Hike #718; Oxford Area to Washington

 Hike #718; Oxford Area and Washington

8/13/13 Oxford Area to Washington Circuitous Hike with Brandan Jermyn, Michele Valerio, Stephen Argentina, Dan Lurie, and Lowell Perkins.

The group at our end point

This next hike would be another night trip between Oxford area and Washington NJ. A Tuesday night, it was the night of my monthly Board of Recreation meeting, and I thought it'd be good to show a public presence so I arranged for the hike to pass through it. We met on South Prospect Street by my house right after I got out of work, then shuttled north to my brother Alex's house in Oxford. Only Michele, Brandan, and I started off the hike.

We walked from my brother's driveway onto the abandoned right of way of the Pohatcong Railroad, which runs from his driveway to the Quarry Road that leads to the Tilcon quarry and Mt. Pisgah Ave. Once we got to the road, we followed it to Mt. Pisgah and then down to the land fill area where the Department of Land Preservation Building is.

We sat through the meeting for over an hour, and discussed some of the fence plans at White Lake, much to my dismay. I really don't want to see the Marl Works there fenced in, but it's looking like they're going to make it happen. We went over plenty of other things before adjourning the meeting.

As we got out of the meeting Lowell parked at the building to join us for the hike. Dan also showed up, and he went to park his car at my bother's house and walk back to catch us. So we ended up back tracking the same route we'd already taken, on the old Pohatcong Railroad to my brother's house, then along Rt 31 to the old Warren Railroad right of way. We then headed into Oxford. We stopped in the liquor store along the way, and I forget what we got. I got something small to go through the Oxford Tunnel with. I thought a few might go through, but this time only Lowell and I opted to go through.

Lowell worked with me at Spruce Run for most of the Summer. I've known his family for years; his sister Carolyn was in high school with me involved with arts, and his cousin Bob Mahoney was a close friend of mine from early high school on. In fact, Bob asked me if I could help get Lowell the job at Spruce Run.

Brandan, Dan, Michele, and Stephen headed along the highway while Lowell and I headed quickly over to the old Warren Railroad cut. It had a lot of down trees still over it, and plenty of mud, but we made our way to the mouth of the tunnel very fast. Lowell got through the trees in probably double the speed that most people do when we head through that section.

When we reached the mouth of the tunnel, I briefed Lowell on what to expect going in. The silt mess just inside is quite difficult to get through, especially when unprepared for it. He got a stick and was ready to go. We got through the silt in possibly record time. Usually it takes people forever to get through this section but Lowell handled it really fast. We checked out the side tunnel in the wall, and continued up and over the cave in. From there on it was pretty easy until we got to the end.

Usually, when we reach the other side we have people that have been waiting for us for quite some time, but this time the others hadn't even made it back to the railroad bed yet. We continued walking to the concrete foundation along the right of way, and still no sign of them.

Soon, we heard them yelling to us. Somehow, they had managed to get over the tunnel on the highway and then skipped going down at the right time. They were down in the swamps and woods. They fortunately were able to make their way to us, and we continued along the railroad bed south for a while.

When we got to the at-grade old farm crossing, the right of way was getting to be pretty overgrown. It's been the worst I've ever seen it lately. No ATVs have been using it and large trees are blocking the way to the point where we couldn't really get through easily any more. It was getting darker and we were getting hit in the face with brambles and such, so I opted to turn up hill to the right to the fields.

Once in the fields, we followed the route we had on another previous hike, and headed through a line of trees parallel with the railroad bed, then headed slightly north parallel with a line of christmas trees. We cut off to the left after that, and at the end of the field it became a mess of brambles. I knew we were off from where we needed to be in order to get to the trail in Pohatcong Creek Natural Area, which was my plan, so we had to head up hill a little bit. We continued and hit a corn field section, and I chose to bully through that. Everyone followed as we made our way through. I introduced some in the group to the wonder of raw corn on the cob. Stephen in particular really loved it.

We cut through the corn to the dividing line of trees between two fields, and then started to cut into the woods. We only had one flash light to use among us. I didn't really think we'd need them this time, but things went a little awry. Just as we started off into the woods, I had trouble getting my bearings. I used the light from Washington in the distance to sort of guide me to where the trail should be. We ended up going back and forth a few times though. Even worse, I had been using my phone for GPS, but it all of a sudden started pouring like crazy!

Lowell had a safe spot to put his phone, so we used that. I had to go with some intuition from this point, and we slowly made our way through the woods and around pools of water as we headed through the flood plain of the Pohatcong Creek. It seemed to take a while, but we found our way to the trail through the preserve, and then the rain let up. What a relief!

We followed the trail over some puncheons and such, and it was still difficult in the dark, but we managed. The trail took us to the creek side, then across on the old bridge that had been in place for over ten years, and used to have the connector trail to Fairway Greens golf course. That trail has long since overgrown, and the trail has been re-used as part of the regular public trail.

We headed out to the community garden near Mine Hill Road, then headed over to Bowerstown Road. We followed that road past the former Bowers Foundry site, and later Project Excel of the Board of Education. I don't know a lot about the history of these old buildings, but it's a really cool area and lovely architecture.

As we reached the base of former Morris Canal Inclined Plane #7 West, I pointed out how the stone wall in the front yard of the house at the base is constructed of the old sleeper stones from the inclined plane. We then headed up hill on the old plane, now the route of Plane Hill Road. From there, we followed the old canal route around the JCP&L property and toward the roads in Washington. I pointed out the Captain Campbell house along the way, then we weaved back into town to head south on Belvidere Avenue.

We stopped next at the quick chek for some food. We joked about looking like "townies" hanging out there in the middle of the night. When we went in, the guy running the place made us leave our backpacks by the front counter.

From there, we headed back toward my place where we left a car parked on the street.

This was a really fun time to remember what with all the weeds, the uncertainty, getting lost several times, and the rain storm. This, like so many of those other crazy night hikes really keeps me feeling young. I'm doing all the same fun stuff I have been since I was 17 and enjoying it just as much.