Hike #736; Morristown/Morris Plains Area Loop

 Hike #736; Morristown/Morris Plains Area Loop

11/5/13 Morristown/Parsippany Area Loop with Brandan Jermyn, Daniel Stone, Steve Levy, "Major Tom" Conroy, Dan MacMahon, Al MacLennan, Angela Giunta Williamson, Gregg Hudis, Terri Allen, Nikki Vante, and Carol Van Giezen.

The group at Speedwell Lake

I had off of work this day for some reason, and decided to make use of it to go ahead and do another hike, covering some more stuff I'd been wanting to get to. It had been a while since I visited Morristown, and I'd heard that the main building at the former Greystone Psychiatric Hospital, the Kirkbride Building, might be demolished. I wanted to see it one more time, so we headed out there.

We started by walking from Speedwell Lake, our meeting point along the Patriot's Path. I'd hiked through here so many times in the past. I was first introduced to it by Bob "Bode" Bodenstein who gave me a tour of the Rockaway Valley Railroad line, and this was the last place any real work was done on it before the plan to connect it to the main line was abandoned in 1916. We started walking from here as the trail went along Cory Road.

We turned right and followed the closed section along the old rail yard. The first time I walked through this it was pretty badly overgrown. It's a wonder that they still haven't finished this section of the trail through yet. We went south past Lake Pocahontas and then left onto Martin Luthor King Jr Ave. The trail then went past a thrift store. We stopped in and I purchased a green tie that somewhat matched my suit. It's always nice to wander into these stores. I had once done a hike through here and we bought a copy of Peewee's Big Adventure.

We continued on the trail through the next little park area and parallel with the Whippany River and railroad tracks across Ridgedale Ave. I love how weird the section is, how it goes right along the railroad tracks. We headed down near the jail, then out to Hanover Ave and across through the community garden area.

We continued from here through the wooded section, over a bridge, past the commercial area and then along the river again heading northward. This time though, we would turn off of the Patriot's path to follow a future connector route as it was shown on google maps and Morris Co maps. We actually found a previous route of the main Patriot's Path, turning left away from the main one, and then coming back to it. We followed the painted out blazes, then headed through woods off trail to the west. It was easy to see where the trail might go.

It took us through woods, and there were occasional orange flags which told us where the trail might be. We then crossed the Morristown and Erie railroad tracks, then continued through woods on the other side. This took us out to Ridgedale Ave again.

Across the way was another swath of woods the trail was to enter, parallel with Horse  Hill Road. Some followed the road, but I kept to the woods heading straight. There were some concrete steps in there from where there used to be a house. The future trail route doesn't have much space to work with, so it was easy to tell where we needed to be. There were houses in view to the right, and soon apartments down hill to the left. We had one steep climb, and took a break at the top. We continued on and crossed over a few very old woods roads that connected from back yards to the right down hill to the developments off of Horse Hill Road. I knew they weren't just ATV tracks. They're probably old colliers roads or logging roads.

When the developments turned slightly to the north, so did we, but tried to keep out of the way of people's private land. Maps showed this area as "Trailwood", a public open space. It got much tougher in this area with trees down all over the place, and tough to cross swamp lands. We tried to make our way around them, and then were faced with weeds. We eventually came into view of the road known as The American Way in a corporate center, and bushwhacked with some difficulty down to it. Our maps showed that the trail would continue through this complex and on to Morris Plains to end around the Morris Plains railroad station area. We would instead turn left on the road out to Rt 202 and just follow that north for a bit, just to find food. We ended up at Primavera's Pizza, which was actually quite good. I had a few slices I really enjoyed.

We then crossed 202 and took a side street to Mountain Way to head north. Al, Angela, and I guess the new girl, Nikki I believe her name was, all cut out early at this point to go back. The rest of us continued up Mountain Way, walking along the route through a park called Robert's Garden. The road got pretty steep as we continued up hill, and it dead ended (where it used to go through) with a playground. We just cut across and continued on Mountain Way on the other side. Soon, a paved path started along the left side, so we followed it.

