Hike #544; Boonton/Mountain Lakes

 Hike #544 3/2/11

3/2/11 Boonton/Mountain Lakes with "DJ Ray" Cordts

DJ Ray and I after we'd found two unopened bags of chips! SCORE!

My next hike would be a loop in the vicinity of Boonton NJ. I tried to get a group together to do one on a weekday since I was on unemployment for the first time in my life. Unfortunately most people were not free, but DJ Ray was. I figured I could do a hike close to his place because there was still so much out there I wanted to explore.

We started right at DJ Ray's place on Monroe Street I think it is, and he was in bed when I arrived. I finally met his roommate Louie for the first time, putting a face to a name I'd just heard around.

Ray got up and had some cereal, then we did a whole tray of Jello Shots before leaving. Amazingly, I felt absolutely nothing after them.

Greenwood Cemetery, Boonton

We walked out Monroe Street to Old Boonton Road south. We took this to Greenwood Cemetery and turned right into it.

Greenwood Cemetery, Boonton

Greenwood Cemetery, Boonton

We walked across the cemetery and checked out some interesting tomb stones, as well as some large trees. Cemeteries are always good for finding those.

We then turned left out of the cemetery onto Rt 202. We immediately turned left onto Old Rt 202.

Greenwood Cemetery, Boonton

Old Rt 202 bridge, Boonton

Boonton Reservoir from the pedestrian bridge

The original Rt 202 bridge over the Rockaway River inlet to the Boonton Reservoir was preserved and turned into a pedestrian bridge, while a new bridge for Rt 202 was constructed parallel to the west. The first time I'd seen this bridge I knew I wanted to incorperate it into a longer hike. It had lights and benches, and was really quite well done. We could also see paths going off around the reservoir in both directions from the bridge, though they were fenced in. I was aware of the plan to put a perimeter trail around the reservoir, but nothing had happened with that in years.

Old Rt 202 bridge, Boonton

Pedestrian only old Rt 202 bridge.

We walked Rt 202 south away from the bridge, and I spotted, along the highway on the left, a wrapped sub sandwich! It couldn't have been very old. It had clean white paper wrapping it, and showed little sign of any damage. There was a deli right across the street and a short distance ahead. I picked it up and opened it, and it smelled fine. I figured someone must have bought it, put it on the roof of their car, and drove off! It had a little bit of frozen lettuce, but other than that, it was perfect! I of course ate a generous amount of it right away, though DJ Ray thought I was crazy and used excuses like he didn't like mayo, or turkey.

We crossed Rt 287 on 202 and then turned right on Fanny Road heading slightly up hill. We stayed on that across the railroad tracks and then turned right onto Morris Ave. We followed this to the entrance to the south end of Grace Lord Park on the left.

Rockaway River trestle, Boonton

We headed into the woods and checked out the old railroad turntable pit, next to the old spur line bridge across the Rockaway River. We crossed it without any difficulty.

Rockaway River Trestle, Boonton

Spur line in Boonton

Rockaway River Trestle, Boonton

From here, we walked out to the right along an access road to a recycling center, and past a large abandoned building on the slope to the left. There was also a lot of old stone work.

Old structure in Boonton

Old structure in Boonton

As we made the corner over toward Plane Street, formerly the Morris Canal plane, there was a high wall of some sort of galvanized sheet metal held into place by beams that resembled (but were not) old railroad rails. DJ Ray proceeded to climb it through weeds, which was pretty cool, so I followed right behind him.

Climbing a wall near Plane Street Boonton

As I climbed over the top, my sandwich wrapper opened up and I lost most of one of the halves of sandwich in there. I grabbed up all I could that looked good enough and scarfed it down quickly.

We made our way onto Plane Street, and soon turned left up a flight of stairs that led up to Main Street. DJ Ray was really tired and wanted some coffee, so we stopped at a little place where he got some crappy coffee that the lady serving couldn't believe he ordered without cream or sugar.

Staircase to Main Street Boonton

We also stopped into a nutrition store that looked interesting, and I tried one of their bars. We talked to the guy running the place for a while, named Mustafa who was interested in the hikes. We gave him a Metrotrails business card before leaving.

Alley down to Plane Street from Main Street, Boonton

We turned left down an alley way that led from Main Street to Plane Street, then turned left and right back past the recycling center toward Grace Lord Park. We continued through a fenced area because Ray thought we'd easily get back to the main trail from there, but it took us through what we realized was a police firing range after a while.

We headed through some brush and soon made our way back onto the trail.

Switchback railroad trestle at Boonton ironworks site

The trail led us to a strange set of stone culverts to the right. I had no idea what they could have been at the time. Reading into it later, I found that this was in fact a part of a former railroad trestle. The line we had walked across the Rockaway River trestle once continued on to this area, the site of the Boonton iron furnace which was now just a heap of stones near the trestle, and the switched back for unloading ore apparently. The arches may have been some sort of storage. I'm not sure it's practical use, but it's quite interesting.

