Hike #633; Woodglen Road/Lebanon Twp, Point Mountain, and Port Murray
6/22/12 Woodglen Road/Lebanon Twp, Point Mountain, and Port Murray with "Naaron" Young, Lyz Hagenbuch, Paula Scheyer, and Michele Valerio
Hiking new Lebanon twp trail
My next hike would be another small weekday one. I was off of work due to my sprained ankle still, and would not be back in until the following Tuesday. Rather than do more depressing move stuff I had to get out and hike.Since my brother Bobo was having his graduation party that night, I figured why not do a hike to it or in the area?I opted to do the Point Mountain area since I hadn't done it in so long, and because Penwell and the Musconetcong are always great places to swim.
I was feeling really out of it. Tired and weak. Since my trip to the Brandywine, I had been getting intermittent fevers that would not stop coming back. Still, I needed to get out.After meeting at Port Colden Mall, we shuttled in Lyz's car to the new Lebanon Township piece on Woodglen Road where an Eagle Scout project had taken over a new trail construction. Only Lyz, Naaron, and I started off. Matt Davis and I were going to do this preserve as a Metrotrails project before I moved to Hardwick. The trail was planned to connect with Miquin Woods on the other side.The trail was very nicely build with a lot of wood chips, and to my surprise an awesome long puncheon over a wet area. What Matt and I had proposed doing was a simple puncheon of laying boards, but this was a more outlandish one with horizontal boards, the expensive kind. I was impressed.
We continued until the trail abruptly ended and we had to follow the utility line west toward Miquin Woods. There was stinging nettle out there which sucked, but the three of us made it through and out along Spruce Run Creek. We headed off into the open areas of what was once camp Watchung and continued through Miquin Woods. When we got to the yellow blazed side trail we turned left. I was annoyed walking through the woods that many of the turn blazes I had added to correctly mark the trail were changed, and plastic markers, not even arrows pointing the right way mind you, were placed over top of my turn blazes.I got more annoyed as we walked at such disregard the parks have for the trail system. The maintenance department was recently folded up into the buildings and maintenance county wide, and the rangers were always the ones to mark the trails. The head ranger was always against marking the trails to the standard. I assumed it was he who changed it.
We finished the yellow trail and then crossed Spruce Run on the old camp road bridge. The trail on the other side leading back out to the parking lot had been changed in color to blue. I wondered if it had anything to do with my Metrotrails review I had written, about how horrible the marking was, that all trails were marked yellow. I was annoyed anyway because they missed removing some of the older yellow markers. They were in the weeds and probably just too lazy to get them out.
We continued from the parking lot onto Newport Road, then passed the Lebanon Township garage which was under construction with a new building. I didn't know it at the time, but my step dad Mark Godfrey was working there while we walked by. Had we known we could've stopped to say hi.We continued to turn left on Anthony Road/Hollow Road out to Mountain Top Road and turned right. We then stopped in to visit my grandfather who luckily was home. We chatted with him for some time and then continued to walk Mountain Top Road, partially the first hike I had ever done when I was 3, to the Point Mountain South parking area. We then followed the white blazed trail across the fields and through woods to the central section. We crossed Point Mountain Road, and continued past the old farms. The trail was horribly overgrown, and would probably just end up shutting altogether if not cared for. It was awful to see it this way after taking care of it for so many years.We followed the trail to the orange blazed ridge trail, then turned left.We continued along the ridge to the view point where we were joined by Paula and Michele. The view was still nice, but there seemed to be a storm rolling in. We had a few drizzles here and there but it was never that bad. We saw a guy I had talked to several times years back; he had one arm so I recognized him.It was also sad to see that the rocks on top of the mountain were now all covered in graffiti. It was never like this before. We continued down along the ridge trail over the steps to the river side, then turned to cross Point Mountain Road on the blue trail that looped out along the river. When the trail got back to the river, it was badly overgrown. The puncheon I had constructed along the trail had now washed away and no one ever went back to repair it. We stopped for a swim in the river which was nice. We then continued past the Point Mountain Bridge, which sadly Hunterdon County was trying to replace. We followed the trail along the river, then out through the fields up to Penwell. We walked over to the rope swings and had a really nice swim with some local kids. They were really nice and fun to hang out with. Usually the patrons there don't even speak English.
After having a great swim, we made our way up to cross Rt 57 and the Mansfield Township school and municipal building properties. We then hiked across the Comcast recreation fields to Brick Yard Road and followed it back to the former Morris Canal Inclined Plane #5W turbine site. I took everyone through the chamber which was cool, but then it began pouring rain.I was really feeling out of it for most of the hike. Getting dizzy, losing a lot of energy. Walking up hill became more of a chore for me than it should be. Before making it back to Washington, due to the heavy downpours I had Mark, my stepdad pick us up.It was still a nice day to be out, but my memory of it is fogged and I was getting worse. I went to my mom's for Bobo's graduation party. Despite feeling lousy I still didn't feel old, even though my youngest brother had just finished high school. Before the end of the night I was getting sweats and feeling really dizzy. I dropped off some trail stuff at Matt Davis's and went home, where I could barely sleep through the night. I went from being freezing cold to hot and sweaty. It was awful.The next morning I checked myself into the Hackettstown Hospital ER because I was shaking so bad it was painful and my muscles were getting stiff to the point where I could barely walk or move. They at the hospital felt that I have some sort of tick borne disease.I was at the hospital for over six hours, pumped full of pain killers and prescription strength Tylenol, and started on Doxycyclene for Lyme Disease. Tests did not show that I had Lyme, because of my white blood cell count, but it was likely that I had some sort of tick disease treated with the same drug.The past few weeks had been too much on me; I'm ready for a break!
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