route. Originally, another track would have gone out in the direction we had come from to the old coal mines.

We continued along the route, which went near Ludlow Park, and then followed Holland Street back to the east on the downhill slope. On the way, I believe we stopped by the Switchback Mini Mart on the east side of the town on the former route of the railroad. Always a good stop for food and snacks.

From here, the rail bed is now a very long dead end road called Stoney Lonesome Road. The old postcards refer to this piney area on a shelf as Stoney Lonesome. The gravity railroad passed beneath the unloaded track mid way up the Mt. Jefferson Plane on this route.

We passed through that site, which still has one bridge abutment in place only. We also noted there was was a home on the right side that we had seen under construction in the past, made at least in a good part out of old timbers.

We continued out the road to the end, and the last house on it is full of all sorts of railroad memorabilia. From there, the right of way enters very nice woods and continues on a gradual descent. We crossed a power line clearing with a good view, and then passed by five mile tree bridge. This was the spot where the unloaded track crossed over the loaded track and also had an interchange. Only the abutments of that bridge remain as well.

From there, we descended further, and eventually passed through the front yards of homes on White Bear Drive. We crossed White Bear Drive on the rail bed, and at the entrance sign to the Mauch Chunk Lake boat launch, there was a sign and a bottle of iced tea that read "For our Helbing hikers". This was of course from our buddy Jim DeLotto who lives in Summit Hill!

At this point, I'd already walked the railroad bed enough times. We walked down to the edge of the lake to follow the trail along the side of it to the east. This provided us with a pretty good swimming spot.

We made our way out to the regular trail again; the Switchback Gravity Railroad was destroyed a bit when Mauch Chunk Lake was built, and so at that point the trail winds around to the main dam. We then got back on the railroad bed on the other side which passed through a beautiful area of Rhododendrons along White Bear Creek. I layed in it a couple of times as I recall.

We continued downstream and passed by a large Yuengling beer sign we wouldn't have expected to see and an old dam. We reached Flagstaff Road and then headed out to Broadway where the rails used to cross.

Here, there used to be a place where the trolleys could transfer between the Switchback railroad, and there is a little station platform for that remaining.

Beyond this point, many don't know where to go for the rest of the right of way because it isn't really signed very well. One continues on the road to the east just a bit, then enter the driveway to the Jim Thorpe water plant. The right of way skirts that property and then enters the woods again on the north side of the creek. The creek continues to drop while the rail bed stays at about the same level. There was a side right of way that went off to the left which I believe was the side switchback that went to the Hacklebernie Mine.

That mine is actually the Scotch-Irish word meaning Hell, not the different claims made by Hacklebarney State Park in New Jersey about native Americans or a heckling foreman. In the section ahead, the original sleeper stones that held the old rails in place were evident. In later years, this certainly used standard railroad ties, but the line is so old that it would have used the stone sleepers like the other early railroad lines in it's beginning days. We continued to the east from here, and were soon high on the slopes above Jim Thorpe, which was originally known as Mauch Chunk.

By this time, we were almost to fifteen miles anyway, and I wasn't so inclined to walk all the way to Weissport on the canal from Mauch Chunk. Really, the only other thing I wanted to see in the town was the new foot bridge over the Lehigh River.

We continued on the old rail bed across Hill Street, then along the slope to Packer Hill Ave. Near this point were several inclined planes down to the Lehigh used by the rail cars in the early days. There were several different incarnations of these over the years in several different spots, operating at different times. We headed downhill on the road, and I decided we would take a bit of a side trip from the main road onto the pretty little paths of Kemmerer Park. This brought us on switchbacks of a couple of old roads, and then out to an attractive little spot with manicured, ornamental plants and a very nice view of the Harry Packer Mansion.

The Harry Packer Mansion was built in 1874 and designed in italianate-style by Addison Hutton.

The home was a wedding gift to Harry Packer from his father, Lehigh Valley Railroad magnate Asa Packer.

It now serves as a bed-and-breakfast and other events. Just below the Harry Packer Mansion was the home of his father, The Asa Packer Mansion was built in 1861. It is an Italianate Villa with it’s three stories and seventeen rooms sits on the hill overlooking the Lehigh just above the road.

Asa Packer was a Connecticut born businessman who settled in Mauch Chunk and owned a canal boat.

His business grew to building these boats and first urged the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company to use steam driven locomotives.

He eventually became the sort of father of Lehigh Valley Railroad, and completed the line from Mauch Chunk to Easton.

