Hike #1191; Schooleys Mountain and Flanders Area
1/9/18 Schooleys Mountain/Long Valley/Flanders with Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell and Ken Zaruni
For this next night hike, I wanted to try to slap together some stuff I’d never done before, but then maybe revisit some other stuff I wanted to have another look at.
I started planning this one out in multiple different places, kind of on a panicked planning to last minute post a hike with stuff I wanted to see. I laid out hikes in the Sourlands, in Readington, in Easton, along Delaware Canal, and even more, but each time I aborted the write up because I either wanted to save them for warmer weather or save them for when there was more daylight at the start.
Now dogs are banned at Rock Spring Park
I finally settled on a Morris County one that would be a good combination of stuff I’d already done, some of which I’d not done in a long time, and a few new things.
I came up with a loop with a pigtail on the front. We met at the Krauszer’s in Long Valley, and then shuttled a short distance to the top of Schooleys Mountain in my van. We would do a part of the parks up there, reach Long Valley, and then do a loop. It was kind of an odd way of doing it, but I had a then and now photo compilation I wanted, and I also wanted to see the connections between Schooleys Mountain Park and Rock Spring Park.
We parked at the corner of Our Lady of the Mountain Roman Catholic Church.
New connector path out of Rock Spring Park
From there, we walked the lot out across Springtown Road and down to the municipal park, Rock Spring Park.
Ken had told me somewhat recently that he was working on a plan to connect Rock Spring Park with Schooleys Mountain Park formally. There was always land there for it, but never a formalized connection.
I had first done a hike to do that back in March of 2003. We hiked through the fields and found out way to the ball fields at Rock Spring and just went back. That was the only other time I’d incorporated Rock Spring Park into a hike.
Visiting Rock Spring Park in 2003
At the time, the fields were just used to dump refuse and such out of the county park as I recall. Ken had worked it out so there was a new paved trail going in between the two, and he cut through tree lines and a stone wall to make it initially walkable.
Already, the new path does not allow dogs. I keep telling people to clean up after their dogs, or they’re going to be banned from parks altogether, and we’re seeing it happening more and more everywhere we go.
We headed through the woods to where the pavement ended. Ken said they cut the path through a section of a court some scout had made twenty some years ago. I teased him that he would bring his kids back to show them what he’d made and it’d be gone.
Rock Spring Park
We headed beyond where the pavement ended and through the line of trees and stone wall, then out through the open fields I’d been through once before. We then took the access road out to Camp Washington Road, named for the camp that Schooleys Mountain Park used to be. It was a YMCA camp from the 1920s till the 1950s, and then it became a park.
Historic postcard of the Camp Washington lodge
We headed down behind the lodge building, a remnant of the former camp, and then turned to the right on the trail heading down hill to the Loree Chapel, an outdoor church area.
Schooleys Mountain lodge on our 2003 hike
Typically, government agencies cannot have religious things on their lands. Most parks wouldn’t have it, but this was sort of grandfathered in because it was part of the original camp. It’s still a beautiful little spot out in the woods overlooking the Boulder Gorge.
Loree Chapel
I got the photos I wanted of the chapel area, and then we headed back up hill again past the lodge. We then descended to cross over the main dam of the pond and ascended the other side to the Patriot’s Path route.
Historic image of Loree Chapel
We turned to the right, and when Patriot’s Path went to the right, we continued ahead on the crushed stone surface Grand Loop Trail. I was in the mood for something a bit easier.
Loree Chapel
The last time I’d done any of these side trails was a couple of years ago on a night hike. I hadn’t seen them in the light in a long time.
We headed down the Grand Loop Trail to the intersection with Quarry Stone Park on the right. There, there is a short side trail that leads out to a very nice rock outcrop from which you get a bit of a seasonal view. We headed down there and to the edge of the rocks where we could look over into Long Valley. It was the right time of the day to see that for sure with the lighting.
The pond at Schooleys Mountain
I wanted to try to take the easier way down the mountain; Patriot’s Path is the best route, but it’s rugged and rockier than the Grand Loop Trail to the Bee Line Trail. We returned to the Grand Loop to follow it to the east, then turned right on Bee Line Trail which took us more gradually down hill.
Even in the earliest days, George Washington had descriped the route from “Dutch Valley to Schooley’s Mountain a dangerous and round about thoroughfare”. We had a much easier time than this, as we were of course heading down hill as well.
View on Schooley's Mountain
We headed down hill gradually and soon hit the Patriot’s Path again. We took this down across Fairview Ave and reached the old High Bridge Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, now the rail trail from High Bridge to Bartley, and turned right toward Long Valley.
Rock outcrops in 2003
We followed the rail bed past where the blue blazed Patriot’s Path breaks off, the Gillette Trail, and continued to the metal manufacturing place where we turned left to cross the South Branch of the Raritan on the gas line bridge into the county land and former orchards on the other side.
We turned right on the opposite side of the river, and followed some mowed off pathways east until we came to where the old Chester Branch of the Central Railroad used to cross the South Branch.
In the past, it has varied how easy it is to follow this branch from the top. This time, it looked like crap. We went back down to the nearest path and paralleled it through the orchard lands, and then eventually made our way to the Gillette Trail. We crossed the line further up, and then headed through fields out to the parking area off of Rt 24. There, the trail turns to the left to follow the road. This whole section from the rail bed to that lot I had planned we would have to do twice as part of the loop section of the hike.