Switchback railroad trestle at Boonton iron works site

We continued along the trail, which diverged. I realized now that the path along the right side of the river must have been part of the railroad right of way that was needed in order to back trains back up onto the switch back. We then crossed over the Rockaway River on a stone arch bridge which I believe used to be a mule bridge or something. Craig Nunn once told me what it was but now I forget.

Along the trail in Grace Lord Park, Boonton

Bridge over the Rockaway River in Grace Lord Park

Boonton falls in Grace Lord Park

We continued up the trail along the river and soon came to Grace Lord Falls, a spectacular high volume falls that crashes over rocks in the little gorge. We passed by this through the developed portion of the park passed the dam and soon came out on Main Street.

Grace Lord Falls in Boonton

We turned right and crossed the Rockaway River again on the road, then turned left into another little park area and parking lot on what used to be the Morris Canal. We soon reached the nice watered section of the old canal and continued on it parallel with the Rockaway River.

Morris Canal in Boonton

When we reached the end of the watered section we were able to continue a bit more, but then had to parallel the former canal on Main Street shortly because homes had been built over it. After a couple of houses we were able to turn left and climb back down to the old canal in Griffith Park.

Morris Canal just west of Boonton, Griffith Park

Business in Powerville

This nice section, which was pretty clear, took us out to Main Street again in Powerville. We crossed and followed the former canal to where it reached the slack water behind a dam on the Rockaway River, formerly the site of Lock #11 east. We could see the old circular pier out in the river ahead of us where the towpath bridge once crossed.

Site of former towpath bridge over the Rockaway River in Powerville

We turned and crossed the road bridge at Powerville to Powerville Road, then turned right. We immediately turned left onto DeCamp Road, ascended for a bit, then made another left onto Scott Road. This road, a cul de sac, ended where there was an unmarked trail shown on my Tourne County Park map terminating. We didn't see it at first, bushwhacking into the woods at the end of the road. Soon, I could see it was an old woods road down hill from us to the left. We descended to it and continued on as it made a gradual ascent.

Old woods road from the end of Scott Road near Powerville, Tourne Park

We soon reached the unmarked, but wide and recognizable DeCamp Trail and turned right. It's not all that much of a mountain, but it was a good workout for us to go up hill on it. When we got to the top we had a view over Boonton and all the way out to the New York City skyline.

Top of the Tourne, Boonton

We passed over the top of the Tourne, and then descended gradually on the other side until we reached the red blazed Overlook Trail and turned left. We passed the restrooms and then the other end of the DeCamp Trail where we entered the flower garden section with a weighted gate to keep the deer out. DJ Ray and his ex girl friend Victoria had climbed a fence to get into this area, he told me, a few months back not realizing they could have just opened the gate!

We passed through the other side of the garden area to the end of the red trail and then turned left along McCaffrey Lane for a short distance to the beginning of the green blazed Evergreen Trail. We followed this up hill for yet another workout and then skirted the height of the land. When the green blazes turned down hill, we continued along an unmarked trail along the height of the land (there was a single green blaze when we reached another trail junction.

Making our way up hill on the Evergreen Trail, Tourne Park

We continued along this mostly unmarked trail, but a few random trails off to the left seemed to lead out to dead end roads or Crestview Road or something. Some had blue blazes.

We continued on and could soon see the red blazed Rattlesnake Trail below us to the right. The trail we were on hit another blue blazed trail and descended to the red one. Blue blazes continued and then turned off to the right heading down hill. There were some reasonably looking light blue ones, but a lot of clumsy spray painted ones. The trail took us by the ruins of an old spring house and we continued skirting the swamp. I soon realized based on the map that we were not going where we were supposed to. The trail was supposed to stay on sort of a causeway across the wetlands in the middle.

Blue trail across Rattlesnake Meadow, Richard Wilcox Park

We had to turn back past the Spring house again and I soon found where the trail was supposed to go. This section was not maintained like the rest because we were no longer in the Tourne Park which was owned by the county, this was now the municipal Richard Wilcox Park of Mt. Lakes Boro.

Beaver dam over the swamp trail in Richard Wilcox Park

At first, we were easily able to walk along the causeway, and it was obvious where the trail was supposed to go, but then it became badly flooded. A beaver dam had been built over where we were supposed to be. I could no longer see blazes anywhere and we were simply walking along the top of the dam.

Rattlesnake Swamp

It was rather difficult at times, but we made it across. I later found out searching google that this trail had been completely flooded out in the middle by a new beaver dam. The trail had originally been boardwalk, but now most of this was under water. It would be quite an undertaking to retrieve any of these structures which I'm sure were quite nice.

At the end of Rattlesnake Swamp, where we left the beaver dam, we bushwhacked up hill to Ogden Trail, sort of a rail trail as it was intended to be a railroad and graded as such, but never constructed. We turned left on it briefly and then right on an unmarked trail leading to "Boiling Spring". We never found a boiling spring, but did reach another trail and turned left. This took us back to another part of the red blazed trail, which continues but I'm not certain it's called "Rattlesnake Trail" on this side. We took a side trip past a nice stone lined spring, then back up to another side trail. The red trail seemed to take a hard turn out and around, so we took an unmarked cutoff trail I hadn't done on a previous trip to keep it interesting.