In addition to his coal transportation businesses, he was also a member of Pennsylvania House of Representatives, a Carbon County Judge, and founder of Lehigh University. We headed out into the town, and passed by the lovely St. Mark's Episcopal Church, and I set up a then and now compilation using a 1979 image.

The church was completed in 1869, in Gothic Revival Style designed by Richard Upjohn, the style's leading proponent, and was one of his last works.

Construction of the church was largely funded by Asa Packer.

Earlier, just around where we had crossed Hill Street, Serious Sean tried to set up an Uber to pick us up, and one had confirmed. He canceled it before it could go through, but it gave us a false sense of hope that this service would be available. We continued through town, and I honestly don't recall where we all decided to sit down. We found a good shady spot not very far from the new pedestrian bridge that had been built for the D&L Trail across the Lehigh River, to connect to the historic Lehigh Canal route on the other side.

The bridge is known as the Mansion House Bridge because it crosses over the Lehigh at almost the point that an original pedestrian bridge once did, which connected the canal near the lower lock 1 to the Mansion House Hotel.
Shortly after the settlement was built on the coal industry, the Mansion House was built in 1825. As the town of Mauch Chunk grew, so did the Mansion House, which eventually reached 355 feet long and five stories high.
By 1870, Mauch Chunk, a native American word meaning "Bear Mountain (now Flagstaff Mountain), because it looked like a sleeping bear, was also known as the Switzerland of America.
Still, tourism also declined after a time, and so did the Mansion House, which closed shortly after the 1894 season ended. The building was then demolished in stages, and one small piece of the north section still remains as a beverage retailer.

With the decline of the town continuing into the twentieth century, some pretty wacky decisions by local politicians were made and the town was renamed for the Olympian Jim Thorpe.
Thorpe was interred in East Mauch Chunk, at that time a separate municipality, and the towns of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk were merged and renamed for him.
Thorpe had never even visited the town, and arrangements to bury his remains here were arranged through his widow.
Thorpe, a native American himself, was to be buried on his tribal lands in Oklahoma, and the rest of his family has been pushing for that, but the case was lost in court and appeals have not gone through.
There are many mixed opinions on this topic, but something simply doesn't seem right about stripping a settlement of its native American name in favor of Jim Thorpe, who's wishes were not to be interred in this place he never knew.
I find it particularly shocking that today, with the greater racial sensitivity than we have probably ever seen in America, that this particular topic has not generated any more interest.

Rather than continue on along my originally planned route from town, I just figured we would stop somewhere there and get an Uber.

This did not at all work out as planned. Sean tried to get the Uber again, and it failed. Then I tried to get one. Others also tried, and there was nothing available.
This was also a lesson in how this service works, because the more people requesting the Uber, the higher the price would get due to the demand.

Serious Sean announced that he was going to just try to run back to the cars at the meeting point from here. This sounded kind of crazy, and I was tempted to join him in doing this. The only problem I was really having at the time was that my heel was still not yet healed from the bad jump I had taken on the Delaware and Raritan Canal a while back. 

We sat around there in town chatting, and Sean disappeared running to the south. It was over four miles from there to the end point, so no one expected to see him for a long time.
It turns out he went into a couple of stores, and was able to secure a ride to the south as if by some miracle, so he did end up getting back within the house.
I thought I saw him riding by us in his car, and thought it couldn't be him, but it did turn out to be him.
We did decided to take the walk across the Mansion House Bridge, which had some great views of the Lehigh River. The prefabricated structure leads to the old Lehigh Canal Lower Division Lock #1.

This served as a guard lock, and had a maximum lift of only 1.4 feet depending on river level. Some masonry reconstruction has occurred at this site with the new bridge development.
We walked right back across the bridge the way we had come and Sean was able to get everyone a ride back down to the meeting point, and everyone that needed it got rides back to their cars in Tamaqua to finish out the day.
It had really been a fun adventure, and everyone was pretty surprised that I was not averse to cutting the hike short.
I explained to everyone that we had done the mileage I had intended to do, and that there was no need to continue to do extra. This wasn't something terribly far away, and it wasn't something like the NJ Perimeter series where I had to be a stickler about making every old turn to be close to the perimeter.
This was just more of a relaxing day.
Sometimes it was a bit stressful, it was definitely a bit too much, but overall I feel quite great about what a good time it was. 

