Hike #404; Warren Railroad

3/22/9 Warren Railroad/Portland-Washington with Eldon Allen, Jillane Becker, Shelly Janes, Jim "Mr. Buckett" Mathews, Laura Cunningham, Jason Itell, "Commando Tom" Petrucci, Larry Butler, "Major Tom" Conroy, Ron Phelps, Jason-Michael "Jamal" Flintosh, Eric Pace, Scott "Tea Biscuit" Helbing, Amanda Lance, "DJ Ray" Cordts, Kyle "Carlos" Zalinsky, and Jim Delotto.

It was time again for the big anniversary hike, for the one that started it all.
The group wasn't as huge as it had been in the past because for one, we had the party the night before and people were becoming lame, and for two, because I was no longer posting through multiple places.

The original journal for this one was lost to the fire, and the rewritten one to facebook so I have to recall it on my own again. Hopefully the old ones show up somehow.

As usual, we met at the Port Colden Mall, and then shuttled up to Columbia NJ at the foot bridge.

We were still starting it in Columbia at the time because it hadn't yet gotten too ridiculous with numbers to cross the trestle a little ways in.
We walked by a wrecked car in Portland that they test the jaws of life on, and then the Portland power plant with a Norfolk Southern engine parked at it.
We crossed over the old Lackawanna bridge over the Delaware into the town of Delaware, and I jumped down onto the near middle pier like I typically do.
We stopped for the group photo at the bridge abutment on Clarence Road in Delaware, and then made a pit stop at Smiddy's just a little south of there.
South of that point, we headed toward Ramseyburg where we had our "Shrub of Might" challenge, which we've been doing since hike #2. Conrad Blease had said that we should run up to this mountain laurel shrub between two trees and see who could do it the quickest. I'd had the record for a long time, but then Kyle and I went for it this time and he somehow beat my by like a fraction of a second. I think it was something like 12 seconds or something to the top. I tried a second time but was already too winded to better my previous time.
The old journal entry had exactly what the times were, but unfortunately facebook lost it, or someone logged onto my account and deleted all of those notes.

We continued from here across the road at Ramseyburg, and then up the other side toward Manunka Chunk Tunnel. As usual, we went on through the former eastbound side, and some of the group went over the top. 

We continued on along the rail bed through Sarepta, and out across Rt 519 in Bridgeville, crossed the sand quarry, and then made a stop at Hot Dog Johnny's. My brother and his future wife joined us, and we all took a break on the grass behind the establishment, along the Pequest River.

From there, we headed further into Buttzville, crossed Rt 46, and then crossed the Pequest Viaduct over the river of the same name. The railbed passes through Pequest Wildlife Management Area clearly, in one of the nicest sections.
We crossed Pequest Road and followed the paved trail along fields and then into the woods. We stopped at a spot to swing on some vines in this stretch before coming out into Oxford.

I don't honestly remember if we went through Oxford Tunnel on this one. It was warm enough, and I feel like I would have, but I don't have any photos of doing so this time. There were times I'd be the only person doing it, but I just don't recall how it played out this time.
When we got to Washington, we climbed on rail cars in the yard making our way to the end.
We finished in pretty good time, well before dark, and since it was a Sunday and Dicola's Pizza wasn't open, we had our end dinner at Family's.

It was a really good time, with a great tight knit group. It was hard to conceive that it could get any better than this at the time, but history has played out very well for us over the years.