10/24/18 Morristown to Gladstone with Celeste Fondaco Martin, Justin Gurbisz, and Brittany Audrey
This next hike would be a point to point on the Patriot’s Path, Rockaway Valley Railroad, Schiff Reserve, and pleasant back roads between the two towns.
Patriot's Path on never finished Rockaway Valley Railroad bed
I met everyone right after work at Gladstone Station, our end point, formerly a Lackawanna Station. It’s not far from the Rockaway Valley Railroad, but for one it never connected with the Lackawanna despite coming so close, and for two, the trail doesn’t go all the way through to that point anyway.
Still, I had a hike that would cover some of the other trails and back roads I’d been wanting to do for a while, so I knew it would be pretty good.
We shuttled in my van to Morristown. I originally planned to start in Morris Plains at the Acme, but I found a good spot to park along Cutler Street.
Watnong Station site
We parked and walked back to the west on Cutler, past Ralph Street, then turned right on Elliot Street. I’d never walked down this way before, but the road is closed at the end and is an access trail to the Patriot’s Path.
Where we accessed the Patriot’s Path was actually the Rockaway Valley Railroad bed, where it had been graded for extension but never used. The line was built in 1888 to haul peaches between the Central Railroad of New Jersey in Whitehouse Station and Morristown. The end of service was Watnong Station.
Rockaway Valley Railroad bed
The blight of 1890 killed off the peaches, and so the railroad struggled to get by.
It went bankrupt several times, and was finally abandoned in 1913. Plans were put in place to bring it back in 1916, several improvements were made, and work was under way on the extension out along Speedwell Lake, which included a large cut and a culvert under Lake Road, but all of that was halted and the line was abandoned. It was then sold for World War I scrap using a specially rigged Model T Ford.
We turned left when we hit the rail bed, and I pointed out the filled in and never used Lake Road culvert. We then emerged on Lake Road to turn right and follow it across the Whippany River. The trail on the other side followed the road into the woods parallel.
Rockaway Valley Railroad bed
The trail turned left in a bit to pass around the outside of the Butterworth Sewage Treatment Plant. We crossed over the berm that was created for Rockaway Valley Railroad, then passed closer to the Whippany River out to the crossing of Lake Valley Road, at the former site of Watnong Station. We crossed and passed through the area where it was obviously wider for other sets of tracks at the station. It narrowed down again from there pretty quickly.
The trail is paved for the first bit, from the sewage plant to the west, across Inamere Ave and to Sussex Avenue. From that point, it becomes more of a crushed stone surface.
1907 image of Morristown high school students at Watnong Station on the Rockaway Valley Railroad
It was a good thing we did this hike because anything more challenging wouldn’t have allowed us enough daylight hours. It’s getting dark really quickly and there just isn’t enough time to do very ambitious terrain on night hikes.
Rockaway Valley Railroad bed
We continued on along the railroad bed until the Patriot’s Path turns away from it to the right before reaching Whitehead Road. It then meanders a little bit, crosses the road, and then climbs up hill through the northern part of Lewis Morris Park. It wasn’t too terribly steep, but seemed hard after the speediness of the railroad bed.
We ascended to the top of a hill, then turned left down the other side and crossed the Whippany River on a footbridge near a parking area. The trail resumed on the old railroad bed in this area more or less. It goes on and off of it depending on the wetland situation.
There are still some old rail tie remnants in place
We crossed over Tingley Road and weaved around through more woods. I remember during daylight seeing a remnant of an old rail bridge parallel to the trail to the right, but I couldn’t see it this time.
We crossed the road and meandered on and off of the rail bed. Soon, the main white blazed branch of the Patriot’s Path turned to the right, to make it’s way into Dismal Harmony Natural Area. The blue blazed fork of it continued on the railroad straight ahead, but not for too long. The rail bed went straight into a swamp land, and the trail turned up hill to the left. It emerged on the edge of a fenced in horse farm or something, and skirted it to a high slope above the river. It remained up there for a bit, then went down a short bit of steps to reach Cherry Lane at the Mendham Township Police Department. The trail skirts the south side of the buildings, then heads into more woods between homes. I remember being really impressed with how nice some of these sections were the last time I was on it. There are some new foot bridges and such that make it really nice to walk through.
Brittany and I walked super fast from this section all the way out to Cold Hill Road.
Patriot's Path on the rail bed
We waited when we got there because it was a pretty questionable section where I’d had some difficulty the last time I was there. It was totally dark by this time, and seeing the blue blazes, which could be more frequent anyway, was tough in this section.