Hike #1415; Raritan Area Loop

Hike #1415: 5/20/21 Raritan Area Loop with Justin Gurbisz, Jay Shah, Cory Salveson, Linda Salveson, Kirk Rohn, Shayna Michaels, and Carolyn Gockel Gordon.

This next hike would be a pretty awesome night hike around the Somerville and Raritan area.

I had done variations of loops through the area in the past, and I was finding these to be really particularly good for night hikes, so I put together another one.
I had done a loop hike using some of this route in the past with my ex girlfriend Cathy many years ago, and then another version with friends where we made our way along the Duke Island Park area followed by some properties of corporate places.
This time, I would utilize Duke Farms again, because everyone had enjoyed those hikes so much.
I don't ever expect to emulate the glory of some of those great, crazy hikes, but the land is still fantastic for it regardless of all of that.

We met at the Raritan Mall. I headed out after work direct to the site, and had enough time to run into a little liquor store at the north end of the plaza.
The only thing they had that was of the octane I was interested in was the Flying Dog brewery's Double Dog IPA. It's not a bad IPA, but at this point in time, I didn't really care much for most of the stuff there yet. The imperial porter and their barleywines were not really my taste.
I was happy and surprised to see an old friend in the lot this time, Jay Shah.
I hadn't heard from him in a long time and didn't see him on facebook any more. He and his wife Sangita used to come on my hikes way back around 2007, but I hadn't seen him in years.

He told me he had recently retired and that we would see more of him. I didn't see him much after this just yet, but hopefully in the future. A lot of my hikes are a bit of a drive.
I walked with Jay for a bit and reminisced about some of the past hikes including one of the ones where we went to Union County Music Fest and saw Neon Trees, Paul Rodgers, and Blondie.
Our route took us from the Raritan Mall parking lot, which used to have a grocery store, but now almost everything in the place is closed down.

I had wanted to try to get into Duke Farms possibly by way of another entrance, maybe sort of sneak around a fence. There isn't a charge; I just wanted to try to get in there sooner without having to go to one of the other entrances.
We made our way out to Rt 206 off the corner of Orlando Drive, and then walked south along that. There is a gateway entrance to Duke Farms off of that, but unfortunately we would find it shut.
As we walked, in this area was where the South Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey used to cross over. It went righ through the Duke Estate, and we would be on it in a little bit.

It used to cross the Raritan River at the estate, and the bridge abutments are still there, but the bridge is long gone.
To the left of the highway, we used to follow the right of way at times, adjacent to a cemetery, which led between Rt 206 and the Somerville train station, which I would use for parking for the hikes on Sundays. A lot of what is now the parking lot was the rail yard and junction tracks.
I was surprised to see that all of the woods in that area are now gone. The path that used to follow the railroad bed was now plowed all down, and it was a sort of access road to what I presume is a new development of homes or an apartment complex.

We crossed the Raritan River on the road, which has a good sidewalk, but is very much out in the sun.
Once we got to the other side, there is the entrance gate, but there was no way to walk in up there.
I looked off to the right, and there was also no good way of going down and around it along the river. We were stuck going along the road further to the south, which would add a bit of mileage. I had it set up to be able to subtract later if necessary.
There was a big fence along the right side of Rt 206 that kept us from the property, but that at some point gave way to a wall. We were able to go up and hop over the wall, and then there is a  mowed boundary trail that skirts the fence heading around the property to the south and then west.

This was a really good path. We were far enough inside the woods that we could not really even see Rt 206, and we weaved around to the west and could barely even see Dukes Parkway West, from which the main entrance is located.
We continued on this informal trail and came upon a very nice concrete pavilion thing supported by columns. This was a neat little thing we'd not have seen if we'd walked another way.
We soon reached the main entrance to Duke Farms at Central Way and headed north into the estate property.
The well manicured property is full of all sorts of roads and such, and at the first intersection, we turned right to continue on Central Way, which was line with beautiful giant trees on the right.
This led us to the next point of interest: the Hay Barn.
The hay barn was just that, a farm building built in 1905. However, the building burned in 1915, and the roofless shell of the building was retained as sort of an art garden, with various sculptures situated around the walls of the inside.
This was just the first of the fixtures of the estate of the late Tobacco heiress.

Doris Duke

Doris Duke was not only heiress to tobacco fortune, she was a philanthropist who led a controversial and quite reclusive life. 

