Hike #1456 Warren Highlnds/Fiddler's Elbow to Phillipsburg

Hike #1456; 11/23/21 Warren Highlands/Fiddler's Elbow to Phillipsburg with Professor John DiFiore

This next trip would be one of my return to work things where I wanted to see what work needed to be done on the Warren Highlands Trail.

I had been out on my paternity leave for quite a while, and so going back to work I would start by working on some of the Warren Highlands Trail because I was under the assumption that one to two days a week I would be doing work on these properties. That was the way we set things up before, so I was getting the scope of what I needed and thought it would be the professional thing.

I was able to get hold of John in short notice and he was into hiking the whole trail route with me, so we were able to shuttle vehicles where they needed to be, from the boat launch lot in Phillipsburg to Fiddler's Elbow Road on the NJ Conservation Foundation lands of Harmony Township.

I wanted to create a list of all of the work that I needed to do on the trail as I went back to work, and try to photograph all of the down trees and overgrown areas along the way.
We had to park at Fiddler's Elbow anyway because there is no parking at the eastern end of the Ragged Ridge property just yet.

So, John and I parked at the spot along Fiddlers Elbow, and then walked it back to Harmony-Brass Castle Road, then followed that the distance to the west. I watched closely along the other Conservation Foundation propety along the left side of the road because the plan is to build new Warren Highlands Trail in there, and I need to be sure of where it will go. I think I have a pretty solid plan for it, and looking at that this time helped put it in perspective. 

The trail goes in to a private driveway on which the state has an easement. From there, we went up the trail on switchbacks my friend and former coworker Verdon Pensyl and I built. 

He had been a seasonal employee at Spruce Run with me, but then got the full time job at Round Valley. Unfortunately, he left that job, but he was always a great worker, and he and I installed tons of switchbacks on this section.

We climbed to the top here, and there were several small trees and branches down, but nothing too terrible. It was still pretty easy to follow to the top, past a hunting stand and then along the ridge with nice seasonal views to the north toward Blue Mountain in Pennsylvania.

The trail comes up to a woods road, which is the continuation of the private Hilltop Lane, and then follows it the remaining distance to the peak of Ragged Ridge where we stopped for a break.

This is a great spot because it features the "smoke signal rock" where supposedly native Americans used to send smoke signals in sequences to their tribesman on the other ridges. I'd been trying to get this designated a native American heritage site, but so far no movement on that yet.

The view was crisp and clear on this occasion, one of the best days for the view I'd seen to date.

Everything from Wind Gap over to Delaware Water Gap and the valleys in between were in perfect view.

After a nice little break at this spot, we continued down along the trail from the ridge top, past lots of rock outcroppings to the stone work area done by Student Conservation Association in 2019.

There were a few small trees down on the descent from the rocks to the stone step stuff. There was also some new evidence of ATV use up there.
I actually don't mind that too much because it keeps the woods road sctions open.

Smoke signal rocks

The only part of it that bothers me is when they harass other people and tell them to stay off of the property. We try to live peacefully with them and don't report them, but then they try to keep the public property all for themselves. 

We continued downhill, and the trail ceases being a foot path with stone work and emerges on the end of what was probably an old logging and/or charcoal production road. We followed that to another intersection and Warren Highlands Trail turns left, downhill slowly to another hairpin turn, then down over another old road and through a wet and washed out area over a tributary of Buckhorn Creek. It then came out to Ridge Road where the new parking lot had been installed by Joey Maio of Maio Construction.

The last segment of the woods road before crossing and reaching the road gets really badly washed out because springs flow down it. ATV use causes it to rut up even worse.

The trail turns right on Ridge Road briefly, then left into fields on the opposite side heading uphill. This was an old farmstead where there used to be a farm house ahead on the right.

Today, only the spring house from that farm still stands, on the right side of the trail on the way up.

The trail follows an old farm road uphill, past the old farm house site, and then to a field edge where it follows a lane on the south side of it. It continues to a line of trees separating two fields, and we turned to the right to follow the trail at that tree line uphill.
The trail continues to the crest of a hill in the fields, where there is a beautiful overlook back toward Ragged Ridge.
There is always some sort of ATV use going on in this property, which I don't mind as long as things aren't getting torn all up. Posts are always torn up when I install them there. The gate for the farmer's use was actually left open when we headed up.

We continued ahead through the fields there, and then cut to the left through a tree line out into a second field. There, the trail skirts the right side of the field, and then cuts into the woods on the right.
It soon reaches a woods road where it continues to climb slightly the the crest of the next field.

When I laid out this trail, I was originally going to bridge it to the east a little more, and then go down a steeper woods road. However, that was in the middle of the property. I would rather go and hug the safety zones if I can as not to bother hunters. 

