Hike #277 4/8/7
4/8/7
Pennington area with Cathy Fisher, "Amish Paul" and Wyatt Hassler, "Action Adam" Stevens, Dave Riedel, Jean Fletcher, Ira Rubenstein, and Peter Buxbaum
The group near the beginning, Stony Brook/Millstone Watershed Association
Lake in Stony Brook/Millstone Watershed Association
Stony Brook/Millstone Watershed Association
Red Shale Trail in Stony Brook/Millstone Watershed Association property
Stony Brook/Millstone Watershed
Along Stony Brook Trail, SBMWA.
Along Stony Brook Trail, SBWSA
Stony Brook/Millstone preserve
Along Four Seasons Trail, SBMWA
Along Four Seasons Trail
Along Lawrence-Hopewell Trail east of Pennington
Along Lawrence-Hopewell Trail east of Pennington
View east of Pennington
East of Pennington
In Mercer County Farm Park
Along Curlis Lake
Old car we found along the trail in Curlis Lake Woods
In Curlis Lake woods
Curlis Lake Woods
Curlis Lake Woods
Map kiosk of Curlis Lake WOods
Old cemetery in Pennington NJ
Pennington NJ
Pennington Nature Trail area
Baldwin Lake WMA
Train going by near Pennington
Along the tracks in Pennington
pennington nj
In Pennington NJ
Pennington NJ
Pennington NJ
Climbing a bridge abutment in pennington NJ
Having a lovely Easter dinner of Cheesy Tots at the Pennington Burger King. One of my favorite Easter dinners ever.
For this, my first Easter Sunday hike, I decided to try one in the vicinity of Pennington NJ where I'd finished Hike #269 the previous February. We had finished that last hike at the parking area for the Stony Brook/Millstone Watershed Association, and discovered a vast new collection of trails to explore. I did not expect to have so many participants, but there ended up being ten of us! Joining me this time were my girlfriend, Cathy Fisher, "Amish Pau" and Wyatt Hassler, Dave Riedel, "Action Adam" Stevens, Jean Fletcher, Ira Rubenstein, and Peter Buxbaum. I met the group at the Pennington Market at 9 am, where we then shuttled north to the Mt. Rose section of the Stony Brook/Millstone Watershed land on Moore's Mill Road. It was much colder than the forecast had said it was going to be. It was only in the lower 30s when we met at Pennington Market, and not much warmer at the start time. Cathy waited in the car until we were definitely ready to go. I was chilly as well, as I'd only worn a tee shirt with a black sports jacket over it. Only my legs were warm, because I wore my PVC pants I'd gotten at one of the K Mart closeouts a few years before. We began walking the Mt Rose Ridge Trail from the parking area, which weaved a little, then crossed to the other side of Moore's Mill Road. We continued north, as it followed a wide woods road that was quite muddy. We soon made a right hand turn onto what I believe was the Cattail Trail. Cathy and Ira I believe it was were walking ahead and missed the turn, having to turn back. We followed the Cattail Trail reaching a side trail that was no longer maintained. I was considering following this trail, which would have been an out and back deal, but I decided not to since we had a lot to explore already. We continued along this trail which got incredibly muddy. Cathy, who usually cannot stand the muddy terrain, handled it very well. We continued through, and we all had wet feet. Cathy, Dave, and I all had sneakers on, so we were quite wet. Cathy had her regularl sneakers, I had some very holey McGregor sports shoes, and Dave had some weird running shoes with holes in the bottoms, so we were extra wet. Still, we continued on, to the East Loop Trail until we again reached the Mt Rose Ridge Trail, where we turned right briefly. We soon made a left turn onto the West Loop Trail, which at first appeared to be promising as it was not as wet. We continued to a ninety degree turn south, which led us eventually to the junction with the Forest Loop Trail. We followed this through some woods, stopping by an observation deck. The Skunk Cabbage was all coming out and beginning to bloom, and Beverly pointed out all of the flowers she saw. We continued on, soon coming back to the Mt Rose Ridge Trail back to Moore's Mill Road and the cars. We took a break because there was a portapotty, then continued along Moore's Mill Road to the east. We soon turned right onto Wargo Road, which was a pretty walk along farmlands. There was some sort of extensive organic farm along this road. We soon reached another trailhead, an old woods road accessing the Pond Loop Trail in the main reserve section of the Stony Brook/Millstone Watershed Association. We turned right and followed the Pond Trail along the dam, with interpretive signs telling of how the pond was dammed in the 1970s. We continued around, stopping on a catwalk that went out to an observation platform. I believe