She was considered a celebrity, but didn’t fit the mold. Some of her policies were not what we might consider a suave environmentalist today (like feeding deer, which has been done on the Duke Farms property), however several preserves bear her name and were associated with her land holdings. Duke Gardens is managed by Duke Farms and Duke Island Park in NJ are the most famous, and Doris Duke Preserve in Sterling Forest NY is another.
Since her death in 1993, interpretations of Duke's will and management of her properties has come under a lot of scrutiny, but we regardless have some beautiful preserved lands. 

It's very sad that it was decided to demolish her mansion on the property. Her gardens of the world exhibit were removed in favor of more native things. I'm all for that, but a contained area of something different also has its appeal.

Walking through this park always makes me think of my late friend Page Foley, who in many photos bore a startling resemblance to Doris Duke. I would send her photos of Duke whenever I found a new one, and even her parents agreed on the resemblance. I attended a work seminar at Duke Farms when I found the photo posted here and sent it to her.

The strange thing was, I was hiking Duke Farms when I got the text message from my brother that Paige had died in Lehigh Valley hospital after getting pneumonia and her organs shut down.
We made our way into the Hay Barn and checked out the sculptures, then got on the Hay Barn Meadow Path heading west through woods.
We passed by an enormous old tree stump.
Pretty soon, we reached the right of way of the South Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey again.
I had walked almost this entire line from Flemington to Somerville, except here.

One would think that I'd prioritize walking something like this over the other stuff out there, since I'm so into railroads, but for whatever reason I never got to it until this time, and so this bit of it I was missing became one of the reasons for doing this hike.
We followed the right of way to the north for a bit, now called "railroad way".
It led parallel with one of the estate roads for a bit, and eventually took us out to Oak Way, beyond which it wasn't so accesible.

We turned away from the rail bed at Oak Way, and then took some of the other trails through the property to the west. I don't remember exactly which ones, probably Turtle Pond Trail or something.
This took us through to the handsome Coach Barn and Clock Tower, a handsome stone building built in 1903 surrounded by manicured gardens.
Another bit I wanted to add in to this one is one of the least used sections of the Duke Farms property to the north.
We headed around the Coach Barn and across Overlook Way. Near the Coach Barn was a side path and gate that could be opened into a lower flood plain of the Raritan River, which had a public trail around it.

We passed through the gate and headed down hill through very pleasant woods, and then crossed over a little stone bridge over a tributary.
The trail was an old roadway that led us north, and then alongside the Raritan River. It had not been mowed at all any time recently, and obviously was not walked very often. We ended up getting a ton of ticks on this section, which we had to constantly pick off.
Still, it was a really pretty little route and I would definitely do it again. There were also a lot of really pretty big trees on it.

The trail continued to the west and came out to the old route of Nevius Street on the north side of the property, and just south of the Nevius Street Bridge.

Nevius Street Bridge is now pedestrian only. The double intersection Pratt through truss bridge was constructed in 1886 by the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Canton Ohio to replace an earlier wooden structure erected in the 1840s.

Immediately across the bridge and on the left is a Gothic Revival castle structure, a water pumping station on the Raritan Power Canal constructed in 1900 by James Buchanan Duke on the site of an earlier wooden mill.

The dam was removed, just upstream from the bridge, and the John Basilone Veterans Memorial Bridge was opened in 2005 just above that. That was when the old Nevius Street Bridge was closed to traffic. We got across the bridge, and then immediately turned left on the historic route of the Raritan Power Canal. The first part of this is all filled in, and just a grassy swath. We passed through a concrete underpass for the trail made for the new John Basilone Memorial Bridge, and then continued out to a foot bridge over the outflow of the extant power canal section just ahead where there is parking. We continued along the narrow berm of the canal, which was not a towpath, to the west.

The route is quite beautiful with views of the water and plenty of turtles.

The root system of trees around the area criss cross and make for a particularly bucolic setting. We continued on the power canal itself up until we got to the the intersection with the trail and the old Hibernia Mine Railroad Bridge. This Bridge originally served as a span over the Hibernia Brook, for the Hibernia mine Railroad in Northern Morris County's Farney Highlands.
The bridge was built in 1879 by the Phoenix Bridge Company of Phoenixville Pennsylvania, under its original name: Clark, Reeves, and Co.

