Hike #683; Clinton/Pittstown Loop

 Hike #683; Clinton/Pittstown Area Loop

 2/22/13 Clinton/Pittstown Area Loop with Dan Lurie and Daniel Stone

Both Dans on the old Clinton Branch in Landsdown

Our next hike would be another night hike, a loop around the Clinton and Pittstown areas.

I'd had so much success with the night hikes throughout the winter, and so I'd been considering all of the trails within close proximity of my work in Clinton. Of course, the two old Lehigh Valley Railroad spur lines, the old Clinton Branch and Pittstown Branch came to mind to do hikes on. I just had to figure a way of doing a good point to point or loop hike using them.

I came up with what I felt to be a good loop, starting at the A&P in Clinton, since that worked for the Spruce Run Turnpike hike, and then heading south on the rail beds, and back on back roads.

Dan Lurie showed up, and one  newcomer, Daniel Stone. Several more had said they were coming, but either cancelled out nearly last minute, or didn't show. I wasn't really disappointed, even though the previous night hike brought in ten people. It was still a good time.

We headed from the A&P east to the Old Red Mill, always a pretty scene. We then walked past the old Union Hotel, the Clinton House, and then reached the northern terminus of the Landsdown Trail. We headed south on that. It's sort of strange that I used to work on this trail, and now I have virtually nothing to do with it. There was more graffiti under the bridge beneath Rt 78, something I was often charged with the task of painting over, and only one small sapling over the trail. The guys at Hunterdon had done good to clear the trail off following the storm for the most part.

We continued south to Landsdown, with nice views out to the South Branch of the Raritan with no leaves on the trees. Dan Stone talked to me about GPS stuff, and new applications that might help with my effort to map out all trails and present them on metrotrails.org. It might be a good way of promoting the perimeter of NJ series I've been working on, when I get it finished. I almost feel overwhelmed by the amount of technology there is out there. It makes me wonder if all of the work I've put into these guides will just be repeated some day soon by someone in half the time, and they'll capitalize on it, then what I've done will be irrelevant. Right now, no one is really doing what I'm doing, but some day they will. I just don't know enough tekkie stuff to make that jump.

Dan obviously knew his stuff, and had all sorts of ideas on how to use Google to map what we've done. I hope he comes back for some more hikes; we'll need to pick his brain for more of those ideas!

Once we got to Landsdown, we continued on the somewhat clear old Clinton Branch, with ties still in place, crossed the active former Lehigh Valley Railroad tracks, and then picked up the Capoolong Creek Trail, which used to be the Pittstown Branch. Even that was in pretty good, clear shape, save for a few trees down when we were entering Pittstown. The washouts at the steep shelf area were getting worse since the last time I was there, but still easy to walk by. I thought about how if the county had taken that over, they would close the trail altogether, which is ridicules. I'm glad this trail still retains most of it's rustic character. It's by no means a difficult trail, but it also hasn't been yuppified like the Columbia Trail is.

It was dusk when we reached the old Pittstown Station. It was in just about the same shape as it was when I first saw the place. I do wish it could be preserved more. Such a nice old building. We headed up to the main street, and then made our way to the old Century Hotel, now the Pittstown House, and went in for a break. We each had a beer, and we checked out the pictures of the old house from when it burnt down around 1913. All of the masonry was intact, and so it was rebuilt on that original frame. It's really nice to see this had happened, rather than tearing it down completely. Such a beautiful structure. The only problem was that Brooklyn Lager was not considered a domestic beer.

From this point, we turned left on Rt 579 and followed it up hill a bit, then down another through rural areas. This was a larger road, and not the original way I'd planned to go, but then looking at my google maps on my phone, I saw a better route of the same distance.

We turned right off of 579 onto something called Groom Road or something, a development road with a wide mowed area and planted trees on either side. We could walk through the grass far enough off of the road for it to be pleasant. The road was mostly undeveloped until we got to the main development loop. We turned left through the area of McMansions, and Dan joked about it looking like some posh neighborhood who's name I forget. We turned back off at the northern exit, Stires Way, reached an intersection with Cooks Cross Road, and crossed almost directly onto Finn Road, a beautiful back road.

We remained on the road around two ninety degree bends, then turned right into Finn Road Park, at first on the access drive, then directly across fields. We cut past a pavilion and through a line of trees onto their crushed stone trail that goes around part of the park. We followed it for a while to the west. I'd only incorporated this into a hike once before, on Christmas eve of 2010 when Chris Metaxas and I wandered through a similar route.

We continued on through another line of trees, leaving the trail, and down to Perryville Road and turned left. We followed this back road north to Perryville, where there was once a station on the active former Lehigh Valley Railroad. We turned right and followed those tracks to the east from here. It was so wide that it appeared at times that there were once three tracks.

My contact lenses were driving me nuts. Or my left one anyway. Maybe there was a hair in it. I couldn't handle it any more, and so I took them out. Thankfully I brought the case and some solution. After I got the left one out my eye burned something terrible. It was pretty bad for a while, but the pain soon subsided.

We hiked on past Jutland Lake, and saw some sort of abandoned building off to the left that we couldn't reach. We then continued out through the deep cut as we reached Bethlehem NJ, where the Bethlehem Presbyterian Church and Cemetery are. We cut to the left off of the tracks and into the cemetery, then walked through it to the right out to Race Street. At the church, we turned left on Rt 513, the busiest road we had to walk, and carefully followed the narrow shoulder on the left. As we crossed a creek, I thought I saw what might have been an old bridge pier. It seems as though the predecessor to 513 would probably have crossed at a lower level. The current road is on a high fill.

We continued on north, on a good up hill grade, and reached open space on the left. There was a good area to walk on the left side, and we were able to safely continue. The only thing that almost offset that was when I nearly walked into one of the guide wires bracing a utility pole.

We reached the top, with Landsdown Meadows on the right. We kept on 513 and descended beneath Rt 78 and past the old hotel building on the left. The federal style structure is slowly shaking apart from the vibrations on Rt 78, and the town is talking of moving it away somewhat, and re-opening it as a bar, not to promote another bar, but to put it in it's original intended use for historic purposes. I commend that effort, and it's nice to hear about something like that coming from Hunterdon County.

We continued on down the main street, then walked past the old mill and through town once more, because it's always so lovely at night, and then reached the A&P. We went in to use the restroom and get some snacks before getting on our way.

We finished at about 9:30, which is not bad at all. We were moving along at a really good pace, and the new Dan handled it quite well, even though he might not have thought so because Dan and I move along at a strong pace.

I was glad to have gotten out. I needed the exercise and the release to close out the week. There are so many things coming up, good things, but the simplicity of a hike allows me to forget about that at least until it's over, and just enjoy the moment.