Hike #374; Sussex Rail Triangle

 Hike #374 10/2/8

10/2/8 Sussex Rail Triangle with Cathy Fisher

Along the Paulins Kill Valley Trail near Swartswood Junction

Former Lehigh and New England Railroad just above Swartswood Junction

Former LNE rail bed

Former LNE rail bed

This is some sort of foundation we saw along the old Lehigh and New England Railroad somewhere north of Swartswood Junction. Not sure it's significance.

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Old road bridge site over the Paulins Kill

Old bridge site over the Paulins Kill

Baby snapping turtle covered in mud

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Former LNE railroad bed near Augusta

The Paulins Kill near Augusta

The Paulins Kill in Augusta NJ

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Mushroom along Sussex Branch Trail

The Paulins Kill River in a view from Sussex Branch Trail in Augusta area

Along the Sussex Branch near Lafayette

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Paulins Kill Valley Trail

The evil pony along Paulins Kill Valley Trail

Paulins Kill Viaduct

This was one of my favorite loops to do with an abandoned railroad. I added on a bit by where we started in Swartswood which make it a short piece of out and back, but most of it was all different.

This was another one I wanted to share with Cathy since she would really only do flat hikers. I would try to do easier ones on weekends for a while, but when she just wouldn't get up in the morning even for those I gave up and said I'm doing whatever ones I want and bring her on other ones alone.

So for this one we started at Swartzwood, at a small parking area near the crossroads and Paulins Kill River WMA.

We walked the former NYS&W Railroad/Paulins Kill Valley Trail to the former junction site with the Lehigh and New England line, then turned left to follow that which wasn't really a trail yet. Most of it had a gas line under it.

We were'nt able to clearly walk it at first, so followed the parallel road. By the time we got to a nice stone culvert area we climbed up to the right of way. The first time I led a group through this section the culvert was where I brought the group down from the rail bed, where Amit and I continued on to get the cars. It was still just as overgrown.

The next section continued to get clearer, and we skirted some farm land. Road crossings were all well marked forbidding trespass but we did'nt pay attention. We actually saw a neat baby snapping turtle in the mud along the way, and he looked like a pebble amazingly!

We continued on the rail bed north until we reached Augusta where it once crossed the Sussex Branch of the Lackawanna Railroad, now the Sussex Branch Trail. We turned right on this and followed it southbound. I think we stopped for a snack when we got to Ross Corner or Lafayette or something, and strayed from the trail. We then followed the trail to Warbasse and turned right on Paulins Kill Valley Trail, which we stayed on back to where we started.

Former Lehigh and New England Railroad bed north of Swartswood before it was made a trail

Baby turtle covered in mud along LNE rail bed

Paulins Kill River along the Sussex Branch

Downtown Lafayette NJ