We soon reached Ogden Trail again and turned right on the unmarked section of it (most of it is white) which soon led along the shore of Birchwood Lake. We stopped and pet a lab that a guy was walking along the way.

As we walked we could see where the railroad was graded partially onto the lake, but the trail went around. We soon reached a playground where two moms and their kids were, and they asked about where we were hiking. Their biggest question for me was "In a sports jacket?" referring to the green checked blazer I was wearing.

They had two sweet dogs that loved our attention.

Birchwood Lake

We walked past them, and by the beach area where on Halloween weekend of 2009 Jason Itell, Kyle Zalinsky, and I jumped off the diving board. I wasn't going to do that this time. After reaching the end of the lake we turned left onto the Birchwood Loop Trail leading past picnic areas. DJ Ray put on a pair of goggles he found, but soon left them hanging on a tree. We had some nice views of Crystal Lake below us to the right.

Along Birchwood Loop Trail in Richard Wilcox Park, Mountain Lakes NJ

We followed this trail to another trail to the right. We tried following it up above the shore of Crystal Lake, but it seemed to come to an end near a house, so we turned back and continued on the Birchwood Loop for a bit longer to a second trail to the right.

This trail took us steeply up hill, unmarked, and then descended to Sled Run, a multi use trail apparently used by sledders a lot. In fact, a sled was left on it when we got there.

We found chips on Sled Run

Ruins along Sled Run, Mountain Lakes NJ

The best part about our walk down sled run was the fact that we found two perfectly good, unopened bags of chips! I handed Ray a bag of cheetos and I took the bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. We were really making out well on this hike for food!

We continued down Sled Run and saw an abandoned foundation of a building below us to the left. Sled Run led us down hill to Overlook Road. We turned right slightly up hill, then turned left onto Crystal Road. We descended here through an interesting development with huge houses, but not McMansions like normal places. They had character, and they were built with respect to the forest of the area because many had some large trees growing in the yards that could not have been planted after construction.

We continued down Crystal to the intersection with North Crane Road and headed down that. When we got to another intersection with Crystal Road, DJ Ray could see the Boulevard in Mountain Lakes just ahead. I wanted to go right to start the traction line path along the Boulevard from it's beginning, but he didn't want to and waited on it just below here. I turned right, followed East Shore Road to North Pocono Road and turned left down to the beginning of the Boulevard Trolley Line Path.

Boulevard Trolley Path, Mountain Lakes NJ

I walked down the path, which was at this point some distance from the Boulevard itself. Areal images showed the trolley line once continued south and west across part of Lake Arrowhead, but I don't know where it went from there. There was a paved path that followed the Boulevard toward Rt 46, but I'd have to see if that went somewhere another day.

I crossed the intersection with Crane Road but did not see Ray. I figured he must be hiding, so I kept my eyes open. The next road, Overlook Road, had a large tree off at a yard to the left, and I spotted him behind it ready to jump out and scare me, but he failed.

We continued up the road and saw a giant house on the right with a mirror we had to stop to take a picture in.

Mirror along the Boulevard in Mountain Lakes NJ

The house was interesting in that it used a fence made of a giant chain, like some sort of old ship's anchors.

Large tree along Boulevard Trolley path, Mountain Lakes NJ

We happened to be walking through Mountain Lakes on it's centennial

Giant tree in Boonton area

The Trolley Line Path ascended slightly from the road level. We passed by a Mountain Lakes beach on Mountain Lake itself and continued northeast. The path seemed to go on forever. I didn't realized it was so long. Along the upper level route a road joined in parallel to the boulevard on the opposite side. In this stretch we passed by a nice large tree.

Also while we were walking this stretch, we realized by way of the banners hanging from the utility poles that we were hiking through Mountain Lakes on it's centennial; apparently it had been incorperated in 1911.

The Trolly Line Path continued on along the road until Elcock Street came in from the left. From here, we continued north until the road diverged into Powerville Road and West Main Street. We turned right and stopped in a mini mall to visit a Kings Supermarket. We wandered around, and found some sale Farmland Dairies Chocolate milk, which is always good. We got some of those, and DJ Ray got a yogurt and we moved on. I chugged one immediately and carried another down the street a short distance to the north end of Grace Lord Park again.

As I went to throw my chocolate milk can into a garbage can, DJ Ray realized that he knew the two girls sitting on the bench next to the can, and one was his ex Vicotoria. He didn't even recognize them. Tory had glasses and a hat on so I didn't recognize her either.

It must have been a little weird, but they live in the same town, it's bound to happen. We continued south through the park; DJ Ray threw a snow ball at a goose, and we continued past Grace Lord Falls and over the old mule bridge back to the iron works site. We continued through town by way of Plane Street to Main Street, then crossed over the railroad tracks and Rt 287, onto Rt 202 and back to DJ Ray's house to finish our hike.