Hike #703; Hackettstown to Netcong

 Hike #703; Hackettstown to Stanhope/Netcong

6/2/13 Hackettstown to Stanhope with David "Captain Soup" Campbell, Jaque Melo, Gregg Hudis, Stephen Argentina, Dan Lurie, Sue Olivar, Terri Allen, Tamara Sapilak, Ted Wright, Angela Wright, ? Wright, Ira Hays, Steven Kay,  Fernando ?, Steve Levy, Doug Levine, Christian Morvan, Tom Freeland, Tara Abaring, Christine Martin, Marion Huie, Jane Julich, Noelle Kehrley, Brenda L. Rooney, and Pat Harvey.
(I may have screwed up who was there, mixed sign in sheets with previous ones. 23 participants total)

The group at Alumni Field

Our next hike would be another closer to home, between  Hackettstown and Stanhope. I had originally planned on elsewhere, but when my friend Mark Moran from Weird NJ invited me to his Weird NJ party at the Stanhope House featuring his band, Poor Man's Opera, with enough time to plan I knew I had to change the hike to end there. I started looking at trails I had overlooked in the past within the vicinity of the Stanhope House.

Even with all the years I've been doing this, there are still many trails that have escaped my feet somehow. There are just so many to choose from. There are even more that I have walked but have not incorporated into my hikes just yet.

We met in Netcong at the train station. There certainly wouldn't be enough parking at Stanhope House, and since the train station was close enough I chose that spot to park. We had a group of 23 of us, and we shuttled down to Hackettstown. I originally intended to park near Alumni Field and begin, but with such a large group I opted to extend it a bit and start at the Target.

We walked from there along the abandoned road out to East Ave, then turned left ot Rt 46 and followed it across the Musconetcong. We turned right on Willow Grove Street and followed that a short distance to Alumni Field. I'd gone there many times to walk around, but hadn't been there in years. I had also never gone into it as part of one of my long hikes. This was a good opportunity to include it.

Since my last visit, new walking paths had been added around the park and through the woods. We followed one over to the river and then headed up stream. I took a dip while others used the restrooms. It was quite hot out.

Alumni Field used to be a state fish hatchery, and the ponds still looked like it. The trail continued in the open area, then headed into the woods with interpretive signs along the way. We continued on and another path led to ball fields to the left. Further, the trail ended with a Lenape history sign. From there we had to bushwhack and follow faint paths along the river up stream.

It got a bit nasty after passing the sewage treatment plant. Not because there was any poo, but because it was badly overgrown. We passed an awesome big Willow tree while heading through the woods to a utility right of way. The clearing ended up being the buried drainage from a retention pond rather than gas or electric as I expected it would be. We followed the right of way to the left and it came out at a retention pond off of a development accessible from Willow Grove Street.

One of the newcomers couldn't make it at this point, citing that "you can't bring people through stuff like this on a day like today!". I felt bad she couldn't handle it, but at this point I can say I've been doing this for over 17 years in far worse conditions. Her and her two friends had no idea the hike was to be 15 miles let alone the conditions. They hadn't read the posting. Within the NY/NJ/PA hiking group on Meetup.com, one of the leaders, Dennis Lee posts trip write ups that are redundant and beyond lengthy, barely describing the trip and going on rants about gear and body mass index. I find that when I post things through that group, people don't read them because they're used to his extra cluttered e mails. The other two had positive attitudes and I applauded their mind set to at least try it.

We walked along the edge of the retention area and followed back streets through the development. One guy in his yard doing work gave Captain Soup a beer as we walked by. We continued on through and headed out to Willow Grove Street, then headed to Stephens State Park along it's access road. After a break at the restrooms we followed the Highlands Trail and Yellow Trail together to the Red Trail, then to the Red and White Trail somehow. A lot of these were the somewhat new trails, on which I hadn't organized hikes yet.

This trail led to the lower portion of the White Loop Trail. I'd done the upper one on my own, and some of the lower one, but never with a group. We continued along and turned left off of white onto the Serpentine Maze Trail. This circuitous trail, as well as others probably added significant mileage on to the hike. What I scaled at 16 miles apparently would come out to 21 before we were finished, amazingly.

