Hike #680; Allamuchy Alleghory

 Hike #680; Allamuchy Alleghory

2/3/13 Hackettstown-Alphano/Allamuchy Area with Jillane Becker, Brandan Jermyn, Gregg Hudis, Michele Valerio, Teun Ott,  Maria ?, Murtuza ?, Dan Lurie, Cory Janusz, Maria Antonia Carbonero, Lisa ?, Mark Norman, Officer Mike Gurzo, Dave Shreier, Suzanne ?, Elaine Mosgueda, Giuseppe De Caro,  Jim Mason, Chelsea Richardson, Victoria Laurence, Rachel Alexander, Glenn Markalin, Alecia Garsh, Mike Gurzo, Ginnet O, Lisa Huellon, and Eric Pace

Group shot at Rutherford Hall

Our next trip would be a point to point showcasing the best loved and least known sections of Allamuchy Mountain State Forest and more. I organized a route that would take us between the Long Bridge lot on the former Lehigh and Hudson River Railroad bed and the Morris Canal in Hackettstown. I had a good group of about 28 people show up for this outing.

It was tough to do the car shuttle, as it always is with large groups, but we managed. It also took a while at the beginning point because everyone took a long time to go into the Quick Check where we started, along Rt 517 in  Hackettstown.

After everyone was all together, we headed down  hill to the former Morris Canal right of way, from the funeral home toward the Towpath Apartments where the canal used to pass. The towpath was still in good shape, but there was a lot of trees and branches down on the towpath. The first stretch was pretty good; the new guy Cory, who runs a Facebook Page on NJ Hiking, stayed up front leading the bushwhack with me.

It got a bit rougher than I'd anticipated, and we made our way to the abandoned former westbound right of way of the Morris and Essex rail line, and then headed out to Bilby Road where we were joined by Eric again, who took the road route.

We crossed over Bilby Road and then got on the trail section of the old Morris Canal, which was much easier. We followed it out, and had only one slow spot where we had to cross the missing bridge spot. We continued, then turned off of the canal where the trail was cleared parallel, and out to the driveway where it crosses a house yard, part of the park property. Eric made it to Saxton Falls after us, but opted to turn back rather than go up the steep hill ahead.

We headed down to Waterloo Road, turned left, then back up to the towpath on the Highlands Trail, which follows it for some time.

We made our way out to Saxton Falls, then took a break. There was a restroom, so everyone took a lot of time there. With such a big group, it seems best to avoid all restroom stops!

Next, we cut through to Colony Road, where the canal is on the slack water section of Saxton Lake. We passed an abandoned house, which I went in, and crossed over Waterloo Road to old Mattison Road.

Ray Mattison was a recluse who used to live at the top of this road, which I always called the Switchback Junk Yard. I found out about the place while scouting by myself one day in the early 2000s. My bushwhack led me out to the Deer Park section of Allamuchy Mountain State Park. I then led a group back to it in on February 6th, 2006.

Old Ray was living up there at the time. He had so many cars lining the driveway that it was necessary at times to walk on top of them to get through. The further we followed Mattison Lane, the older the cars got. That time, when we neared his house, there was steam coming from the house from a hot water heater. We bushwhacked away from the place and countless cars to the Deer Park area.

I later returned to the site with Jillane, and found that almost all of the cars had been removed, and only the house and a trailer still stood, though they were not in livable condition.

When I got the job working for the state, old George, from Hopatcong told me about when he was a Ranger, how he was one of the people charged with evicting old Mattison while the cars were removed. He said he put up quite the fuss, especially when a jeep owned by his father was taken away. George also told me that Mattison would "do something stupid" every year to get himself thrown in jail for the cold months. One time he reportedly ran someone over. He would be in the jail in Stokes State Forest for the winter, then when they let him go he'd walk right back up the mountain, George told me.

I led my group up the old Mattison Lane, with a couple cars remaining, and then passed his old house. I had a look inside. It was worse than it was the previous time I was there. Hard to believe anyone could have been living there as recently as 2006, but I did see it with my own eyes.

Once at the top, we continued on a woods road I'd never followed. It weaved around a lot more, and seemed to head down hill, so we bushwhacked off of it to the left through dense young woods. Just before coming to a stone row and heavily overgrown field, we found an old sign with some sort of park stuff written on it. I knew we were close to Deer Park Road because I could see the roof of the abandoned house I love up there. We made our way out to the small parking area and the road, and Jillane met up with us there.