It serves as a railroad bridge until 1894, when it was moved to Somerset County to serve as a road Bridge for over a century, along the South Branch out near Neshanic Station.
It was relocated again in 2007, and erected over the Raritan Power Canal just west of Raritan for pedestrian access to Duke Island Park.
We turned left here along a more prominent, paved trail that led down away from the power canal to the left. The route took us down beside the Raritan River, and then came to an access road. The trail turned off of that road to the left after a short bit, and then went through a nice section of woods until it emerged on the south side of mowed wide open fields of Duke Island Park. We passed by a spot where there was another dam that has since been removed, and then headed into more woods after the grassy fields. I think I went into the water a time or two here.

We continued through more woods and then eventually reached the only dam still remaining on the Raritan in the area, which is where it starts to become Confluence Reservoir State Park.
This dam, as I hear, is going to be removed in the near future.
I've always liked going for dips in the river in this area, but below the dam, so it really shouldn't effect it very much.
The sun was starting to go down at this point, and I really wanted to get through this next section before dark.
We headed back up to the paved trail, and the Raritan Power Canal trail joined with it on the right.

We passed by the dam, which I believe is known as the Head Gates Dam (the Raritan Power Canal is fed from here, and I'm not sure how they will continue to keep that watered if the dam is removed. Time will tell) and then came to the road access from the right. In the past, I had brought the group up that road to get out, but not this time.
We continued up a slope along the Raritan, and then down slightly. The foot path continued along these slopes, which really wasn't bad. The few fallen trees could be stepped over. The trail was lined beautifully with purple Dame's Rockets.

We eventually came to a low point where the trail seemed to disappear, but a walk slightly to the right led us to the end of an abandoned road that came in off of Old York Road to the north.

Nevius Street Bridge

The road took us near a house on the left, and we quietly walked by to emerge on Old York Road.
My plan from here was to walk north on Milltown Road to the east of necessary.

If it was at all possible, I wanted to walk through the tract of land between Old York Road and areas to the north, which is county park owned.
I wasn't sure what to expect here.
We turned right on Old York Road and crossed it, and it didn't take long before we reached the entrance to a trail to the left side.
It was perfect. The trail was wide and appeared to be regularly used by mountain bikers.
We headed slightly down hill on the trail and trie to stay on the most prominent route. 
There were several side paths through the section and I could spend hours exploring all of this.

The trails had routes that went to the right, that I assume go out to the dead ends off of Milltown Road.
This entire section is known as the Chipman Tract. Despite the fact that it is very heavily used, I found out it is technically closed to public, although it was not signed as such on the road.

While we were in this property, Carolyn called to meet up with us. She was parked up near where Milltown Road met Rt 202 to the north. I told her what we were up to, and that my plan was eventually to come out to Milltown Road, and that she should start walking down that. I told her not to go farther than North Avenue however, because that was where we were going to be coming out of the woods at the farthest.
We continued through along the river, and there was a terrific high slope above the river in this area. The trail remained clear, and then we came to where we could see the houses at the end of the roads.

The trail did exactly what I wanted it to do; it came out at the end of North. We exited the woods by a sign that said not to go in that way, and then just walked the road out to Milltown Road.

We turned left on the road, and in a short distance, Carolyn was walking toward us on it. It was just about dark by this point. We had gotten through the rough stuff I wanted to right in time.
We followed Milltown Road together up to Rt 202, and my next plan had been to go into North Branch Park, but it was looking like we were going to run over the miles I was planning on if we did that. Instead, we headed to the right on Rt 202, and passed beneath the bridge of the former Central Railroad of New Jersey, now the NJ Transit Raritan Valley Line.
We turned left from there into the Bridgewater Towne Center Shopping Mall, which is actually just a strip mall.
We went into the Wegmans to get some drinks, and they didn't really have anything I was interested in. Carolyn got some Lagunitas Little Sumptin and I still had enough of my own stuff left, so I didn't need anything more.
My plan from here had been to take North Branch Park and then cut to the east and use a series of paths skirting a development, and other stuff along the way heading back.

This plan was not going to work so I had to cut out North Branch Park, but still figured we'd get to those development paths.

At the north side of the lot was a Home Depot. I planned that we would go behind the stores, and at the north end of the Home Depot, we would cut through a swath of woods to a town house development to the north.
There was the idea of getting on the tracks for a bit, but that didn't look too good, and it looked like the town house community was well gated off. If only a couple of us were there, we could have found a way through, but this was going to be too complicated. We walked along the rear of the Home Depot, following the fence, and we were blown away that there were no holes through it.

One would think that people living this close to a Wegmans and a Home Depot would make a bee line from their development directly there rather than getting in their cars, heading up and around the next underpass on the tracks, onto Old York Road, and around, but there was nothing.