I forgot what I’d done the previous time, so we just tried to go where I thought the railroad bed was ahead and then try to remember where we went. I then remembered we had to cut to the north around the buildings and we backtracked a bit. I managed to find where it was much earlier this time, and we were on good path out and around the Holly Manor Center.
That's the moon.
We wandered through the woods talking about deplorable topics, and Justin and I laughed maniacally. At one point, we just pushed each other over the edge with the craziness of it to the point where we were both laying on the ground in the middle of the trail laughing so hard we could not move. Brittany and Celeste must have just been standing there in utter disbelief of our self imposed convalescence due to laughter.
After we got a bit past the development areas, we made a corner and rejoined the railroad bed. We then passed a municipal park of sorts before crossing Mountain Avenue.
We continued on the rail bed for a bit, which soon crossed over India Brook for the first time on concrete cylinders. These were not secured into the ground, so they were a bit wobbly trying to go across. Still, we made it okay.
Soon from there, a second set of concrete cylinders spanned the India Brook again. To the right, the India Brook Trail turned into the natural area of the same name. We had used this route on a hike recently, but this time we were to continue ahead on the rail bed.
Ironia Road was the next one we crossed, and the rail bed was a driveway from here. I believe somewhere in this section, they tried closing off the rail bed, but it didn’t work. We continued along the driveway past one house that was right next to it, then passed a gravel cul de sac beyond which we were on a good foot path again.
There was a large tree that had fallen on a relatively new foot bridge and broke it, so we had to climb around a bit to get through, but we managed.
Soon, we came out to Rt 24 near Jane Terrace, and across from the fire house. Rather than continue on the railroad bed, we turned left here and skirted the fired department land as well as Ralston Field. This little area was known as Ralston.
It used to be that we would follow the railroad bed to the Schiff Connector Trail, which crosses the Burnett Brook on concrete cylinders, but the crossing is much tougher than the previous ones we’d done, so we opted to just follow the road for a bit.
We followed Rt 24 to Roxiticus Road and then turned to the right through a neighborhood for a short distance. Down this road, and to the left, is the entrance road to Schiff Reserve, of the Schiff Natural Lands Trust. We used some of this trail system for a hike last year.
Historic Schiff postcard
It is said that the hills in Schiff were used by Continental Army troops from 1779-80 to protect the Raritan River pass, though these claims have not been verified. In later years, different families own the property, and the largest tract was donated to the Boy Scouts of America by Therese Schiff in memory of her son Mortimer Schiff.
It served as a boy scout camp for almost fifty years, from 1932 until 1979 when it was sold and became part of Schiff Natural Lands Trust. Further acquisitions were added to the property and the trail system today is quite extensive.
We followed the road up hill gradually, deeper into the woods, to the first intersection. There, we turned right, and we skirted the edge of a development at Brookrace Drive. We then continued to a large open field at the top of a hill where the moonlight shined insanely right.
From the open field area, we took the first trail that headed off to the right. This one was a bit narrower from what we had been walking, and it went gradually up hill more, which I had not been expecting. Still, we got through it, crested the hill, and then descended more on the other side. This brought us down to a very lovely little shelter building where we decided to take a break and sit a bit. It might have been the same building we had stopped to sit the previous time in, but that we came to a different way, however I cannot be sure. I think it must have been because we bushwhacked down hill from it to the next road below, which would have had to be in roughly the same spot.
This time, we took to the trail to the west, which turned a bit to the north, and then gradually made it’s way down hill to Union Schoolhouse Road alongside the North Branch of the Raritan River. We continued from here to the south.
My original plan from here was to follow Mosle Road to a turn to the southeast, and then head to Willow Ave from which we could walk directly back to Peapack and Gladstone area.
An old school or church or something
I wanted to do this because I knew some of those roads were really small, and I knew Mosle Road was a two lane with a double yellow line. I figured it would be busy and not be pleasurable.
However, when we walked that first stretch of Mosle, it ended up not being too bad. We all decided to just continue on Mosle and see how well it went.
It ended up being a really nice road to walk, because hardly anyone drove by. It wasn’t really in the least bit busy. We passed by an old house that used to be a school, and otherwise just had an easy and uneventful walk along the road back toward town.
We turned left on Mendham Road when we got there, and then right on Overlook Ave. This took us to Main Street where we only had a short distance to walk to get to the old Gladstone train station’s brightly lit parking lot.
It was overall a pretty easy hike, and a nice night to be out. With the days getting shorter, and the temperatures getting colder, I’ll be looking for more of them similar to this one. I already miss the warm nights and the swimming, but I’ll look at the cooler weather as an opportunity to schedule some other things that wouldn’t be as interesting otherwise. Justin is already calling for Easton PA hikes. We will definitely have some good times coming up soon.
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