I found a great woods road that went down hill from the one along the backs of the upper fields, as well as a spot where there was a good seasonal view point over the Delaware Valley. I made a little trail to that, and then used another woods road that descended to a sharp switchback turn right next to the property boundary. There was a very large deer start right next to this corner, which probably has a better view from a deer stand than most any in the state.

The trail then descends on the woods road more gradually to the northeast a bit, then makes a harder turn to intersect with another woods road, the one I originally intended for the trail to use.

On my list of stuff I want to do, is to turn this other woods road into an alternate loop trail. It just would require blazing it, and I haven't gotten around to it yet.

The trail turns left down the woods road for a bit, and then turns harder to the north. That road comes out in the top part of the field closer to Rt 519, but the trail turns to the left on a foot path I had cut open with my coworkers Tom Rozmirski as well as Verdon again.

The section looked pretty good but needed a good cutting back anyway. It was starting to grow in a bit.
The section in part follows what I think might have once been a farm road or woods road.

At first it is nothing, then picks up a sort of level area behind a stone wall. After a while, it turns hard right as a foot path we had cut the previous years, and that part was getting really badly grown in.

In some cases, there were vine covered trees over the trail. This gets to be a problem because the woods are full of undergrowth, and no one is going to try to go around it. So, the trail beyond is just going to grow over and that's it.

We made our way through these weeds, and then skirted the left side of the field heading to the north.
I had wanted to make some improvements to this entire section ahead for a while.

The trail skirts these fields, but the farmer keeps planting closer and closer to the edge, which in season gives absolutely no room to walk. There isn't enough room to hike in the tree line the entire way down, and it is private land in the field to the left of the line. Those land owners were unwilling to sell any land or an easement for the trail, so we had to stay in the near field.
At the end of the field, I had cut through the tree line initially because it would have to follow the brief road walk on Rt 510 to the Van Nest - Hoff - Vanatta Farmstead, but the road walk is awful. There is no shoulder on the first bit of it, and it's quite dangerous.

I had walked through from here with Warren County Planner Dave Dech and my coworker Deidre a while back and we found the possibility of putting a trail through along the Buckhorn Creek just to the noth, which would then utilize more of the field areas. I also wanted to cut new trail along the south sie of farm fields to eliminate the need for a road walk to get to the access.

At this time, it seemed like a really huge project to undertake, but I had already done work on the field perimeter section at this point.
I just had to get into that section and get finished with the trail from the next farm fields toward Hutchinson on the Buckhorn Creek.

We walked through the section parallel with the road, and then headed across Rt 519 into the fields on the north side.

According to the 1874 Beers Atlas of Warren County, this was once the Boyer Farm. There was a farm house near the middle of the field that had been torn down, and probably a couple of out buildings.

I found out much more recently that the old farm house still exists. It was a brick building, dismantled from this location and moved to another over in Williams Township PA. I'm not sure where, nor does the contracted farmer who told me, but hopefully I will find out some day soon.

We followed the farm access lane to near the former house site, then turned left through a line of trees, and followed the right side of the fields to the north. This brought us to a power line crossing where we turned to the left and skirted the north side of the same fields, heading west.
We continued on this until we got to the end of the fields, and there was an ATV path down hill.

We continued down this to the edge of the Buckhorn Creek. The ATV path crossed the creek at a shallow spot, and it is state park land on the other side, but the direction I needed to go to the left had one bit of private land on the other side.
So, my plan was to develop trail on the south side of the creek heading west.
Nothing was clear yet, and it was a mess of brush. One of the problems was the state land was so close to the edge of the creek that it was basically following the land boundary. Still, I was able to to put it through Land Management Review with the state and it passed. I wanted to hike this bit as a sort of personal feasibility study.

We started following the edge, and it looked really fine for trail for a lot of the way. I had seen it with Dave and Deidre before, but this time I was looking at it like I was ready to actually do the work.

There was only one bad spot that I was really worried about, where the creek comes super close and there's a tree overhanging the creek. Still, I figured I could sneak the trail through there.

In the past walking through, I had walked along a height of land to the south a bit, but I found out that was likely private property. We had to go out onto the flood plain, which I wasn't sure we could pull off.

What we found walking through was enough ground that would support a trail, and what might have actually been an old mill race.

Back in 1874, this was the site of a saw mill, right next to present day Hutchinson Station Road. A main road used to come through the property a bit east of the present bridge, and the abutments are still there.

We made it through and out to Hutchinson Station Road, within sight of the culvert that carried the road beneath the former Bel Del Railroad. We had to cross a small flow of the stream just before coming out, and it was so negligible that I felt I would be able to bridge it with scrap wood.

From here, we turned hard left on Hutchinson Station Road back to the south. There is land parallel with this road that connects with existing state land I would love for the state to buy, but they had told me it was too expensive. I hear the land owner is holding out for a warehouse.

