August has been a wonderful, busy month for our group! We have had a lot of exciting trips, and there are many more coming up!
In the coming months, we will focus on many new connections as well as interesting new sites, branching out farther in all directions, while continuing very seriously with our ongoing series' like the Perimeter of NJ.
The group has had a very strong following and is now operating pretty much 100% on it's own, without postings going on any non-Metrotrails groups. Over the past couple of years, we had been maximizing participation on our hikes and raising awareness through other groups on www.meetup.com, and had whittled it down to only Metrotrails and the NY/NJ/PA Hiking Group. I had stopped posting so much on NY/NJ/PA because Metrotrails had been doing well enough on it's own. I was using NY/NJ/PA strictly for the farther trips like the NJ Perimeter Series for which I wanted to pull in more participants.
The managers of the group have removed all but one of their leaders due to insurance from the outfitter or something that controls it, and so our affiliation with that group is severed (they have also severed Appalachian Mountain Club among others). No matter, we continue on and participation has continued positively.
The following is our schedule, which will be detailed further on in this newsletter:
8/31, Sun: Lehigh Gorge and Bald Mountain Loop: This loop will include some off trail, but mostly old mining railroads as well as the D&L Trail through Lehigh Gorge. We'll visit an abandoned mine railroad tunnel, possibly get some mountain views, and explore Penn Haven Planes with swimming on return.
9/5, Fri: Clinton/Pittstown Loop Night Hike: this night hike will cover the South Branch Reservation and Capoolong Creek with great swim spots along both! First have is back woods types of trails while the rest is back roads and abandoned railroad rights of way!
9/7, Sun: Moodna and Schunemunk Adventure: We will hike on and around Schunemunk Mountain including Trestle Trail and other trails, as well as an abandoned branch of the Erie Railroad! Along the way we will visit the oldest winery in America! Details to come.
9/12, Fri: Round Valley and Clinton Night Hike: Point to point along area trails and back road areas finishing in Clinton!
9/14, Sun: Long Beach Island Hike (rescheduled): This hike is the very last section of barrier island beach remaining in the Perimeter of NJ series! We'll begin near Harvey Cedars on the bay side for a short unfinished piece, then head south on the beach to the southern tip, Holgate, and complete the beach!!!
9/21, Sun: HIKE #800! Common Sense for Animals Fundraiser and More! To celebrate our 800th hike, we will coincide with the CSA's 10th annual fund raiser walk. As part of Metrotrails, $25 donation will get participants a tee shirt and lunch, and the money goes to a good cause. CSA has saved countless animals over the years. The hike will be a northbound route, beginning with the walk at the event and heading onward to Belvidere using obscure trails, back roads, and rail beds.
9/28, Sun: To BE ANNOUNCED. As planned, I will be backpacking and so there will be a substitute leader taking over for the day.
10/5, Sun: Catskills Traverse: We will cover nine miles of the NEW Long Path section south of Phoenicia NY, as well as the ENTIRE BURROUGHS RANGE! This is sure to be a tough one, and possibly the hardest hike we've ever posted save for the sixy miler!
There will be plenty more items posted in the near future, so keep your eyes on our website and meetup group! I hope to have a reorganization meeting in the near future, and work toward improving our website and database! I have an amazing amount of information ready to go up when we get our ducks in a row!
For any further hike info, contact me at sneezehorse@hotmail.com or call/text (908) 343 8374.
As we approach the fall, we are working on connecting all of our hikes continually. We recently completed a section of Mason Dixon Trail, and I've now hiked a connective route to Baltimore, Maryland! With this connection, I hope that possibly this Winter we will make the connection to Washington DC!
This connections also fits into our "Planning" and "Development" aspects! In the past few weeks, I have been very fortunate to be a part of important meetings to help decide the route of the 9-11 Memorial Trail.
Several routes are being looked at with the idea of connecting trails to the World Trace Center, Pentagon, and Flight 93 crash site in Shanksville PA. Both the Highlands Trail and Warren Highlands Trail fit in the puzzle very well! No formal decision has been made yet, but regardless this will be a very interesting and diverse route. I hope to make the connection to Washington DC this Winter, and perhaps work with East Coast Greenway and 9-11 Memorial Trail!