we saw a Great White Egret here as well. This trail was also much drier than the ones we'd come across in the Mt Rose section, so that was good. When we came to the old farm area, nearly completing the Pond perimeter, we took a nice break along the shore. After resting, we continued on along the Red Shale Trail, through some old farm fields, which was a great study of the rate of succession. There seemed to be a lot of cedar trees and undergrowth all around us. We soon reached the Stony Brook Trail and turned right, which ended up being quite wet. I finally decided not to worry about it and get my feet wet. I threw Cathy over my shoulder and carried her over the worst spots. We were in open areas along old fields at first, but we soon entered wooded areas. We wandered through the forests, and soon reached a bunch of puncheons which ironically were all placed in dry places while very wet areas seemed to remain uncovered. In some places, it was apparent that the extreme wetness had caused many of the puncheons to float away from the actual trail. We tried to stay on dry ground as best we could. We soon reached the bank of Stony Brook, which was lovely. There was a golf course I think to the north of us, and undeveloped land to the south, where the trail turned. We regrouped here, and continued on. It was interesting that not far away, the ground was very wet and hard to walk across, while just along the shore there was a more dramatic drop to the water level, and it was dry. The trail took us along Stony Brook at first, then moved away and came back. The trail eventually turned away and headed east through more wet lands, though not as bad as we'd already gone through. This trail led us quite a ways to some more fields at the Main Reserve Trailhead. Peter and Ira decided to turn back at this point because of prior obligations. The rest of us continued on passing the main buildings, and onto the Four Seasons Trail. This trail took us through some woods and across Titus Mill Road into another more narrow wooded area. There were some homes to our right, while there was a huge industrial complex with a fence around it to our left. The trail was somewhat wet at times, but not so bad. It took us out to the Stony Brook again, then turned back following some sort of a spring. The trail looped back onto itself and we followed it back to Titus Mill Road. It was apparent the trail used to follow a different course but was abandoned. Along the way, my grandfather called me to see if I would come ot dinner at my Aunt Bonnie's, and I put him on speaker phone to give his greetings to everyone. He told everyone how it was a pleasure to hike with such a fine group. We turned right, or east, on Titus Mill Road and walked only a short distance before we were able to walk along a nice piece of grass adjacent to the road and along the industrial place. We had a good time laughing about wine consumption, and Action Adam talked about his "friend, Carlo Rossi" jokingly, a distributer of quality inexpensive wines. We soon reached the intersection with Wargo Road, where we were able to begin walking some of the Pennington-Hopewell Trail, a cyclist and pedestrian trail which for the most part follows roads. We took the pathway closely parallel to the road for a good distance, until we reached the intersection with another road, just south of Centerville area. I can't remember the name, but it's the turn off of Centerville Road just south of Elm Ridge Road. The bike trail was proposed to go further from here, but I decided we'd continue walking south along Centerville Road to see if we could find the entrance to the Delaware and Raritan Greenway trails we'd discovered at Baldwin Lake on hike 269 (2/18/7). Unfortunitely, we could not find any of the trailheads I was looking for. We continued walking, crossing over the Stony Brook on the road bridge, and observed a Canada Goose on it's nest. Next, We made a left hand turnm which I think is Federal City Road, heading out towards Rosedale Park. We passed a public farm place on the right, but I decided not to head into teh woods here. We continued to the entrance to Rosedale Park near a little tributary bridge. I went over my Mercer County map endlessly trying to figure out where a public trail headed from Rosedale Park towards other nearby parks, but could not figure it out exactly. I decided to take a chance, and we'd simply walk along the fields across the street from the Rosedale Park and hope for the best. To my surprise, there was a good pathway breakign off from the field to the left, apparently the route of an old woods road. This was county park land. We took a good break on some logs along this road before continueing. Amish Paul