We waled the road all the way out to Rt 519 again, at a point where it isn't as dangerous to walk.
We turned to the right, crossed, and then were able to get into state owned fields along the south side of the road.
The trail is going to be marked along the edge of those fields heading west to the Van Nest - Hoff - Vanatta Farmstead, which comes into view almost immediately after turning into the fields.

The historic farmstead is a really special place, which was in danger of demolition when the state purchased the property.

The homestead was built in 1755, and had an addition put on in 1810. It is about that time it is believed that the adjacent spring kitchen was built next to it.

In the back is the bank barn which I believe was built in 1827. There is a date on one of the foundation corner rocks, which can only be read certain times of day.
The other three buildings are carriage barns and corn crib, and they were part of a Warren County Municipal and Charitable Conservancy Trust project, as well as state grants.

The buildings sat much closer to Rt 519, and the closest one was within the right of way of 519. Rather than have them demolished, the county and state funded a project to have the entire footprint of the three buildings moved back away from the road slightly, which is where they are now. The buildings were also restored as part of the same grant process.

I've had an idea of where the trail should go through the property, but hadn't marked any of it yet because I wanted the blessing of the Harmony Township Historical Society before I painted anything. I want it to sort of go around the outside of the farmstead.

My thought was that the trail would be farther back, marked with some posts and such, and that would not so much detract form the historic ambiance and integrity of the farmstead.

Further, it was my suggestion that interpretive signage could eventually be installed and trail grant money could be obtained, where each one of the historic farmstead buildings could have its story and significance told in a separate wayside marker, at the point along the trail where each of these buildings is best viewed.
I figured it would be like the story walk at the Morris Canal Bread Lock Park, only these would be more historic information and less fictional story geared toward young people.
The historical society liked the idea when I first suggested it, so hopefully one day it'll happen.

From the farmstead, I had cut a new trail through the woods and out to the field edges to the south. It was getting a bit overgrown, but still we were able to follow it.
We took this back to the first field, followed the farm lane along the right side, and then turned right at an intersection of farm lanes to head out in the rear field, which had previously been planted in corn. The trail then skirts the right side of that field to the end, turns left, or south along the far edge, and then cuts into the woods and across a tiny spring stream. It goes over a second flow of the spring, climbs slightly through former fields now a succession forest with young hardwood trees, then turns uphill more steeply.

I put this section of trail in place around 2017 I think it was. There was originally a plan for the trail to just follow a utility pipeline of Merrill Creek Reservoir to the west, but that was too open.

The pipeline doesn't get maintained often enough for it to be a serious trail, plus it would be really steep.
I built a trail that did switchbacks and took on a more gradual route.
Heading uphill, the trail follows a small stream that cascades down, passes an odd pointy rock, and then crosses the stream before making the ascent of the first couple of switchbacks.

The first really long one after a couple of short ones goes all the way out almost to the pipeline clearing, and then turns into a couple of short ones, followed by another long one. The long one ges all the way back to the east to the little stream, much further up, and just down below the new parking area on what we call Halleluja Hill now (because visitors are constantly sticking photos of Jesus to the back of the sign. No, it wasn't me.).
Once we came out at the lot, we headed up to Ridge Road and turned to the right briefly, then to the left into the Merrill Creek Reservoir pipeline access road. There had been a wooden fence here, but it had been knocked down by ATVs.

We headed up the paved road for a bit and passed the overhead door that provides access to the pipeline. It sits on a high man made knoll that affords views of the Delaware Water Gap to Wind Gap, up and down the Kittatinny Ridge and Blue Mountain, and toward Lopatcong Township and Scotts Mountain.

I had noted tons of down trees and overgrown sections up to this point, as well as wrecked infrastructure like the fence being broken, but at this point the field road had been widened to a huge extent. It looks like it was probably done by the farmer rather than the reservoir employees.
It was widened so much that the entire stretch, formerly a really great section, was now a complete mud pit. We could barely walk through it without getting really wet.
We continued from here out to the next field and it got dry again. We continued to the south to the end of that next field, and turned to the right to skirt the tree line.

We headed into the woods in a short distance to the left, which took us into the ruins of the former Miller Farm. 

There was first the old corn crib on the left, followed soon by the silo and impressive old stone ruins of the main bank barn. I think this is the barn shown as Miller Barn in the Historic Architecture of Warren County book, but I can't be totally sure. 

We continued to an intersection of farm roads near where the house used to stand, and then straight out along the field edges to reach Harmony-Brass Castle Road.
There is parking just off to the left there, and the trail continues into Merrill Creek lands.

At this point, I was looking at the time, and I knew we'd be nearly fifteen miles by the time we got back to Phillipsburg without even going into any of the property from this road all the way to Harkers Hollow golf course.