There was evidence of sections of the fencing having been broken and promptly replaced. The fence was about ten feet tall, and then went down to about eight feet. Near this point, there was a hole in the fence maybe three by three feet, and I crawled through. There was an obvious path down to a small brook, and I could see the town houses beyond with their lights on, but this would likely have been a mess if I tried to get everyone through there.
I decided we would continue to try to find something a little better.
We made our way along the entire back of the complex and found really nothing good. 

I had already been concocting a plan while we were walking behind the stores on how to get through ahead.
We continued to walk along the back and almost out to Rt 202, where we skirted some evergreens, cut a corner, and then walked east on 202 for just a little bit. We then turned to the left onto Edgewood Terrace, which forms a sort of loop. At the first intersection for the loop, we went to the right.

In just a short distance, there was a break between homes. We walked right through, and it took us on a wide set of yards behind a couple of businesses. We then came out on Vones Lane.

We went right across the road and immediately into a parking lot that was not really being used.
We continued across the lot, and at the end, just stepped over grass and into another parking lot for more businesses.
At the end of that lot, we reached Raritan Self Storage which was fenced. We cut to the left through grass, and then immediately to the right through grass and under trees parallel with the storage property.
We emerged from a line of trees onto the grassy swath on the west side of Ortho Drive, a pharmaceutical company complex access road. We turned to the left and skirted this land to the far left, and pretty soon a paved trail appeared and followed around the perimeter of the complex.

It was my plan to use some of this trail all along, but we ust got onto it a bit further to the south than I had been planning.

The trail took us north and near the cul de sac at the end of Barbieri Court, then cut to the east, along the north side of this complex.
It came close to some parking lots, and then there was a sort of cleared area off into the woods to the left.
My plan originally had been to come in through the woods, off trail, from Vones Lane over that way, but this time we didn't need to bother with that. I'd try that again another time.
We continued to the east on the trail, which dipped down into the dark woods below the parking lot but still continued to parallel Ortho Drive. 

We crossed a foot bridge over a little creek, came out of the woods close to the road, and then crossed the entrance road to a Johnson and Johnson child development center. The trail then remained close to the road from that point to where it ended at Rt 28/Easton Turnpike.
From here, we dashed across the road directly. 
Avalon Assisted Living of Bridgewater is right across, and we went through the parking lot with the building to our right. At the end of the parking lot, there were dumpsters and such. We went around them, then dipped down and entered the green of the Raritan Valley Country Club. A couple of foot bridges went over a brook almost immediately after going into the course, which was perfect.

The paved path took us somewhat northeast, and then to a tunnel that goes beneath Country Club Road. We of course had to use that, and then continued to skirt the north side of the course for a bit heading east.
Once we got over near the farther east section of the course, we started heading south parallel with Birdsall Lane, which ended quick.
There was a fence to the left, and when we got to the end of the course, there was a fence there too.
I think this was one of those times where myself and others climbed right over it, and then someone else in the group simply opened up a gate on it and walked through.

We dashed directly across Easton Turnpike, and there was a Burger King directly across!
I had been hungry for hours but hadn't really gotten anything. 

There had been a burger place where we came out of Milltown and I was really tempted to get something then. So I had been thinking about burgers specifically all this time. This was perfect.
We all went over, and of course, because of the covid craziness, everything indoors was closed.
One of the only good things that came out of the pandemic was the fact that we can more often get away with walking through the drive through window areas. We were able to do this this time!
We went through and I got a couple of double cheeseburgers and I forget what else, but the timing was great because we were almost done.

We head to head south from here toward Rt 202 again, so we went out behind the stores and such, and in a short distance came to where Thompson Street hit Rt 202.

There was no crosswalk or anything here, and 202 had a median, which made this more complicated. I think I just ran across an hopped the median, but I think a couple others went on down and crossed over at the nearest crosswalk.
We continued down Thompson which took us across the former Jersey Central tracks, and then turned to the left on La Grange Street. We followed this through neighborhoods to the east until we reached Rt 206, then went to the right.

We were able from here to just walk through the strip mall parking lots which are contiguous with the Raritan Mall lot we had met in to close out a very fun and diverse hike.

Nothing too particularly crazy happened on this one; it was just a particularly interesting trip with a whole lot of diversity which is exactly what I love. I'd definitely have to do another variation of this one because it was almost guaranteed to be good.