Once she parked, we followed Deer Park Road to the Lake Front Trail, which followed the closed section of the road to Deer Park Pond, and around it to the right. We crossed the spillway and continued around the lake through nice evergreen groves, and then to the Barberry Trail, my favorite of the trails in the Deer Park Section of the state park. This trail passes lovely views of the pond, as well as weirdly rooted trees.

At the end of Barberry Trail, we turned left on white blazed Deer Park Trail, which we took to a hard turn, where an unmarked connector trail led down hill to Allamuchy Pond Trail, which now follows some of the old road I'd hiked in 2006 and other times to the abandoned farm at Weirtown. We turned right on the somewhat new trail, which I'd never brought a group on.

The trail led past some nice big trees, and we found a nice big oak we could climb inside of. No one thought I could fit into it, so I of course wanted to prove them wrong.

We then headed to Rutherford Hall, the hundred year old former Rutherford Stuyvesant estate that once hosted President Roosevelt when he was visiting Lucy Mercer Rutherford. We took a short break here, but it was too cold to hang out for long.

Charlie Finneren, from the township was supposed to join us here, but he had a family emergency and couldn't. I was hoping he'd be able to guide us through to the next leg of the trip. Without him, we continued on out the former entrance gate to Rutherford Hall, then up a dirt driveway directly across Rt 517 in state park land. This property led all the way to the gated Panther Valley community. We followed the road for a ways, which had one set of tire tracks on it. It led to a private home that is necessary to drive down the driveway to reach.

There were some good views as we moved along down the road, parallel closely with Rt 80. We headed down hill on the road until we reached another abandoned roadway going left. We followed it up hill.

Cory and I were again in the front for the bushwhack section. It was pretty cool being on the old road, but the japanese barberry was awful. We ended up getting off of the road I'd actually wanted to do, near some giant piles of rock, earth and debris. It was the worst part for everyone to get through. We mostly all climbed up and over a giant dirt pile, then came down and into the open area and the streets of Panther Valley. This was a lesser used, northern section of the valley, at McKinley Drive.

We walked up McKinley, then turned right on Mallard Drive. At the end of Mallard was a place where there was originally intended to be another road, but the plan was abandoned. Charlie took me through here a few days prior to show me how I'd need to walk through.

We all went into the woods, and cut to the left. There was no path, and one tough spot to get down on a slippery slope. One participant was having trouble with her foot, and I was trying to find a way to get her out of the hike.

Charlie called me with a state police officer willing to pick her up, but we were already into the woods too far at that point.

We continued on and found a faint old woods road or ATV path. We were able to follow it pretty much all the way to the off trail overlook. There was a spectacular view of the golf course and areas around it in Panther Valley. This was the best spot on the hike, though it was tough getting to it with the huge group.

From the overlook, we headed down hill, off trail, following my phone GPS to the the Allamuchy Township municipal offices.

We continued up the street and into a development on "Old Farm Drive". We cut across a yard of a town house to reach the rail trail, formerly the Lehigh and Hudson River Railroad (1886-1986). From here, it was a very easy shot back to the cars on the nice level area. "Officer Mike" as I called him climbed onto one of the old signal towers along the way. We passed beneath Rt 80, then along a field and back to the rail bed out to Long Bridge to finish the hike. Eric and Jim "Mr. Buckett" Mathews met us there.I said goodbye to everyone. Overall it seemed like everyone really enjoyed the hike. So many of them came from the "NY, NJ, PA Hiking Group" on Meetup.com that I'd been posting in, and the guy doing most of the hikes there does mostly very short and slow paced hikes for beginners, and posts the same one every other week, so my hikes were certainly a much bigger challenge and something different than not only what they see on that group, but anywhere.

The reaction was not all overwhelmingly positive, and people were tired, but I suppose that is how we "weed out" the people unfit to do my hikes. It really was a bit much for me to handle, looking after so many people, but it really introduced quite a group to my hikes. I think of it as like my early days with Appalachian Mountain Club. A few people came only for one hike, but most of them all came back for more. I weeded out the people who were not into my sort of hike, and for those it worked for, they became my core group of friends. I can see this group taking me down the same path yet again.