Hike #1062; Readington to Flemington

Hike #1062; Readington to Flemington

8/2/17 Readington to Flemington with Dan Asnis, Karl Franz (Red Sean) Reardon, Cindy Simmonds, Ellie Zabeth, and Carolyn Gockel Gordon.

This next hike would be a point to point exploring some of the Readington Township stuff toward Flemington that I’d done a lot of while working at Washington’s Crossing. The problem with those trips were that I really didn’t see them entirely, because it was mostly at night. It was one of the most substantial distances of new stuff I’d done after dark.

Lachenmayer Farm tract

Readington’s trail system is really outstanding. With only short but pleasant road walks, it’s possible to go clear across the township and see some really nice land.
Only Dan showed up at our starting point, and we even waited a little longer to see if anyone else would show up. It looked like most of the crew would be late joiners this time. I believe I took my car to the starting point, which we made closer to the actual trail head this time unlike what we had done previous times. After meeting at the Stop N Shop in Flemington, I took my car to Heath Road in Readington, just south of the Holland Brook and Readington Schools.

Lachenmayer tract

To my surprise, rather than have to walk Heath Road to Roosevelt Road south to reach the Lachemayer Farm Trail, which we had done previously, there was now a new trail that came out to Heath Road almost directly across from where I parked. We simply walked into the woods on a nicely mowed trail to start.
The trail was well mowed up to a point that it was out behind someone’s house. It then got a bit more overgrown, but not too bad. The trail went into an open field and skirted the north side, and followed partially around a retention pond. I’d done this section before.

Field view at Lachenmayer

The trail turned from the retention pond to the right and cut down through some woods, then crossed over a small tributary of Holland Brook. We climbed the other side into more woods, and then headed east until we emerged at a field section.

Lachenmayer Trail

Another trail went off to the right before the field, and I figure it must go to Grundledyke Road, another cul de sac. We continued to the right along the field in Lachenmayer tract heading to the south. We skirted a few private homes in back, and then continued through another section of field heading out to Pine Bank Road where there was parking. It always worked out before that by the time we got to this road, it was already dark or getting dark. We turned right on the road, which now had some markers for a connecting trail, and followed it to the west toward the Holland Brook Greenway section.

Holland Brook

The trail turned left into the woods at the intersection with Roosevelt Road. We turned and crossed the Holland Brook on small concrete cylinders, and then climbed to a high bank above it to head to the south.
The trail came near some homes, but never seemed very close to them. There was also an access to one of them to the left. We continued on straight, and I heard from Red Sean that he was on his way to meet up with us. We followed the trail through the narrow swath of land between two cul de sacs, but out of sight, and then to an open field to the left with woods to the right.

Part of the greenway

The trail continues straight ahead along the fields to the power line, or there is an option for a trail that goes right through woods to connect with the power line just to the northwest. We did this one. The trail is not on the map, and we discovered it by accident while randomly walking in the dark through this section during the previous Winter.
We soon reached the power line clearing, and the trail turned sharp right there to follow it to the east. We remained on the power line for a time, with nice pastoral views to the west.

The trail

The power line section took us down hill, and we had to skirt to the right a bit. We crossed over a very small wooden foot bridge, and then headed along the edge of some fields. I didn’t recall this section from the map, but it was clearly mowed for something. It stayed really well mowd through an interlude of woods, then back out to fields that it skirted on the north side. We came rather close to some private homes, and the mowing job beyond there wasn’t as good. People had their hunting stands right out to the fields on their properties.

Little bridge east of Cole Road

We continued on the field edge, and then came out to Cole Road. It was a bit further down hill where the maps of Cole Road Greenway say the trail goes in, at a little driveway, but we came across something much earlier than expected.
We followed the mowed trail down hill to the west of Cole Road, and reached even more mowed trails, however the blazes, I don’t remember which color, continued to go off to the left. We followed those into another open area where there were other options, but I knew to keep going southwest to get to the trail I had been on before on Cole Road Greenway.