After a while, we came to the parking area for Mountain Way Park. We headed a little bit more ahead, then turned right off of the road to get onto the Beacon Hill Loop Trail, red blazed. The trail took us to an immediate left or right intersection, and we went right. Someone spotted off to the left of us some amazing little stone steps up to the top of the hill! I had heard about these before, but never got around to exploring them. They were apparently the stairs built by the Continental Army during the American Revolution to reach the beacon that was atop Beacon Hill! It's amazing that these stairs still exist!

We followed them all the way up hill. The route was unblazed, probably in order to keep people off of it, from damaging it any further. The path led to a cairn at the rest of the red loop trail. We turned left on the trail from the top to continue the remainder of the loop.

We headed to a rock outcropping area to the south side of Beacon Hill. I bushwhacked from there to a power line that offered some nice views of the surrounding area, then found the spur trail that was meant to reach that view. I headed back to the main trail on that, which was pretty obscure. From there, we continued on the trail down hill, along the red blazes and then around some amazing rocks.

I could see a water tank below, and followed my gps a bit to get back down to it, then it's access road to Mountain Way. Another trail came out nearly across the street from here to enter the other side of Mountain Way Park. We headed down hill into the woods on this. I think it was yellow blazed or something, but then we turned off of it onto an unmarked, but obvious trail that continued slightly down hill from Watnong Mountain, and then on a relatively level section of woods.

The path had no formal trail blazes like the rest of the preserve, but was marked with a lot of cairns and other well piled rocks. Each time we passed between a stone row, they were neatly piled on either side of the path. It was actually a better route than most of the marked trails we'd been on!

The trail continued down hill and eventually reached the edge of the north branch tributary that feeds the Whippany River. The trail continued on this for a bit, and there were signs facing the direction that we were coming from saying "Trail Closed" and to contact the trails foreman, Russ Nee. I know Russ, and I meant to call him and ask him about that, but never got around to it. It wasn't posted where we came in, nor was it posted where we were going.

The trail took us to near a reservoir pond, and we left it to head down and cross below the spillway. We took stairs up on the other side and then followed the shore of the pond. It was obvious the parks had been doing some work on this area very recently, with new crushed stone screenings on the walkways. We made our way out to Old Dover Road, crossed, and then passed near the first couple of buildings of Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, now all abandoned. The main Kirkbride Building is always an amazing site to see. I have friends who have gotten in trouble for going in, so none of us were going to try anything this time. Besides, it was going to get dark soon. The area around the outside of the building was now part of the county's new Central Park, and there were walking paths everywhere.

We followed the fields on the south side, and paths which led us out to West Hanover Ave. Along the way we passed a giant eagle statue made of metal that was pretty cool. Someone said it used to sit out in front of some other building, but I forget which one it could be.

We headed from here across the road and to the left until we reached the entrance to the Morris Twp Recycling Center and Frelinghuysen School. There were signs saying to keep off the property, which were a little foreboding. We waited up for Dan M to catch up with us, and then continued across the school lawn to the south side, where a paved path entered from Deer Chase Road. While we walked across the school yard, we could see the top of Beacon Hill, part of Watnong Mountain, where we just were. We soon turned right on Evans Farm Road, then left on Raskin Road.

This road took us to the edge of La Rue Park. We cut onto a narrow path out to the ball field, then crossed that which led us to Lake Road. We turned right here,  passing a nice old farm area to the right with old buildings in sight, then went left on Inamere to reach the Patriot's Path, which at this point follows the former right of way of the Rockaway Valley Railroad (1888-1916).

We followed the trail from here across Lake Valley Road, which was the site of Watnong Station. We then continued around the sewage plant and parallel with Lake Road, and crossed the river and the road to get toward Speedwell Lake. I pointed out to everyone the remnants of the extension of the Rockaway Valley Railroad that was never completed, including the still visible underpass below Lake Road that everyone seems to forget.

It wasn't far beyond this point that we returned to the parking area at Speewell Lake.

This was another one of those hikes that showed just how much public lands there still is to explore, right there close to home, close to places I've led so many hikes for so many years. I still haven't done it all, and this hike only showed me even more places I have to add on for next time. As I branch out, my world only grows larger, and I can't wait to see it.