Hike #706; Townsbury to Changewater

 Hike #706; Townsbury to Changewater

6/21/13 Townsbury to Changewater with Gregg Hudis, Ernie Phillips Jr., Justin Gurbisz, John Edmunds, Brandan Jermyn, and Carol Van Giezen

Coming out of Van Nest Gap/Oxford Tunnel

This next hike would be another point to point between my home in Townsbury and Changewater, mostly following the old Lehigh and Hudson River and Warren/Lackawanna railroads.

I was supposed to have a pretty big group including co-workers, but most cancelled out at the last minute from that group. Still, people showed and we met in Changewater to shuttle north to Townsbury, picking up Brandan along the way.

We started by following the LHR rail bed from there on to the west to Pequest where I showed everyone the ruins of the furnace site. I was feeling out of it, so it's not always easy to get into relating history when I feel like that. Still, we powered on to the old Warren Railroad at Pequest Cut and headed south.

Everything was pretty much the same from the beginning. The many trees that had fallen over the LHR bed had been removed, presumably by state WMA, a nice job.

The Warren line south into Oxford always goes by pretty fast. When we got there we split into two groups, those going over the tunnel and goes going through. Justin, John, and I made our way on through. The silt was particularly bad this time. High water levels everywhere probably didn't help matters very much. Still, we fought on through, then I ran the last half of the tunnel to get to the other side. Gregg, Carol, Michele, and Brandan ended up missing the turn off to get back to the rail bed and had to walk Rt 31 all the way to Jackson Valley Road and missed a really nice section, my favorite part of the entire hike really.

I told Justin and John about the past times going through, the raft that used to be in there which now is just rusted open old barrels, and my shoes that I ruined in the tunnel back in 2000 were still sitting right where I left them, looking the same as they did over ten years ago.

We descended to Jackson Valley Road and crossed with the others, then made our way through the really rough section out toward the Warren Hills High School. Apparently graduation was going on, and they had a streaker! Judging by the sun in the sky in the pictures in the news the next day, and the picture I took looking out from the rail bed, we just missed this guy! He ran off into the woods, and had he done so while we were going by, we probably would have had police questioning us!

We made our way through the rail bed, which was the roughest I've ever seen it, and got to the former Warren Lumber yard, which years before served as a coal transfer yard on the Morris Canal. We passed through and followed the section with rails out ot the Rt 31 overpass and descended to Dicola's Pizza where we had some tasty food.

After eating, Brandan was in no shape to go on, so I had his mom come and pick him up. The rest of us continued along the tracks to Railroad Ave, then followed it, Washburn Ave, and Changewater Road out past Murderer's Bridge site to Changewater to finish the hike in the dark.

It was nice to do this familiar hike for an almost new group to it. I was glad I posted it, because if I hadn't I wouldn't have forced myself out to walk on this night. It brought me out of a bit of a funk, and the tunnel continues to interest me no matter how many times I pass through it.