Hike #732; Washington to Jutland

 Hike #732; Washington to Jutland

10/18/13 Washington to Jutland with Brandan Jermyn, Justin Gurbisz, Steve Levy, Carol Van Giezen, and Gabe Franklin.

Inside the tunnel

I had been wanting to cover one of my favorite abandoned railroad tunnels before it got too cold for the year, and to do it as part of a night hike. I had been planning to do it over the Summer and never got around to it. I figured it was time to post it. I also told Justin that we'd do it as well, knowing that he'd be well into it.

I parked the group (mostly) in Jutland on Rt 173, at a Clinton Wildlife Management Area parking lot near the intersection with Van Syckles Road, then we shuttled north to Brandan's house to start.

Steve and Justin showed up on time, to the Pilot travel center I posted as the meet point, but Carol didn't read the description and assumed I meant the TA station in Bloomsbury. She called me after about a half hour, and I told her she'd have to meet us in Washington somewhere.

We got to Brandan's and started walking down the road. Just as we were about to cross Rt 57 at the corner of Flower Avenue, where Presidential Estates (the development Brandan lives in), Carol pulled up. She parked her car and hurried across to join us. We headed across the Arctic Foods driveway and up the bank to the tracks. We crossed the Washington rail yard, where the Morris and Essex line originally crossed the Lackawanna Railroad's Warren Railroad, and then headed southbound on that line, which later became known as the Hampton Secondary. I told everyone the history of these lines and how the alignment of the rail yard changed as ownership of the rail lines changed.

We turned and followed the old Warren line through the cut up to Washburn Ave, and climbed up. We then followed Changewater Road parallel with the line out across Asbury-Anderson Road to Changewater and the former trestle site. I'd done so many hikes through here, along this line, but compared with the Warren Railroad to the north of Washington, I'd not done this one much at all.

From Changewater, the first time I walked the old Lackawanna line toward Hampton was when I was really little with my grandfather. He had walked this line a lot as a youth, through what they called "The cut" just out of Hampton. He told me one time that he and his friends had sneaked off and hiked the line to Changewater from Hampton, and walked across the Changewater Trestle. He said there were barrels along the way that if a train came you could stand off on the side next to them. I remember visiting my Great Great Aunt, Ada Osmun, when I was very little and shortly after my grandfather told me this story. She was like a mother to my grandfather. His mother passed away when he was about five years old, at which time she, his father's sister, moved in to help him care for the now motherless children. Her children and my grandfather and his siblings were all raised like siblings, and he always referred to her as "Mom Osmun". In tern, my family had always referred to her as "Grammie Osmun", because she really was like another grandmother.

Grammie Osmun didn't have many days left, and I remember my grandfather always telling me to ask the older members of the family whatever questions I could think of, because they saw a lot and they wouldn't be around forever to talk to. Of course, I had to go and ask her if she remembered my grandfather sneaking off and walking across the trestle. She didn't, but at this point of course it wasn't anything anyone would be angry about.

The Lackawanna line from Changewater to Hampton was abandoned in 1955, and the trestle was removed in 1959. I've read that a member of the Kendrick family died during the dismantling of the trestle.

The south abutment to the trestle has a strange kiln built into it, which to this day I have no clue what it might have been used for.

We climbed the south abutment, and at the top could see that some of the pier was cracked and slipping away. It wouldn't be long before more of it came tumbling down. The right of way ahead was not horribly unclear for walking, which was a relief. The first time I walked this section with my grandfather would be the last time for him. There were so many weeds over the right of way that he said he didn't care to try to go over it again, despite my pleas to go up there again. The next time I would head up that route would be in 1997 or 98. I would occasionally go back up there for a group hike, but this would be my first time back since 2008.

I was impressed at how clear the right of way remained. Perhaps because it is situated on a shelf of a north facing slope with a good canopy that it does not get inundated with undergrowth.

The section is beautiful, and the ties were all still in place. One could just picture what it looked like with rails

still in place. I walked far ahead and really enjoyed everything about this stretch and the solitude of it. I even noticed things like masonry ruins I hadn't noticed before, and the details of where the coal trestle used to be on a siding.

I got a call from Gabe Franklin, who was trying to meet up. I instructed him to try to join us in New Hampton, and he found his way to a spot to park. We continued on the rail bed to Dutch Hill Road, beyond which the right of way is difficult to follow, moreso than the previous section.

We headed down to walk through New Hampton out to Rt 31, and Gabe met us there. We all continued across 31, and then headed into  Hampton. Originally Hampton was called "The Junction", from 1856 when the junction was made between the Lackawanna and the Central Railroad of NJ. It was thought that the town would be built around the Musconetcong Valley Presbyterian Church built in 1837, but the arrival of the CNJ in 1852 changed that. They congregation built a church in town in the later 1800s, and since that time to present have attended summer services in the valley, and winter in town. With the arrival of more rail junctions, "The Junction" was specified to "Hampton Junction", taking it's name from the nearest town, New Hampton. When the Lackawanna line was abandoned in 1955, so too was the junction, and so the town shortened it's name to just "Hampton". And that is why the town of New Hampton is actually older than the town of Hampton.

We walked up Main Street in Hampton, then got on the old CNJ tracks heading west. It was getting dark fast, but it was alright. We could see well enough on the tracks. We continued on across Ludlow Station Road and Iron Bridge Road, and passed the weird little village area where people drive directly along the tracks in order to get to their homes. It's sort of a back woods area unlike others in northwest NJ.

