Hike #722; Chester Area

 Hike #722; Chester Area

9/1/13 Chester Area with Jamie Becker, Justin Gurbisz, Michael "Lerch" Clark, Jack Lowry, Susie Duncan, Jon Wilson, Krisanne Pederson, Stephen Argentina, Rachel Alexander, Brandan Jermyn, Lenny ?, Carmen ?, Mark Norman, Sherry Masedman-Smith, Ted Wright, Angela Wright, Dan Stone, Steve Levy, Carol Van Giezen, Chris "Cupcake" Kroschinski, Doug DeGroff, Sally ?, Mahvash Saba, Carla ?, Gus ?, Vicky ?, and Jillane Becker

Group shot in Chester

Our next hike would be a point to point in the area of Chester NJ. There were quite a few new trails added to the inventory around the area that I'd never done, and there were a few other spots I wanted to include in my hikes that somehow I had missed despite the many years of hiking in the area. This route tied together a few past places I loved with some new ones.

We met in the morning at Hacklebarney State Park. This time was actually an easy car shuttle to our beginning point, Black River Recreation Area on the other side of Chester. The plan was to walk a new section of Patriot's Path as well as some of the Evans Family Farm Preserve, a somewhat newer trail system which ties in.

We shuttled with as few cars as we could and began our walk from Black River Rec Area. We immediately walked across the street, Rt 513, and followed the route as I understood would be the future route of the Patriot's Path. There were already some wooden posts in place that would have the Patriot's Path logo on it as I recall.

I wanted to try to cover some of the Evans Family Farm Preserve and Highlands Park. I'd not been into this yet, and I talked to Russ Nee, the foreman for the trails for Morris County, and he described to me where it was to go.

We walked across the open field to the tree line, with rolling hills. Everyone followed behind me, but I wasn't at all sure of where we were going.

I didn't see any connections, so we continued along the tree line until I saw a way down to a paved roadway. This was the most bushwhacking of the entire hike, heading from the field down to this. Some people in the group I could tell were annoyed immediately. Sometimes people come out not knowing what to expect, and they're surprised that I'm doing stuff that even I have never done. I don't like when people immediately have complaints from the start. One woman was particularly annoyed. I tried to ignore it and just focused on continuing.

There were mowed paths and a sort of community garden with a parking lot. I wasn't sure of my bearing for a few moments, but we were soon on our way, and once we were in the woods I found the connecting trail to the main hiking trail system. It took us parallel with a brook and into the woods, where we turned left onto the Yellow Trail.

We continued on this trail through very pleasant woods. It looked like this trail system had been around for a while, I had just not known about it. The Yellow Trail was pretty good until we got to Ayres Brook where the Blue Trail was supposed to lead to the left. We saw a few blazes, but this trail just seemed to disappear out of nowhere. We were bushwhacking, and whatever treadway we had was muddy. I made the executive decision to just rock  hop across the brook and get to the Red Trail followed the other side. This trail was much easier to follow. I had wanted to follow the perimeter, but I didn't take to the front of the group, and so they made the wrong turn somewhere. I think they stayed on Red when I wanted to get on White. No matter, we continued through the preserve and crossed over the brook again on a foot bridge. There was the site of an old dam, which meant there was probably once a mill in this area. Only masonry ruins still remained here.

We took the Blue Trail, which led up hill for a while, Jack playing his carbon fiber guitar well despite the up hill pitch. He played while I sang "Maybe I'm Amazed" heading up the hill. The trail came close to some development, then headed back down hill to an intersection. My plan was to turn left again on Yellow Trail, but half of  the group continued ahead, far back down hill. I had to try to call some of them. I used someone's cell phone because mine wasn't getting service in this area. We had to wait a bit for them to come back.

Once we were all back together, we took the Yellow Trail, which took us back to the same connector path we used before. This took us to a woods road path, across a bridge over a tributary to the Ayres Brook and continued west. We turned right when we got near the community garden again, then turned left along the roadway from it there.

We came out somewhere behind some buildings, then headed further up to the old telephone pole farm along Rt 513, where they used to test for Bell labs the strength of different kinds of woods for the poles. It's always interesting to walk through. One of our newcomers had some other event going on, so cut out early here, and the rest of us crossed the pole farm, then took the access road to the overlook on the hillside. It's a fantastic little spot that people don't generally know about.

We headed down hill from this and across Rt 510. We crossed directly and skirted the side of an elementary school. From the right side of the school, a paved path led us out to Larch Drive, and a left took us to Fairmount Ave. I assume this might one day end up as part of the Patriot's Path. We followed Fairmount Drive west to Grove Street, then turned left into Grove Street Park which had paved paths going through it. We crossed the park and followed these paved paths to the access point on Perry Street, and exited here.

Perry Street took us to Main Street, but along the way there was some sort of street fair with all sorts of food around. I believe Stephen, now hooked on raw corn on the cob from a previous hike, got some of that. In fact, I think a lot of us patronized these businesses. There was also a wine tasting table from a winery in northern Warren County which I want to incorporate into one of the hikes. When I told the guy I'd bring a group back I think he must have thought I was crazy, as I was already pretty buzzed at this time. Someone else in the group followed me and said "You see all these people coming through here? He's the leader". I think he was a little taken back by that (We've yet to visit the winery, but we will!).

