Hike #689; Long Valley/Mansfield/Penwell

 3/15/13 Long Valley, Mansfield, and Penwell with Dan Lurie, Sue Olivar, Michele Valerio, Carol Van Giezen, and Frank Meloi

Our next hike would be a point to point night one again, this time between Long Valley and Penwell. I'd found out Weis Market in Hackettstown was doing a "Meet the Manager" night with free samples in all departments, and figured it would be cool to bring a hike group in and eat it all. It didn't really work out, but it was still a good hike, and a nice night.

We met in Penwell, where the rope swing is that I've spent Summers at my entire life, and shuttled to Long Valley. We parked at a strip mall and walked shortly up the street to the Gillette Trail head, and followed it down hill into the old orchards.

The trail was slightly different this time; after crossing the South Branch of the Raritan on an old concrete bridge, the trail used to turn right immediately, but now it went straight and skirted someone's back yard to reach the Columbia Trail. We turned right on Columbia Trail and then continued to a left turn where it, Patriot's Path, Highlands Trail, and Liberty Water Gap Trail all turn. We then crossed the street to ascend.

We headed up hill on the trail, the steepest climb of the day, to the overlook of Long Valley. Dan passed it by moving ahead fast, but soon we caught up. We continued on past Lake George, then across Springtown Road. I had just walked this section ahead with Jillane the previous week, which was really nice, so I knew what we were in for. The section out to Rock Road was fine. It crossed the road, then headed into Harrington Park. Highlands Trail turns to follow the road, but Patriot's Path is a mess going between homes. Since the storms,  people have put all sorts of shit all over the trail, limbs and garbage, plus there are a lot of blow downs. We managed to get through. Frank joined us on this stretch and we continued out across the Flocktown Kossman School yard. Carol mentioned that the school was named for a doctor she used to have (she grew up in Long Valley).

We came to the wooded section beyond Flocktown, which was impressively cleared by a scout troop. The trail was easy to follow to the power lines, and then we turned left to head down hill. We crossed I think it was Vista Drive, and where Patriot's Path turns right, we continued on the old route, straight. We headed along a poorly blazed old trail I'd followed with Tea Biscuit years before, and tried to find the old Cataract Trail from Heath Village. A lot of the blazes were painted out, and so it was hard to see. We ended up going down the hill beyond it, and had to come back up. I eventually found the excellent side hill work done by Bob Moss's dad, and we followed the trail to the top of Cataract Falls. From here, we climbed carefully down, and checked out the water spilling between the split rock at the top.

At the falls, we had a quick break, and then followed the Cataract Trail to the Mine Trail, and visited the mine. I found out after this trip that it was known as Young's Mine. I'd never known that. I think Frank mentioned it, and it was confirmed by my friend Bob Koppenhaver that this was indeed Young's Mine.

We continued carefully down Cataract Trail in the dark, then walked Schooleys Mountain Road to Newburg Road. We crossed the retention pond to get to Weis only to find that the sample time had pretty much ended. Frank and I finished the end of the cheese samples and bought other stuff to eat.

From here, we all wandered up Allen Road to Donaldson Farms, which I thought to cross but didn't want to have any trouble with fences. Instead, we walked to the former Morris and Essex railroad tracks and followed them to the west.

When we reached the site of the former Rockport train wreck disaster, one of the worst train wrecks in US history, I was taking pictures of Frank and Carol on the signal towers, and all of these "orbs" kept appearing in the shot. I'm not one to believe in any of those things, but I'll admit that it really creeped me out that other shots didn't have them, and these ones did. It wasn't even moist or rainy out.

We turned left from the railroad when we got to Thomas Road I think, then turned right on Watters Road. This is a really nice back road to finish off the hike with. The darkness and the view of Point Mountain were quite nice  heading down to Rt 57. We didn't have all that far on 57 before the turn off onto abandoned former Penwell Road, which led us right back to the cars to finish the hike.