The other two new women cut out along the way and had their friend pick them up on Waterloo Valley Road. One could handle the distance, but opted to stay with her friend. I do hope they try again knowing the mileage or we arrange for an early out. They had good attitudes and wanted to build up to our levels.

At the east end of the Maze loop, we turned onto an unmarked trail which took us through woods parallel with Waterloo Valley Road. We descended to cross over the former Morris and Essex tracks and to the abandoned westbound right of way. We followed this east until we saw the gate to the left, where a road once led to the Tilcon Quarry, now Tilcon Lake. We descended, crossed over Waterloo Valley Road, and followed the trail out to the east end of the lake where we stopped for a swim. Only a few of us went in despite the very hot weather. It was quite refreshing, but I accidentally got in with my cell phone, which I had in a lower side pocket. I usually check for it in the top right one, and when I didn't feel it there hastily jumped in.

Amazingly, after drying it out for just over 24 hours, it worked just fine. I've had the thing soaked so many times with no problems, it's amazing. It's now the longest I've ever had a cell phone, since early 2011.

We continued around Tilcon Lake, and the path became a roadway. We followed it out to Kinney Road and saw some silly graffiti, then crossed the Musconetcong on the Kinney Road bridge. We then turned right on the Morris Canal Trail and Highlands Trail.

We followed this on to Waterloo, passing under Rt 80 where I again took a swim. We continued then on the Highlands Trail across Waterloo Road to ascend Allamuchy Mountain. The climb is somewhat steep at times, but we all made it up alright. On such a hot day, it can be tough. We took a nice break at the overlook before we continued along the Highlands Trail over the mountain.

We turned right off of the Highlands Trail onto the yellow blazed Pebble Trail which descended via an old woods road mostly to the Sussex Branch Trail. We then followed Sussex Branch Trail south to it's end pretty much, at Waterloo Road.

We turned briefly left on Waterloo Road, then right off of the road onto the abandoned former road alignment. It had an angle to it to where the predecessor to Continental Drive came out to Waterloo Road. The road has been abandoned some time. We turned right through high grass along the abandoned road to the old bridge over the Musconetcong. It was in bad shape. I found this bridge back in 2003 or so when Tea Biscuit, Ken Rasheed, and I were looking for the Sussex Branch from the south, and found our way to the old road. At the time, the road bridge was not in such poor shape. Now, it was half falling into the river. When it finally does go, it might cause flooding or damage to down stream bridges. It's surprising that it has not been removed by force yet. It is indeed an interesting spot through.

We continued from here along the abandoned road heading gradually up hill. It was still passable, but in much worse shape than it was when I first visited. It started raining heavily while we walked the road. We then came out to the current route of Continental Drive, and turned left on the paved Sussex Branch Trail path. It keeps slightly off the road, probably on the former road right of way. Continental Drive follows the 1901 Sussex Branch right of way route to Stanhope and Netcong.

We continued on the trail out into International Trade Center, then walked through to the old rail bridge over the Rt 206 extension, then turned left down to the Morris Canal Trail. The old lock tender's house was in poor condition. Although only the stone frame of a building, it was now completely covered in vines and such, and barely even noticable.

We followed the lovely canal section, which was beginning to grow over with weeds on the canal bank unfortunately, right in to Stanhope at the Musconetcong where there's a bridge of concrete, Vermuele canal era from it's abandonment time, and I took another dip in the river.

We continued up what used to be Inclined Plane #2 West and made our way in to Stanhope. I walked everyone to their cars at Netcong, then headed back to the Stanhope House where Mark Moran was performing with his band the Poor Man's Opera. Only a few of the hikers joined us on this one, and Jillane came out to hang out for a bit.

I recognized Rusty Tagleireni right away and said hi. I actually need to send him an e mail on some of the abandoned buildings that need to be photographed near the water gap. Mark M came up and gave me a hug when he saw me at the table and we chatted briefly. He was all over the place having a great time chatting with countless people, then getting on stage and playing songs. His band did a number of covers that were really good, starting with an old  hit by Steeler's Wheels.

I couldn't stay to the end; my feet were hurting anyway at this point from being soaked all day and then sitting still.

It's always nice to have something like this that's a bit close to home, but I could not really relax because I've been too concerned with exactly where we're going to be living in a month. We'll certainly find a place, but will it be a good one? Time will tell...