From Ludlow on, the tracks used to be badly overgrown, with only the ATV path beside them to walk. We wandered through the dark as the moon rose, and sipped a drink called "Hot Sex" that we'd picked up somewhere that I can't even remember. One of the local liquor stores. Very tastly like a chocolate liqueur.

The tracks soon got overgrown, just a little further than they used to, and we crossed the driveway to where they get the local Dannon drinking water from a spring. We continued on from here to Valley Station Road, where we left the tracks. As we walked down the road, we passed the stone ruins of some sort of old house, which I'd forgotten was there. We then reached Valley Road, turned right, and passed the Ethel Hoppock School where I'd finished my First Day Hike on the Highlands Trail New Years Day of 2013. We continued to the Highlands Trail route across Rt 173 onto Tunnel Road.

We would soon reach the Musconetcong Tunnel. I had first found out about this tunnel also from my grandfather. We went walking the tracks one day from Bloomsbury, but before we got to the tunnel, I remember it was getting late and we had to turn around near the Turkey Hill Road underpass. I didn't get to see it that time. On an excursion train ride in 1985, shortly after that hike, we took a train from Ringoes near Flemington to Easton on the line, which took us through the current tunnel, which is a mile long. This tunnel replaced the earlier Musconetcong Tunnel, which I'd still not seen yet.

One day in 1998, I was out doing field work with my grandfather, surveying something near West Portal, and he was telling me more about the tunnel. He told me it was just below Tunnel Road, and showed me where the quickest place to get to it was. I asked him if he'd pull the truck over so I could run and have a look. He parked on the power line and I dashed off into the weeds. I carefully made my way down and found the mouth of the old tunnel, amazing, just near the current one.

Early that Summer, I made plans with friends to do a scouting trip to check out more of it. My friends Aaron Marques and Sandy Boehm parked at Ethel Hoppock School and walked to Tunnel Road, then climbed down the way I had to the tunnel. It was great passing through, and led to an abandoned quarry operation, and we climbed around on the derelict structures like conveyor elevators and such. We bushwhacked back over the mountain next to Rt 78 to return.

I tried to organize a hike in the area again, in the Winter around 2003, but at that time, I was having great difficulty getting groups together. No one would sign up, so I went off and did about thirty miles by myself, from Bloomsbury all the way to Voorhees State Park in an indirect route. I fell through ice in the tunnel and my pant legs froze solid. I was lucky to make it out.

I would try to organize a hike through the tunnel again in April 2005, but we ended up changing that hike from a point to point to a loop and did not reach the tunnel. I would finally get to pass through the tunnel again in November 2005, but by the time we reached it, only Brandan's brother Skyler and I were left from the group.

With all that I've been busy exploring, this local point of interest had fallen out of my radar for a long time, and meeting Justin reminded me of these great places I knew but hadn't shared with anyone in a while. Since he showed us around Sharon Springs, I made sure that I posted this one on a day that he could go, going so far as to reschedule it once to make certain he'd be there.

We followed along Tunnel Road to the power line I recognized. I had not gone down this way in a very long time. Probably over a decade. We had some small flash lights, and I made my way down first. There were a lot of multi flora rose along the way, which made it very difficult. Additionally, there were bad washouts that led to vertical drops off the masonry wall along the abandoned former Lehigh Valley Railroad right of way. I went a couple different ways and had to turn back before finding a good one.

The "good one" still involved reaching the edge of the stone wall, sitting on it, and jumping off to the rail bed. The tunnel was well obscured by a tree that had fallen in over it's mouth. We helped everyone down off of the wall and were ready to head on through.

Justin thought until we actually got here that I was talking about a different tunnel! He had no idea this one was year. Gabe too, who lived with his wife Megan in the Bloomsbury area, had no idea that this awesome tunnel was here. I felt the strongest justification for doing this hike at this point.

We headed on through the tunnel, which was clear, and had some water where we got our feet a little wet here and there, but it wasn't as bad as the time I went through with Skyler, or the time I went by myself.

It seemed to go on forever, and when we got to about half way through, it looked like there was a light moving on the other side. I guess I was just freaking myself out. The movements of our bodies made it seem like the objects were moving, when really they were not. Still, we stood still and watched for a while, wondering if we should continue.

Once out the other side, we made our way through the wet old rail cut, then up an ATV path to the right. Again, I thought I saw lights moving, but it was nothing. The path took us between the current active tracks and the abandonment. Gabe and Justin checked out one of the signal towers.

The abandonment led out into the quarry operation area, which was now active once again. This was where the light was coming from, although it was closed for the night. I was apprehensive about going on through, but we did. We soon got to the gate and made our way out to Pattenburg where we turned left on Pattenburg Road. This led us out to Rt 78. We crossed at the Jutland exit, and turned right on 173, which was old Rt 22, and headed east a little bit to get to the parking lot a short distance ahead.

This hike was a great reminder of the amazing places that we have right under our noses if we'll only acknowledge them. It's so easy in life to get caught up with things that are almost otherworldly, farther from grasp. It's like the human urge to explore the moon, or even faraway galaxies when there is still so much of the Earth that has yet to be explored. Just as these places are not far from grasp, neither is the concept of youthful comradery and excitement we can share visiting these places. The good times seem not only endless, they continue to get better.