Hike #726; Brass Castle to Penwell/Port Murray

 Hike #726; Brass Castle to Penwell/Port Murray

9/22/13 Brass Castle to Port Murray/Point Mountain with Brandan Jermyn, Michael "Lerch" Clark, Justin Gurbisz, Steve Levy, Conrad Blease, Teresa Montez, Dan Lurie, Sue Olivar, Cory Janusz, Mark Norman, Dan Stone, Gregg Hudis, Michele Valerio, Wilma Vargas, Rachel Alexander, Mahvesh Saba, Larry Philips, Taylor Kappus, Lenny ?, and ?.

The group near Warren Co Vo Tech.

For this, our first trip since I returned from backpacking, we would finally coordinate with Common Sense For Animals with one of their events.

I've been close to CSA since I was in High School. Dr. Robert R. Blease, President of CSA, is the father of my good friend Conrad, who now sits on the CSA board as Vice President, and Conrad has been coming out since Hike #1. I've attended the CSA parties for years, and helped out around the shelter when I was a teenager, doing anything from general cleaning to trying to capture a giant pig.

CSA runs a run/walk for animals event fundraiser every year, and I'd worked to have it coincide with one of my hikes, but for whatever reason in the past we've ended up  having other plans conflicting on the same day. Even this time, there was an event in Sussex County that I was asked to coordinate with, but I had already agreed to work with CSA first, so it was finally ready to happen.

The event had a 5K course set up around Meadow Breeze Park in Washington. This was great for me because it's in my home town. All I had to do was come up with a hike that would incorporate it with enough distance before the event to arrive on time, and enough after to total my usual fifteen miles.

I looked at several routes, but finally settled on a diverse one that would string together places I'd already visited with a couple that I hadn't. We met in the morning at the Port Murray Elementary School that would be our end point, then shuttled with as few vehicles as possible to the Warren County Vocational Technical School near Brass Castle, where Meadow Breeze Park is. I knew there were trails behind the Community College next door, but I had never utilized them as part of a hike, so this was my opportunity to do so.

We started walking out behind the Vo Tech school, then turned left along the edge of the fields heading out towards the college. We went off to the right, behind the college and soon found the mowed paths heading out into the meadows. They had been there ever since I attended school there, when I was on the Warren Co 5K Running Team that my math teacher, Harry Moser, ran for us. I just never did any of the practices that took us back there.

The trails were pretty nice. I watched the aerial images on my phone GPS to make certain we were going the right ways. It took us out to the Pohatcong Creek, which was very pretty. The trail followed the creek upstream to Buttermilk Bridge Road, and we turned left.

We soon reached Rt 57 and turned right. There was a farm event going on along the left side, and a guy came out with a megaphone trying to reel us in. If only I'd known I would have tried to work that out, but I didn't know ahead of time. Maybe next year.

We turned left toward Brass Castle and Meadow Breeze Park, and we turned right into the park when we arrived along the paved trails leading to the main pavilion where the event was taking place. They were making food, and a couple of people ate some before the walk section, so Doc had to stop them.

We hung out for a while, and then the walk started. We got around the course pretty quickly, which followed both the paved trails as well as the adjacent roadways. When we got back, we all pigged out on yum yums and hung around for a while. They had one of the direct descendents to Lassie, and during a sheep demonstration, some of them got loose and we got to witness an actual sheep herding by a dog.

It seemed like a great event, but we didn't hang out for too long, because we still had a long way to go.

I got everyone together, and we were off out of the park to the east. We followed the paved pathways that go behind Brass Castle School, then followed the route of the Morris Canal along streets out to Bowerstown. I pointed out where the canal originally was, the former bridge site and earlier road alignment, as well as the Pohatcong Creek Aqueduct which has been re-used as the route of today's Plane Hill Road. It was originally the base of the Morris Canal's Inclined Plane #7 West. Taylor, who met up with us at the event, had to turn back to drop her dog off, because he might not handle the whole thing. She'd join back up near the high school.

We left the canal at this point, and followed Bowerstown Road parallel with Pohatcong Creek out to Mine Hill Road, then crossed and headed slightly right to the entrance of Pohatcong Creek Natural Area. I'd done this one a few times at night this year, but never during the day, so it was nice to actually see the place again. The trails are pretty nice and I think everyone enjoyed the changes in scenery. Justin and Lerch climbed an enormous tree along the way.

We came out behind Warren Hills High School, passing the former quarter mile track, where I pretty much tied Mike Delgado for fastest in my gym class in 1998. It was now no longer a track, but rather another ball field of some kind. We headed up hill past the school, and soon reached Jackson Valley Road. We crossed to what used to be fields on the other side, but is now the new football field and track area. We got into the place, which was buttoned up pretty good, and made our way to the southwest side. We used to be able to get to the old Warren Railroad bed easily back here, but now this chain link fence blocked the way. We went through woods and made our way to a place where a tree had fallen over it, and we all clammered over the thing.

We now had reached the Warren Railroad bed, and followed it toward the middle of town rather easily. It's somewhat wet, but from this point it's not nearly as bad. It took us past where Warren Lumber was, then the tracks become the active spur again, though it looks like even this is falling into disrepair.

We continued on and I gave people the option at a break point to go to either Krauszers store or a liquor store for food and drinks. Of course more went to the liquor store than anything else.

Both Larry and Rachel had obviously never walked railroad tracks before, because they were both enamored with the metal spikes that are always strewn about. Pretty much everything metal out there, they had to have. They both got their packs to the point where they were barely manageable! Eventually, Brandan and Lerch offered to carry Rachel's stuff, an exorbitant amount!