The rock outcrop on this hike
We continued along the blazed route parallel with the road, and I noted that a section of the white fence along the road had been removed. We walked through the fields instead to stay away from the traffic a bit more.
We turned left parallel with Bartley Road, and then turned right at the Ort Farm where the Chester Branch used to cross the road. That section has been a bit of the trail for years, but it’s never gone through because of issues to the east on it. It’s been improved over the years, but this time I was surprised to see that a camera was installed along the route.
We headed through the woods, and the trail weaves back and forth on and off of the railroad grade. Near the end of the farm, we finally got back on the graded headed through nice woods. We continued on this section out to Coleman Road where the railroad used to cross directly into Coleman’s Cut. Ken had said that they recently cleared Coleman’s Cut again, but that the railroad trail didn’t go anywhere because they didn’t have the land through the other side. I always understood that there was an easement on the whole thing even through the developments that they didn’t want to pursue, but I can’t be sure.
yum yum
Rather than continue that way, my plan was to turn to the left and immediately right and head up hill on Ridgeline Drive. This took us up through the rather new development that’d been put in since I started hiking this line so many years ago.
We headed through the development with it’s enormous houses, some with nice Christmas lights still up, and then turned to the left at the top to reach Chancellor Way. We went down hill slightly, and then turned to the left on the paved golf cart path into the golf course.
I really loved walking this section the last time we did it, and that time we walked almost the entire length of the course. This time, we’d do some of the best, and the piece we hadn’t done the previous time to add in something new.
Lights
We headed to the top of the hill on the course, and then used the restrooms that were still surprisingly left unlocked, just lik the last time we had been up there. Ken went ahead and almost lost us for a bit, but Uncle Soup and I soon caught up with him.
We headed gradually down hill through the course to where the paths crossed over Chancellor Way. We crossed, continued slightly up hill again, and then took a path into the woods to the left. That took us to the maintenance area, which was not what I was planning, so we bushwhacked through the woods to the course again to the north of there.
We headed to the east on this, and the paved path soon entered the woods and headed down hill to the lower level of the course. It was in this next open field area that we first joined the course the last time we were out there. We turned right and kept with the paths to the next section, all north of Palmer Park, and crossed Patriot’s Path again somewhere along the way.
We passed through a line of woods, then headed out to the next open area where at the end we met up with the path we had been on the previous time. We turned left, and then used another restroom that was out there. From there, we turned right, but where we kept to the south side previously, this time we kept to the north side.
We followed open field areas and soon came out of a field between houses onto 4 Bridges Road. We turned left briefly here, then right into the high school fields.
Silly
We skirted the edges of these, and there were empty defibrillator cases along the way. It seemed to be the perfect,, as well as overly humorous receptacle for a big bottle of booze.
We continued from this point to the far east side of the fields, then headed north past the maintenance buildings and other field sections. There were a lot of cars on the east side, probably for some sports thing going on.
We continued until we got to where another driveway broke off from the school lot to the right. Adjacent to that was a utility line clearing that looked to me to be another old road. I decided we’d try to follow it and see what it was.
The path was clear enough to walk, and led right to the Drake’s Brook. It appeared that this was probably the older route of Bartley Road, and it had been straightened at some point. What appeared to be a former bridge site was where we got to the brook. We had to turn left and push through some weeds to get back out to Bartley Road and cross over the brook.
From that point, it was only a short distance up Bartley Road to the access point out to the High Bridge Branch, a fishing access point on the South Branch and additional parking for the rail trail.
That road is probably formerly the route of North Bridge Road, which used to continue through. Ken explained that during Sandy or Irene or something, the bridge washed out. The house that used to be back there is now gone, but it seems like that road probably would have gone through from the cul de sac up the mountain.
ANOTHER cut
We continued to the left on the railroad bed. This was only a very short distance from the eastern terminus of that trail, where the tracks become active again.
It was a nice thought that the entire remainder of the trip was going to be just a relaxing jaunt. We were making outstanding time and moving along very quickly.
I pulled my phone out to look at it, because there was no worry left about saving battery at this point. While walking, the light made it hard to see the trail, but I wasn’t worried because it was just a wide, flat thing.
We crossed 4 Bridges Road with no problem, but I think it was when I got to Elizabeth Lane that I walked head on into a giant boulder, next to the gate on the trail. I fell over face first and onto the ground with all of the weight going into my shin, on the same one was just healing from over the previous Summer. It was cut really deep again, but I didn’t want everyone worrying. I just shrugged it off and continued walking as best I could with it.
We got across Naughright Road and then out to where Patriot’s Path joined again on the right from Schooleys Mountain, and turned to the left on the Gillette Trail to get us through the orchards and back up to the parking area on Route 24. We turned right there and headed out to the Krauszer’s where Ken and Uncle Soup were parked. Ken got me back to my car, and I treated myself to some Taco Bell to make me feel better. There were these new dollar burritos that were pretty good, so that did the trick.
As of now, my leg is scabbed over pretty well and the infection is back down, but it’s a deep gash that’s pretty obvious. This one, like the previous one, will take months to fill back in. Still, it was all worth it, and I’m muscling through it without much trouble.
Things are going great with only minor setbacks. This will be a great year.
HAM
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