Hike #628; Blairstown Area

 Hike #628; Blairstown

5/24/12 Blairstown Area; Hemlock Forest Preserve to White Lake with "Naaron" Young

Fields

My next hike would be a planned evening hike, meeting at 4:30 PM at the end point, White Lake. I had more hikes than I had regular weekly  hikes to do before moving, and so I added this one first.It turned out to be an awesome route, but surprisingly only Naaron showed up. Everyone else backed out pretty much last minute.

We started at the Hemlock Forest Preserve of Ridge and Valley Conservancy on Frog Pond Road outside of Blairstown.In my time serving with Warren County's Municipal and Charitable Conservancy Trust committee, one of the projects we voted to preserve was the Hemlock Glen, on the north side of Frog Pond Road from Hemlock Forest Preserve of the Ridge and Valley Conservancy.We started the hike by walking down into Hemlock Glen, a beautiful little creek area with small cascades. We then backtracked back to the parking area that had just been put in, a small gravel spot with enough space for two cars. We followed the Ridge and Valley trail markers through woods and then over a knoll where there's a seasonal view. There were more blazed trails in there now than are actually shown on the map on line.We followed them down hill, most of them all former ATV trails.

I found on the map that the property of Hemlock Forest pretty much touches the property of a church down off of Rt 94 a bit, and figured we could bushwhack on down hill to it and continue a hike. We bushwhacked for a while through the mess. It began raining hard for the beginning of the trip, and I lent Naaron my Hello Kitty Parasol, which he carried the whole trip.The rocks were so slippery because the off trail sections had so much grass growing over them. We made our way off the trail and through sort of an open area,  then up onto another ATV trail followed by a ridge outcropping with a steep cliff off to the right. This was a beautiful area. When the cliff dipped back into the slope of the earth, we turned right and headed down near another open area, then through woods on a level to one last drop toward the church. We could hear the traffic of Rt 94 not far away. The church and small school were located on Eisenhower Road, a parallel road and maybe the predescessor to Rt 94. We followed it to the left back out to 94, then took Democracy Road, another parallel road out toward the intersection with Vail Road. We passed the Blairstown Dairy, formerly a Dairy Queen, and continued along Rt 94. Naaron and I jogged for the length from here to an abandoned farm on the right. There were green acres signs, and I think it's owned by the state.We went back the farm lane passing old buildings, and then came to the old farm house. The door was wide open, so we went on in and had a look around. This was a beautiful old house. I'd been wanting to go in for a long time, and wanted to do it when I could park far enough away, and with as few friends as possible so that it wouldn't be suspicious.We went through every room and had a look around. There wasn't much stuff left in it at all. Someone had been squatting in there, because there was a mattress and what looked to be a used pillow on an upstairs floor.We continued on and skirted the backs of the buildings to the right. The grass was high and it seemed to have a sort of stinging nettle in it. I was wearing my work pants and it stung even through those.We passed the last building, and there were lovely views of the wetlands below us along the Paulins Kill to the south. This section of the Paulins Kill was really interesting because the river splits into several channels through the flood plain, which is atypical of the ridge and valley area. We made our way onto the old farm access lane, still concrete but covered with weeds, and then skirted the fields of the state land towards a strip mall. There was a kids football game going on, so we kept to the edge of that and stopped for pizza.From there, we turned back and then bushwhacked down to the edge of the Paulins Kill on the state land. Once we found a good spot, we waded across, and found an awesome huge Silver Maple along the way. The water got really deep when we neared the south side, but fortunately didn't ruins our phones or anything.On the other side, we made our way into a channel where it would be easier to step out of the water, then climbed to a field under management of Kittatinny Valley State Park, with nice large crowned trees in the middle. We crossed the field and came out on Gwinup Road.We followed Gwinup Road to the left, east, and skirted more state land on the south side of the road. It was heavy brush so we didn't bother bushwhacking it. We made our way out to Lambert Road and turned right, parallel with Sycamore Park, and soon reached Paulins Kill Valley Trail, but we didn't turn on it. We kept going on Lambert and turned left on a short connector road to Cedar Lake Road. From there we turned briefly right, and came to a place we could bushwhack up hill into the Limestone Ridge Preserve, which would turn out to be absolutely awesome.

I think Ridge and Valley Conservancy has a preserve with the same name, but this one is different and has no "official" trails. We tried to switchback a bit until we reached the top of the limestone ridge, and then found what appeared to have at one time been a road. We followed it to the east. We crossed a couple ATV trails, but to keep going we had to stay closer to the edge of the ridge. Soon, Cedar Lake came into view which was beautiful. I think it's a glacial sink hole pond like White Lake. We followed it along the top of the ridge for quite some time, where there was an indistinct trail.The trail seemed to end, and so we moved down the slope closer to the pond where there was less vegetation. I knew we were getting close to a house when I saw safety zone signs coming up. Soon, we saw the house. There was a light on and an SUV in the driveway. The driveway looked similar to mine, beat up and not well graded, but like mine used to look before the county re-did it.We avoided the house and got closer to the lake. We crossed a stunning little inlet through a hemlock glen, and found a fire pit, hammock, and tiki torches. We followed the path from this point and there were still signs for the preserve. We came to cross the driveway again, and then bushwhacked into more woods high above the wetland leading into Cedar Lake. It was beautiful. There was sort of a faint trail for a while up top. It wasn't too tough to get through, though it was getting darker all the time. We eventually came to a wide old woods road, which Google identifies as Limestone Sink Lane. We turned left on it, apparently used by ATVs, and came to a clearing on the left, a dry former lake it seemed. It was incredibly bright with young sycamores lining it's edge, and in the middle. It looked like heaven for trees with it's brightness, even though it was getting so much darker.We woods road weaved back and forth until we came to a gate on Cedar Lake Road with a sign saying it was Limestone Ridge Preserve. We turned right on the road from here, and soon passed an abandoned horse farm on the left. When we got passed the buildings, I wanted to see more. I said "screw it" and we headed past the buildings and dashed across the rolling fields to reach the Paulins Kill Valley Trail, where we turned right.It wasn't far from here to Footbridge Park. Once there, we turned left across the foot bridge and had enough time to stop at Dale's Market before it closed. I got some Dirty Chips.Next, we made our way back across the foot bridge and continued on Paulins Kill Valley Trail. It was dark by this time, and for the first time this year we saw Lightning Bugs, the females, sitting on blades of grass illuminating themselves. Their counterparts must not come out as early.We continued on along the trail to Marksboro and headed up to White Lake where we took the trails back to Naaron's car, and he drove me back to mine.

I was realizing I only had 27 days remaining until I had to be out of the house. I had been speaking with my new landlord, and things were nearly ready for me there. The limited time made me realize even more that there are so many more trails and preserves, still within walking distance of my current home that I would not even get the chance to explore while living there. On this hike alone I explored in great detail four, maybe five more preserves I had never incorporated into any of my big hikes, as well as other stuff.I will be covering even more new round next Tuesday, and it's exciting.There are so many changes coming, dumping a load of stress on me, and all I can do is try my best to make it good.