We soon reached the Washington rail yard where the Warren line continued south to Hampton, and the Morris and Essex line, still active heads east/west. We turned left to follow that westbound track area. As I have done so many times in the past, I climbed up onto the train and jumped from car to car. I got down earlier than I normally might have, and Justin and Lerch stayed up there, and ended up climbing down on the diesel engine. I think this was Taylor's first time climbing on a train.

We continued on along the tracks, and soon passed Port Colden. I pointed out where I used to live, and where my mom and brother live, and we made our way onward. The next point of interest was the tail race tunnel for former Morris Canal Inclinded Plane #6 West. Justin, Lerch, Corey, and I all went in to check it out. Upon further inspection, I believe the piers that held the trough, the one that carried water to the turbine, had been dumped into the tail race tunnel. In the past I remembered there being a window blocking part of the way, and that I could see light through it. I was right, this was the case, but now the window had fallen out of the way, and it would take more clearing to get the turbine chamber clear.

We headed back, and walked the railroad a bit longer until we got to Domin Lane. The county is working with the Domins to acquire a piece of land for the Morris Canal Greenway, and Mr. Domin will act as a trail steward. Mr. Domin was there on his motorcycle when we walked by, and so we chatted with him a bit.

A real character, it was nice to meet someone who was not only amenable to the trail passing so close to his home, he was supportive and excited about it. He invited us all onto his property, and allowed us to see his old bomb shelter. Only Justin and Lerch went in I believe. We also were able to walk the old Easton-Washington Trolley Line, which he keeps mowed for the distance of his property.

We walked the trolley line to where there was a culvert under it. I crawled through to see what it was like, but it was blocked off at the other side. Apparently it was once a pond. Next to it, on the active rail line, was an old stone culvert in nice shape. It was cool to see. A few of us opted to go down and walk through it, then climb up the other side, while others went up the steps of the culvert on this side.

Once back on the tracks, we followed them to the brick yard property, and got on the abandoned road away from the tracks to the only remaining brick building. I'd been going into this since I was little, and couldn't find it for years, thinking it to be demolished. Around 2006 Skyler and I found it on a hike, and went all through. I've gone back in many times since then, so I wanted to show it to at least some of the group. Of course Justin and Lerch were right there, as were Brandan, Taylor, and a few others.

When I decided to head out, Lerch was hanging from a window thinking about climbing down a poison ivy vine to a light fixture. It looked absolutely insane. Even Justin, the most daring climber we know, looked at it and said "Fuck that!". Still, Lerch decided to try it! He managed to get down, and I don't remember if he got Poison Ivy or not, but he didn't injure himself this time!

We continued on along the brick yard road, and Justin and Lerch decided to go up some crazy hill again, then fought through a horrible entanglement of weeds. I don't know what they were thinking on that one. The rest of us turned right to head toward the site of former Inclined Plane #5 West. Most of this one has been excavated around, which makes it a unique opportunity to see how it was constructed. We went through the tail race tunnel and came out the turbine chamber. I had to run back to check on Justin and Lerch, who got themselves into a fix with the undergrowth, and I think they got really close to electric lines. They were fine and shortly caught up.

They of course got to the top of the turbine chamber and climbed around a bit.

After we left here, we followed a pathway that led to the power line, turned left on it, then slightly left to a woods road heading up the hillside. This leads steeply for a bit, then cuts to the left, but at this point it is very close to Hoffman Road, so we bushwhacked right to the road. We headed back down hill from here into Port Murray, and crossed over the railroad tracks by the post office and old railroad station to the former tile works.

There's still an old building on the other side. I kept walking on, but again Justin and Lerch had to climb to the collapsing roof of the building. They're lucky not to have fallen through!

We got on the trails of the Mansfield Park, and then signs said the trails were closed, so we just went out to the road to walk down to the elementary school where we were parked.

We were having such a good time, and I wasn't tired at all. I asked if anyone would like to add an additional five miles onto the hike. Steve, Justin, Lerch, and Brandan took the offer. We bade everyone else farewell and headed across the street, down Point Mountain Road. Justin walked across the Point Mountain Bridge atop the truss like I had done so many times in the past, which didn't surprise me. We then got onto the orange blazed Ridge Trail and followed it to the top. We reached the overlook just as the sun was going down, which was beautiful.

After a break here, we followed the ridge out to the Rosan fields in Penwell. We followed the trail to the right out to the parking area and down to Penwell Road, crossed the Musconetcong again, and then headed over to the rope swings on Old Penwell Road.

It was getting pretty chilly, but I felt like going off the rope swing. I don't remember if I went first or not, but I did go off two or three times. It was freezing cold, but we'd all had a lot of Lerch's special Vitamine water juice so we were feeling pretty good (on a side note, the next week Steve, Brandan, and I did a short five mile hike at Point Mountain and found one of Lerch's drinks he left at the spring and chugged it! Steve thought we were crazy!).

It took some coercing, but Justin finally went off the rope swing. Steve took a cell phone call, sitting on a guide rail while we swam, telling someone "these guys are swimming! They're crazy!". After we'd all had our thrill, we got dressed, and shivered our way back up Penwell Road to Rt 57, and crossed to reach the Port Murray Elementary School.

This hike felt a little more like an end of Summer celebration. It was the end of September, and the water that was fast getting colder. Of course I'd be in a couple more times before the close of the year, but it was this time that I could really feel the change. Each time I went in I would say to myself  "This is it, this is the big end of Summer 'hoorah'".

Then again, I'd still be extending the hikes beyond the planned end points, walking through water and such. But that's not necessarily a staple of Summer only. What it really does is illustrate that we have a fantastic group of people, many of whom share the passion to keep going, not settling for 'well enough'. The passion for life and experience is strong enough that the opportunity to continue is irresistable.

No, the Summer mood wasn't over, not just yet. Not with this group. We weren't ready to allow it.