Instead of doing all of that extra stuff, most of which I didn't need to know much on for what was coming up with work, we decided we would do a road walk section.
This would add a bit of mileage to this hike that I had never done before at all, and showcase a bit of history.

We turned right on Harmony-Brass Castle Road, which paralleled the tributary to Lopatcong Creek.

I watched closely as we walked down to the creek, and eventually I spotted what used to be a mill pond and dam. The old dam berm was pretty prominent. I then spotted the former route of Allens Mills Road on the other side of a private yard, with the old road bridge still intact that had carried the public road over the Lopatcong Creek. The residence that stands there on the property is either the old miller's house or the converted mill itself.

This little area was actually known as the settlement of Allen's Mills, and the road alignments have been adjusted so that they make more sense in modern day, but the history behind them helps us to understand why they are called what they are called.

The current Allen's Mills Road ends at the intersection of Fox Farm Road and Richline Road to the east of Merrill Creek Reservoir, but before the reservoir was built, Allens Mills Road used to continue on this little community we were walking through. In fact, Allens Mills Road was the more main road, while Harmony-Brass Castle I believe ended at this point.
When the reservoir was built, some of old Allens Mills Road went under the reservoir. Fox Farm Road used to intersect with Allens Mills near the present day hawk watch area, and Allens Mills continued down to this point. Since Allens Mills Road was closed from Harmony Brass Castle up to the reservoir, Fox Farm Road took on some of that old road and was just extended to meet Richline and the rest of Allens Mills to the east. Today, hardly anyone would know why Allens Mills Road is named such, or consider where the namesake mill was, when it was actually down closer to the village of Harmony.

I wonder if Allens Mills are any relation to me, since my grandfather's last name is Allen. I haven't been able to trace much of the Allen family before my great great great great grandfather, Edwin Allen (my great great grandfather was also an Edwin).

We continued down the road all the way to the little village of Harmony itself, and I was glad we did it because I'd never walked that way before. I wouldn't have taken note of some of the old buildings we went by or had the opportunity to go over history.

John too had his own history on that road, although more recently. He had served as a language professor for a school where the person who ran it lived on that road and he pointed out where it was, as well as told me the story of how it was a nice but short lived thing.

When we got to Harmony, we went into the Harmony Deli and Liquor store for drinks and snacks.
Although it was early afternoon, we still got heat lamp breakfast sandwiches that were actually still pretty good. I also got some Weyerbacher Blithering Idiot, which we had some of while walking the remainder of the way.

We continued past the Harkers Hollow Golf Course, and then turned right on Strykers Road, which brought us back to the Warren Highlands Trail where it comes from behind the course.
Just a bit up the road, we turned right into the fields of Farmers Fairgrounds. 
The trail follows an easement here, and passes between two lines of trees before entering the Warren County owned Geiger Tract. The trail then crosses a little stream and passes along field edges before coming out on Belvidere Road. It turns left there, and continues on to the base of Marble Hill where it turns up between houses.

I had been in touch with the land owners at the end, and the one to the right, L. Scott Smith has been doing a great job of mowing the entire trail through the section. 

We headed up through the section, and Smith had cut a bit of it around to the right of where I initially put it, which eliminates the need for a little ramp stair thing I had constructed when the trail went in. I also blazed this bit with obnoxiously bright light blue posts so no one could possibly miss them while passing through.

We continued up to the top of the hill with a very nice view through Lopatcong Township, then entered the woods on state land heading west. This section needed to be trimmed back a lot too.
The entire section of trail from this point all the way out to the end of the county owned Marble Hill Natural Resource Area had trees down that needed to be cleared, but I'd never get around to it.

This time going over the mountain and into Phillipsburg, I went for a more direct route. I knew the mileage we were doing, and I didn't want it to be too late because I wanted to get home to my son.

We continued past the power line overlook and yellow trail that is the east end of a loop, and along the hill to the intersection with the yellow with red dot connecting trail, then the red trail to Lopatcong Park, then the yellow trail that forms the west end of the loop. We continued to the orange Mine Trail, which I usually take, but this time I think we just continued on along Warren Highlands gradually down through the Mountain Laurels.

When we got close to River Road, rather than go down along the Delaware River, I think we stayed on the main trail along a utility line and right out ot the parking area at the other end. We then stayed right on designated trail route through the town of Phillipsburg's side streets.

We got up on the tracks for the last bit from South Main Street to the parking lot where John's car was, and as we reached it, he said it came up right over fifteen miles as we had suspected it would.

I was so glad to get out and get this work out. I'd been getting less and less since my son was born, and I was looking forward to getting back to work and taking care of this stuff.
Little did I know that things were not going to go as well as I had planned....