With the Perimeter of NJ series, we have nearly completed all of the beach front on the eastern part of the state! With the completion of Cape May (pictured at sunset further above), and the undeveloped northern end of Brigantine Island (pictured directly above), the only sections we have remaining are two small sections on Long Beach Island, which we will complete in September!
We also recently completed the waterfront between Toms River and Ocean Gate, one missing section of Old Mine Road, and the bulk of missing sections between Mahwah, Ringwood, and along the east shore of Greenwood Lake.
In October, we will make our way back to the Delaware Bay side, where we left off last Autumn at Jake's Landing and work on connecting north toward Salem area. One hike per month will be dedicated to this route.
Starting in December, we will be doing two NJ Perimeter hikes per month to close in the final missing sections. This second series will be working our way north from Camden to Trenton.
Aside from these, there are a couple of bay area hikes on the east side of the state to complete, and a couple of other small pieces we missed in other areas where we can get closer to the border. These too will be completed soon.
Apart from the NJ Perimeter series, I am trying hard to connect the few hikes we've done don't fit in yet.
For those who are not familiar with our organization, or new to what we do, every hike is intended to connect physically with other hikes we've done, branching out to new areas all of the time. Through these connections, we've reached as far north as the Mohawk River valley in NY, as far south as Cape may in NJ and Baltimore in Maryland, as far east as Long Island, and as far west as York, PA. Some of our recent trips were intended to connect several unconnected trips in the Catskills, and one of them was on the old Ulster and Delaware Railroad, now nearly abandoned and pictured above at a washout.
We have a hike scheduled for October 5th that will connect the rest of the hikes we've done in the Catskills; one more hike from Bluestone Wild Forest on the rail line to Kingston will connect these trips with everything else we've done. This is one of the priorities for the coming Fall/Winter.
The only other currently unconnected areas we've covered are Harrisburg Greenbelt and Hancock NY. A series of rail trail and back road hikes have been scaled off (probably two of them) to connect the Harrisburg section, and three more section hikes should connect us to Hancock.
Additionally, we will be branching out in other directions! Several more trips have been scaled off on the Appalachian Trail heading both north and south of where we have already covered. We hope to connect to Connecticut within a year to the north, and reach the central PA trail system connections on the AT in the Spring (Tuscarora Trail, which connects to Mid State Trail and more).
We've also had a couple of successful camping trips, paving the way for future events of this kind. The intention is to have more full weekend events at further away places. It's much easier to justify exploring farther away places if it's done over a weekend rather than in a day.
The Metrotrails schedule has lately been complimented by the efforts of "Lerch", or "Kralc Leahcim" on this group, who hosts Saturday hikes within reasonable distance of my regular Sunday ones, with overnight camping opportunities nearby.
Things are also going very well with promotion of what we do. This year we've already been in some great periodicals including the Times Leader in Scranton/Wilkes Barre area, and we recently met with Erik Weber from the Riverside Signal who will be doing a piece (his site is here: http://riversidesigna... )
Further, we were featured in the latest episode of Driving Jersey on PBS's NJTV, which is shown in NJ, PA, NY, and CT! We immediately had a nice influx of people join the meetup group, and I've been recognized publicly a couple of times again!
A segment from the latest episode can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.c...
Driving Jersey could use your help to let NJTV know that you like this sort of programming! You can visit the NJTV facebook page at the following link: https://www.facebook....
Send them a message and it will help our friend Steve Rogers develop more episodes of the series!
In other planning and development news, we are getting closer to developing Warren Highlands Trail out across the next state piece, which we now know is called the Stecker Tract. We have to deal with one adjacent land owner first, and then I will begin blazing. The property's main draw is an outstanding view of the Delaware Water Gap pictured:
We have also gotten permission for the first section of another new trail which might be called "Harmony Trail" to reach other properties. More updates on the development of these trails will come in the near future.
I've been cutting back growth on the previous trail sections, but we still need more help. Let me know if anyone wants to help keep it clear!
More good stuff to come~!
Best Regards
M'ke H
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