We skirted this field section on out to the farm access lane we had followed previously in this section. The dirt road took us on a pleasant route to the north, and it looked like there were orchards to the right. I didn’t see any of this on my previous trip because it was dark by the time I had gotten there, and we were hurrying along because there were dogs barking.
The trail took us to the north end of the fields through a double line of trees, then turned left across the northwest side of the fields. We continued along with some nice views.

Another trail went into the woods to the right at some point, unmarked, and I think it probably goes out to the cul de sac at Hyde Road, but I can’t be sure. It seems like Readington is connecting all of their neighborhoods by way of these trails, which is really cool.
Along this section, there was a little island of trees jutting out, and in it was a nice little spot with both a picnic table and a hammock, a very relaxing looking spot to return to in the future.
We continued through field edges in a weird route, and took a right when we got to two options for the trail.

View in the fields

I didn’t remember which way we went previously, and this time I intended to take the quicker of the two routes back to Cole Road, but I think I made the wrong turn.
We continued on the longer route I’m sure, through lines of trees and along field edges. It was a bit confusing because just about all of the field edges are mowed, but only one direction at any of them are marked as the trail, and there are almost never turn blazes anywhere on the Readington system for when there is a questionable turn spot. The best you get there is a turn arrow, if that. We eventually got to the fields where we could see the traffic of Cole Road.

A lovely picnic area on Cole Road Greenway

We had to continue back to the north a little bit to meet up with Cindy and Red Sean, who were both parking at the access point on Cole Road. It didn’t take long, and was within sight of us when we got to the road anyway.
From this point, we had the worst part of the hike, the road walk from here to the next section. We took Coke Road to Rt 523 and turned right. It was a busier road than I’d have wanted to do, but there really was no other choice at this time. There is a greenway incentive plan in the works to the south of there, which we will probably do on future hikes, but at this time it’s just not an option. At least the road somewhat paralleled Pleasant Run for a bit, which was nice.

Sunset at Bouman Stickney

We continued out to Stanton Road and went straight until we got to the entrance to the Bouman Stickney Farm to the right. Carolyn was next to meet up with us, and she had parked on one of the side rods off of Dreahook Road, then walked into the farmstead to the mowed paths to join us. We went to the right from Stanton on the mowed pathways and found our way to a great little bench at the edge of the field to see the sun setting.
I was really glad that Cindy had come out because it turned out we had some mutual issues and I wasn’t aware of a whole lot of it. I’d gone a very long time without talking about anything to really any friends like that, holding a lot it, and so I felt a lot better and things seemed much clearer in some respect.
When Carolyn caught up with us, we continued on the mowed trail system to the west, as the moon was coming up beautifully.

Moon light over Readington

We continued on the trail until it came out on Stanton Road again. We then turned to the left for a short while to make our way to the Stanton General Store for a little break. We caught them fortunately just before they closed up for the night.

Stanton General Store in the 1920s

The historic store was built in 1837, and has a sign on it saying it’s the “biggest little store” in the county. It now has a pizza place in it, and we were able to get some just before they shut their doors. The proprietors were quite friendly to us. Elizabeth met up with us at the store to continue on for the remainder of the trip.

View of the Stanton church, postcard sent 1932

We continued from here on Stanton Road past the old church, and then turned to the left on Foothill Road a short bit as I recall. We turned to the left on a gravel drive that leads to the base of Round Mountain, and then followed the orange blazed trail up hill.
Named the Peter Buell Trail, it was laid out by it’s namesake who used to work for Hunterdon Parks.
The trail is in a little rough shape. We managed to follow it up, and there were trees over it the last time I was there. Blazing is really bad, and the newer Readington trails that connect with the Hunterdon ones are far easier to follow, and they’re actually maintained. No one is taking care of the Hunterdon ones at all.
We headed over the hill, and fortunately I know where the Pete Buell Trail is supposed to go well enough that I got us onto it. Anyone would end up getting lost following a more prominent route trying to come down the south side. We crossed the power lines, pushed brush out of the way, and eventually came to the first field section.
When I worked for Hunterdon, I’d installed some water bars here and moved the trail to the west a bit to avoid some of the runoff issues, but everyone kept driving the ATVs up it at work, and it tore them all out. Today, they stopped brush hogging the field altogether, and it’s growing in fast with Autumn Olives and such.
Once we were beyond the field, the trail turned right and entered the woods to a foot bridge. It then joined another branch of the trail which led us down to the mowed loop on the north side of Deer Path Park.