We turned left on the main street and crossed Rt 206. I told everyone to meet me on the other side near the pharmacy in a half hour or something. The Patriot's Path route follows the road from here, the Chester Hills Mall. This mall parking lot used to be a railroad yard, where the Chester Hill Branch of the Central Railroad of NJ reached it's summit, and the Chester Mine Branch continued during the days of the operating Chester Furnace.

I think Cupcake and Darlene joined us here.

Once we were all back together, we continued down Rt 513 at the mall, then crossed over on the abandoned railroad bed (Chester Hill Branch), now Patriot's Path, heading gradually down hill. We followed this until the blue branch of the Patriot's Path, Black River Trail, broke off to the left. We continued and passed the Red Trail which went to Chubb Park, and continued past the giant discarded pipes and on to the dam on the river and pedestrian tunnel under Rt 513/24.

Once on the other side, we checked out some of the Cooper Mill. There were tours going on, but we didn't have time for a lot because we had to get back to Hacklebarney State Park and had a long way to go. We continued on the trail heading down to the river, and soon it began to follow the abandoned Hacklebarney Mine Railroad, one of the most forgotten rail trails in the state, mostly because it doesn't resemble a railroad bed so much. It's been abandoned since the very early 1900s.

We continued along the shore of Kay's Pond, named for horticulturist Elizabeth D. Kay who lived at the current Environmental Education Center nearby that bears her name. Much of this was her estate in the years following the closure of the mines.

I had everyone stop at the recently replaced dam of the Kay's Pond, then got Cupcake, Justin, and Lerch to join me in a side trip. I told everyone to sit tight, and the three of us quickly climbed over a chain link fence and I showed them to the entrance of the Hacklebarney Mine. We made our way along the watered cut further into it's depths, and then saw a hole off to the right. it was really tight, but I managed to squeeze myself through, which got me completely covered in mud. Justin got through barely getting a drop of it on himself.

This room continued down hill to the left, and it was quite large. I tried taking pictures, but there was far too much dust and moisture for them to come out. We got as far in as we could pretty much, though I missed something because Justin and Lerch found more.

We climbed to the other side, the south, and I climbed the fence near a tall post in order to get back out. Then I dashed back down to the Patriot's Path and back to the group. Jillane had joined everyone there, and she looked at me with some disgust because I was covered in mud!

We continued along the trail, which now followed the briefly used Langdon Mine Railroad for a time. It then turned off and continued along the river. When the blue blazes led up hill, I took everyone on an unmarked path along the Black River, followed by the vaguely blazed Green Trail. We waited up for a bit for the other mine goers to catch up. I seem to recall Lerch hurt himself again on the fence or something. He's always getting hurt!

We continued on the Green Trail to the former pool of Elizabeth Kay. The dam is still in place and in reasonable shape. It's a great spot for a dip. The ruins of her pool house, now a framework of stone since it was burned down years ago, towered above on the far side. Of course, Justin was over there and climbing all over the thing, followed shortly behind by Sherry. She managed to climb up the ruins and made it look almost as easy as Justin does.

Justin continued climbing around, and next decided to climb to the top of the old chimney. As he was reaching the top, the old structure started to crumble. He's lucky not to have fallen off with the deteriorating stone! Sherry kept climbing around too, and Lerch came to join us over there.

Most of us took a dip in the refreshing water. I tried climbing up the dam through the flow, but that wasn't happening. We continued on from here, and the green trail re-joins the red blazed Conifer Pass Trail heading south. We headed along this to cross Pottersville Road. Joh helped carry Rachel's dog through this because he wasn't faring so well at this point. She and a couple others opted to wait here for others to come back with cars. The rest of us continued across Pottersville Road until the trail ended at the blue blazed Patriot's Path. We turned left here and continued on the trail out to Lamerson Road. We turned right up hill here, and soon came to Pottersville Road again. The intersection is right across from Sportsman's Lot 1 at  Hacklebarney State Park. It's not as well known, but there's an orange blazed trail that cuts into the woods from this location. There's even a nice wooden foot bridge here. We Followed the orange trail steeply down hill on a washed out route to reach the Black River again. There is a log across at this point, and I gave people the opportunity to cut out early and walk back to the cars.

Jack provided the soundtrack as everyone carefully walked across the log over the river.

Many took the opportunity, but others followed me to the more interesting point, the abandoned swimming pool. When Hacklebarney was first donated to the state by Adolph Borie, and the Civilian Conservation Corps began work, there were campsites designed and the river was dammed with a swimming pool below a small waterfall, complete with stone steps leading into it. As the story goes that I heard, Borie offered to donate an even larger amount of property to the state if they'd give him back a portion of the property which he originally donated, which included the pool. I walked everybody to the pool site, which is quite pretty, and we took a swim. It's meant to be deeper, but the dam is missing a piece that is meant to hold back water. It could probably be blocked with a piece of thick plywood at least temporarily, but we had nothing! Just below the dam are the footings of an old foot bridge as well.

Justin, Sherry, and Doug were climbing around on the rocks while I and the others enjoyed the water.

After this refreshing dip, we followed the trail along the river heading down stream all the way to the end of the trail system and border monuments, then took the Main Trail back to the parking lot.

This was one of those hikes that again felt like a great close to the Summer. An jaunt that was both exciting and relaxing, with a couple of great swims in forgotten swimming pools of yesteryear. But again, the Summer wasn't nearly over for us. Not yet.