had hiked this rea recently, so he was a help telling us where the trail would go and such. The pathway soon took us back out and along the fields, then turned along the south side of the fields, heading into a second set of fields behind the Mercer County public farm area. There were some fences to the north of us, and one route that would take us toward the farm, but we also had an arrow blaze pointing us to the left. We decided to follow this along a wet section of field and into the woods. This was a spuratically blazed section of trail weaving it's way gradually down hill. We passed an abandoned car, and soon descended to another trail junction. It seemed that left was the way to go. Amish Paul thouht this would take us back to Rosedale Park, but I did'nt believe it. We continued on; this place was called Curlis Lake Park, near Pennington. The trail took us along the shore where we could see homes on the other side. We continued, and the trail led us along the outlet of the lake, and then across the brook via stepping stones, though most of us jumped the brook or at least attempted to. We found an old ball along the way near the lake and began kicking it. We managed to kick it across the creek and had a good time passing it back and forth between us. The trail took us away from the brook and into some woods with somewhat thick undergrowth as we made a very gradual ascent. Soon, we reached Main Street just south of Pennington near Baldwin Corner (according to the NJ Atlas and Gezzetteer). We turned right and walked the main street north through the town of Pennington, still kicking the ball. It went into the street a few times, and we all shreiked, but always recovered it. When we reached Delaware Avenue, Cathy, Jean, and Amish Paul decided to go for the early out, turning left to the Pennington Market, while Dave, Wyatt, Action Adam, and I continued on to find our way to the Delaware and Raritan watershed trails. We followed a few roads, finally leading us to a dead end. At the end of this road, there were public land signs posted, so we decided to cut into the woods in hopes of finding the trails system. Sure enough, after a bit of unhappy fighting through weeds, we made our way to the blue trail I think it was. We turned right, which led us down hill to another trail junction. Ahead was probably the end of the trail system. We did'nt continue on in that direction, instead taking the left turn. This trail led us along the Baldwin Creek to the outlet of Baldwin Lake where we were on hike 269. We followed the lake shore to the next side trail and turned left, heading across a field and then down hill through woods. I realized this would take us in a short distance back to where we came from, so we turned back to Baldwin Lake. We followed the lakeside trail with orange blazes I think it was out to the active railroad tracks. We arrived just on time to watch a large freight trail pass by. On our last trip, we came down from the tracks, but this time we would follow the blazes to the left across a field, which we missed on our previous trip. The field took us out to the road near a bridge over the tracks where we had descended to them on the previous hike. We descended once again, only this time to walk the tracks to the south. We continued until we reached the Delaware Avenue overpass and climbed to the top...literally. There was a piling if concrete blocks making up part of the wall near the road, so we climbed them to reach the road level. We then turned right and continued out to Pennington Market, looking for my car. Though I'd driven to the beginning point of the hike, Amish Paul, who had his car at the Market, took Cathy back to my car and she brought it back to the market to wait for us. We found my car nearby in the Burger King parking area, so we went in to have some food. Paul gave me some coupons and I got two of the Angus Steak Burgers, which were good. Cathy had a Whopper I think it was that she was'nt happy with. Action Adam was eating some sort of weird cheese filled tater tops that were actually pretty tasty. Wyatt was'nt happy with his meal so much either, and said that he did'nt feel much like a king after eating there. I told him that rather, he must have felt like the Duke of some small province. Dave made a big deal out of eating Burger King, because he usually tries to stray away from that stuff, but this time he was so hungry it did'nt matter. On the way back to Washington, Cathy and I laughed as both Dave and Action Adam were passed out in my back seat. One of these days I should count the people who have fallen asleep in my car after a hike!
Near the end, Curlis Lake Woods
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