Exercise station!

We headed directly across and went to use the restroom, but I had forgotten that since the summer concert series was going, the restrooms were closed. It’s just too much a maintenance burden when there are thousands of people using just a few toilets, so we started locking them in the Summer for the concert nights.
We continued past here to the south side of the park and skirted the trail heading west, past the exercise stations. There’s a really cool spinning one near one of the tree lines down there.
We continued on the trail out to the west side of the park, where there is a cut through to Deerpath Road. We came out there and went left, and then cut to the woods again when we got to the Wings Section of the South Branch Reservation. From that point, I do recall getting into the South Branch under the Rt 31 bridge, but after that goes somewhat blank for me. I think we just walked along the highway the bit that remained to get to the Stop and Shop because we’d done a lot of weaving around on the trails at Round Mountain and Bouman Stickney.
My mind had been a mess of thoughts and I don’t even know what to do half the time. By the end of the night all I wanted to do was drink the thoughts away. In retrospect, when I consider everything that’s gone on and the circumstances I’ve been handed, it’s a wonder I’m not completely insane.
Apart from issues I’d been discussing with Cindy, I had been in a situation where I could be transferred to another faraway place at any time. I had already been forced to do every other weekend hike as a night hike, seriously cutting down participation because of my work situation. I’d been seriously harassed at work, outright ordered to stop doing my hikes, and even told not to read my local history and ecology books on my own break times. I was told to quit the Board of Recreation and take night classes in carpentry. The last straw was when I was outright blamed for an environmental disaster for which I had proof of my innocence. If I hadn’t been as vigilant of my actions and had the forethought to record everything so well, I could have been not only out of a job, but fined heavily because someone reported me to the Attorney General’s office. Matters got worse when someone was messing with my car, and more recently started attacking me regarding my hikes, including at a meeting in Trenton.
I’ve had at least three full on mental breakdowns during this time, seen a psychiatrist for the first time in my life, and at least got the consolation that I’m not in the least bit insane, that I have someone out to get me. After the whole mess, I was then assigned under the same guy again and had to pay a lawyer $500 and get a doctor’s note saying that I can’t be in this situation. Still, there are close co workers who don’t know all of the details, who tell me I’m “being a baby” about all of this, and treating me like nothing ever happened.
Anyone who has even bothered to read this far might be thinking the entire thing sounds completely insane, and I can assure that it certainly is. Not even the friends and family closest to me know the extent of the details of all of this, and I never even got to telling the psychiatrist about it all.
The part of it bordering on crazy is when I consider that my psychiatrist left the practice and the entire imposed therapy ended without further communication. After a co worker committed suicide, it was my job that had me go to see the psychiatrist to begin with, and told me I needed to keep going. They then they stopped calling, didn’t schedule appointments, and didn’t return my calls. As always, I’m left to push through these issues on my own...and I have.
So, the crazy part is my questioning why something like this might happen. It always seems to come back to the feeling that the hikes and trail stuff is the only place where I am of any consequence. I’m left with a bitter feeling that there are people who will fabricate their own “misfortune” and get an abundance of attention, and I’ve had such a horrible run and been kicked to the curb because I’m not a drama queen about it. I actually felt bad for even talking about my stresses on this hike, and yet I still hold so much other stuff in.
Finally, time has allowed some things to calm down and I’ve been able to find more peace of mind, but there’s still an undercurrent of bitterness that I’m having a hard time letting go of.
I always tell everyone the secret to longevity is having the ability to let go, and it’s something everyone will struggle with. I’m trying, and these hikes and the good people who join in on them certainly help me to see the good in the world.

Cats are great.