Hike #397 2/1/9
2/1/9 Pennington/Sourlands with Jillane Becker, Shelly Janes, "Commando Tom" Petrucci, "Amish Paul" and Wyatt Hassler, and Eric Pace.
Group shot at a deli in Hopewell NJ
Sadly, the journal entry to this one was lost to fire too. If anyone has a copy let me know. I'll go over what I remember...
Group shot at a deli in Hopewell NJ
At Pennington Market
Along the trail in Stony Brook/Millstone Watershed Association
Along Wargo Road
Along Wargo Road north of Pennington
Resting at a small store in Hopewell NJ
Bamboo growing insanely tall along Wargo Road
Baldwin Lake Wildlife Management Area
Resting in Hopewell NJ
invasive
Cemetery in Hopewell
Old train station in Hopewell NJ
This is not a trail? No shit!
Pennington bridge underpass
Highland Cemetery, Hopewell NJ
Along the Sourlands Foothill Trail in Stony Brook North
Moore's Mill Road
In Stony brook/Millstone Watershed Association land
Stony Brook Millstone Watershed
Amish Paul on back roads
Along the trail in Stony Brook North
Stony Brook North
In Stony brook North
Along the trail in Stony Brook North
Jenn and Scott in Sourland Mountain Nature Preserve
For this hike, we met in the morning at the Ridge Road parking area for the Hunterdon County Sourlands Mountain Nature Preserve. We then shuttled a few vehicles south to Pennington Market.
We all went inside to get some snacks and such for the day. Wyatt was running around like a lunatic hanging all over Jillane and I, and saying something about us being his parents.
When we began walking, we headed north onto Delaware Ave and headed east to the railroad overpass. We'd climbed up this thing in the past, so this time we went down to the tracks and then headed north. We didn't have to go far after the Main Street underpass to reach Baldwin lake Wildlife Management Area where we turned off of the tracks onto the orange blazed trail along the south side of the lake. We took this out to the main dam of the lake where I decided to climb around on the outlet box to it. When I climbed down the ice started cracking so I decided that was enough.
From here, we bushwhacked a short distance along the outlet to the Stony Brook. We then had to find a way to cross. Some of the more still sections of it were frozen over, but not thickly enough that we could stand on it. We grabbed some sticks and laid them on the ice, then used them as extra bracing to lay down and slide ourselves across. After we'd all made it over we busted up the ice as if someone were trying to follow us.
On the other side we skirted a fence of the Bristol Meyers Squibb property for a bit, and then made our way briefly north to the south end of the Four Seasons Trail in Stony Brook/Millstone Watershed Association property. We followed this north. Along the way Wyatt was carrying some big post as I recall, though I can't remember exactly what it was or why.
We headed north to the main building in Stony Brook/Millstone and Commando Tom catapulted snow off the porch for fun. From here we picked up some of the trail system north and then out to Wargo Road. We walked north on Wargo Road and Jillane and Wyatt played with a crazy Bop It toy for a while. Next, we found a bunch of bamboo and decided to have sword fights. This lasted till we reached Moores Mill Road, maybe a little beyond. We turned left and then reached the parking area for the next section of Stony Brook/Millstone, the Mt. Rose section. The trail led along the south side of Moores Mill Road briefly, then crossed and headed north.
We headed north and the trail was basically just an old farm lane, and crossed Crusher Road. Beyond Crusher Road it became more of a back woods trail leading gradually up hill with some boulders strewn about to it's peak, then it dead ended.
My maps had shown an easement off of this property onto Broad Street in Pennington, so we tried to walk it. It turned out the easement was badly overgrown so we just paralleled it and hoped no one would come out, and they didn't. I think we took a break at an animal clinic place or something, then walked the road north into Hopewell. It was nice to get onto a sidewalk after the difficulty walking through all of the snow.
We stopped for lunch at a great little deli on the corner of Broad and Mercer, and Jillane found some "Dirty" branch chips called "Funky Fusion" which we both ended up loving and started buying every time we found it.
After our break we headed to the left and into the Pennington Cemetary. Once we got to the other side, it was tough to get over the wrought iron fence around it. Eric went all the way back and around.
We got back on Broad Street and overshot the turn we were supposed to make, so I think it was Blackwell we turned left on which took us past a church, giving Wyatt his usual opportunity to poke fun at religion, and then out to a really attractive old railroad station by the tracks. Somewhere in here was the former Somerset and Mercer Railroad that was abandoned before the currently active line, but we couldn't see it.
We headed north from here on Rt 607, Rileyville Road which I think at first was Greenwood Ave in Hopewell. A short distance up we walked parallel through Highland Cemetary, then walked a nice wide area to the left of the road next to a field. We continued on the road to Featherbed Lane. A brief left turn led to a new trail owned by Delaware and Raritan Greenways. This orange blazed trail was referred to on NJ Trails website as the Sourlands Foothill Trail though I think D&R calls it something else.
We followed the trail parallel with the road through young forest, and then across the road in a somewhat narrow strip of woods with homes on either side. The orange trail connected us with a green blazed one in the D&R Greenways preserve Stony Brook North. We turned right on the green trail which took us north and across Mountain Church Road. There were a lot of big boulders throughout the area and little stream crossings on rocks. We attacked each other with silly string along the way a bit. The trail was really difficult to follow. The trail markers, little triangles of different colors, were not in often enough and they didn't use any turn blazes. Especially in the snow and with no footprints we didn't know what we were doing at times.
As we continued on, we accidently overshot the next turn we were supposed to make. We were still on the green blazed trail, but at the time the right turn we wanted was on another green blazed trail. We ended up continueing almost out to Mountain Road before I realized we went the wrong way. We went back and somehow we were able to find the correct trail. In the next year or so this trail was reblazed yellow to avoid confusion.
We followed this trail out to and across Rt 607. A brief right turn on the road, then left into the Hunterdon Sourlands Mountain Nature Preserve took us onto the woods road trail there. We followed this gradually down hill and across a brook, then we turned right on the yellow trail. We kept on this shortly to the white trail which made up the south loop. We continued on the south loop which went across an abandoned power line, then turned back to the north to reach the woods road trail further on. We followed this to the left.
Along this section, we saw Scott Howarth and Jenn Lear whom I worked with, and they were out taking a little hike themselves. We chatted for a bit and then headed on along the blue trail north. This trail went through a little swath of D&R greenways property and the county made them change the blazes in that tiny piece, which I still think is ridicules. We continued out to finish the hike at the Ridge Road parking lot.
Scott and Jenn suggested we have dinner at the "Hillbilly Hall" just down the street, so we went ahead with that and had a fantastic meal. Jillane and I were both stuffed driving back north.
Group shot at a deli in Hopewell NJ
At Pennington Market
Along the trail in Stony Brook/Millstone Watershed Association
Along Wargo Road
Along Wargo Road north of Pennington
Resting at a small store in Hopewell NJ
Bamboo growing insanely tall along Wargo Road
Baldwin Lake Wildlife Management Area
Resting in Hopewell NJ
invasive
Cemetery in Hopewell
Old train station in Hopewell NJ
This is not a trail? No shit!
Pennington bridge underpass
Highland Cemetery, Hopewell NJ
Along the Sourlands Foothill Trail in Stony Brook North
Moore's Mill Road
In Stony brook/Millstone Watershed Association land
Stony Brook Millstone Watershed
Amish Paul on back roads
Along the trail in Stony Brook North
Stony Brook North
In Stony brook North
Along the trail in Stony Brook North
Jenn and Scott in Sourland Mountain Nature Preserve
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