Hike #1209; Summit/Watchung Loop
3/25/19 Summit/Watchung with Justin Gurbisz, Kevin Kowalick, Jennifer Tull, Sue Bennett, and Jim “Uncle Soup” Campbell
This next hike would be a large loop in the area of Summit NJ, in part following a proposed connecting trail between Lenape Trail in South Mountain Reservation to Watchung Reservation. It’d been discussed a long time, but never came to be.
Rahway Valley Railroad
The idea to do this hike came up first because I had been to a meeting with my old friend and former State Parks Director John Trontis about the Watchung Reservation and about connecting it’s trail system. I had proposed connecting Al Kent’s Lenape Trail at the south end of South Mountain Reservation in Millburn with the Sierra Trail in Watchung Reservation with him years ago, and he was very interested in it.
John had started out his park career at Watchung Reservation, and he’s returned to his roots working there after recent retirement from the state parks.
Rahway Valley Railroad
I took a day off of my regular work to meet with he and some of his other planners and co workers to discuss the potential of the project.
They were already discussing other things, including their own route to connect that would be completely within Union County. My route was something that I first got from Joe Tag, and then ran with it to create a further route out into Millburn.
John liked the idea, and most of the trail is already there, so it’d just have to be blazed.
We talked it over, and I may be moving forward with doing it. If it’s to happen, I need a new frame of reference before I return to it and just start doing it.
I decided I would put together a hike to have a closer look at what we were proposing again.
The other thing that made this an obvious choice was that Jillane was flying to South Carolina to do a class on Opossums. Since I would drop her off at the airport, it made sense to do a hike in that area because I would already be out there.
I ended up not dropping her off for the airport as planned, and had to reschedule because of my grandfather’s birthday and family dinner, and then work stuff that came up. Still, I was able to reschedule it and make it work out on this near date anyway.
Rahway Valley Railroad
I had done a variation of this loop before, in the opposite direction, over a year prior using both the connecting trail I planned to use this time, as well as a greenway along the Rahway River. I tweaked that hike a bit to include some of the new stuff I’d been wanting to see, but also to eliminate some of the bushwhacking that was involved with the Rahway River section.
Also, rather than start right in Millburn, I chose a point near the Wine Library in Springfield Township. I knew we couldn’t leave cars there, but I figured we’d shuttle to a better spot after meeting.
An abandoned road section with sign
I think the township road we all ended up walking on was Elmwood Place, in a little development to the north. It wasn’t far from where I’d been looking at, and would work nicely.
Once we got to that point, we began our hike by heading out Elmwood Place and turned right on Baltrusol Way.
It was great that Sue was out on this, because her father, Al Kent, is the guy responsible for creating the Lenape Trail. If he’d had more strong years before his recent passing, I’m sure he would have seen this particular project through to fruition himself. I loved Kent’s way of laying a trail out for it’s diversity, and feel that this route would be in the spirit of all he’s done.
Rahway Valley Railroad bed
We crossed Millburn Ave and walked across the parking lot of a large, vacant industrial building to the left. It had some fencing and stuff around it, but nothing barred us from walking across.
On the other side, we came out through an opening in a chain link fence to the dead end on Baltrusol Ave. I suppose the previous road we were on and this one were probably once part of the same road, but severed whenever that industry came into existence. We followed this road to it’s end.
The road terminated at an intersection and a set of steps that go up to Baltrusol Way, another Baltrusol Way, which crosses over Route 24 with a good pedestrian sidewalk on the side.
Pond in Bryant Park
We crossed the bridge and kept to the right on Temple Drive. This led out to a dead end at the Temple Beth Ahm Yisrael. We kept to the left from the religious institution, and cut through a grassy yard to the far end of the property. There, we were able to walk up and get on the long abandoned Rahway Valley Railroad.
This line is badly overgrown in a lot of places, and has been the subject of past hikes. We tried to closely follow this for an entire hike one time, which proved somewhat difficult, but we managed. This time, a short section would be part of it.
Historic image with Bryant Park Pond in the distance
The short line Rahway Valley Railroad connected the Central Railroad of New Jersey in Cranford with the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western in Summit, and the Lehigh Valley Railroad in Roselle Park. The first section of the line opened in 1897 as part of the New York and New Orange Railroad. It was reorganized into Rahway Valley Railroad and extended to Summit in 1904.
A postcard view of Rahway Valley Railroad in Summit
The Rahway Valley Railroad was considered one of the most successful short line railroads in American history. The little line even managed to turn profit during the Great Depression.
It continued in service until as late as 1992, and efforts to revitalize it were fruitless.
In recent years, talks were made on making it a light rail line, but that seems to have died out, and now Union County is talking about making it into a trail. It was a topic of discussion at the meeting I attended.
I was not entirely happy with the plan as I’d heard, because they were going to pay someone to come in and remove the rails. I suggested they leave them in place.
Bryant Park
I suggested that the rails could serve to hold crushed stone surfacing in place and help with erosion for one. I also stated that in other places we had been hiking, rails were being removed by contractors that were paying to do so rather than being paid for it. They put it out to bid for removal for the price of the rails. This is why it irked me so much that they were going pay whoever was to take and dispose of them.
We went back and forth about it a bit, and maybe they’ll consider some of what I’ve said.
Briant Park
The trail they are proposing is going to be called Park Line. It looks like it might be in the more distance future, but regardless, they are trying to make it into something.
Rahway Valley Railroad
We tried to follow the tracks as best we could heading west. We often had to get off along he edge for a bit to be able to get on through. At one point, adjacent to an apartment area, there was a long abandoned road skirting the old tracks, complete with some old street signs saying not to park. That was kind of cool.
We continued to where the tracks crossed a connecting path between Bryant Park Drive and Troy Drive. At that point, we turned right to Bryant Park Drive, skirted the development briefly, and then turned left onto a path that directly enters Briant Park.
Abandoned end of Michigan Ave
We reached the main path through the park, a paved one on the south side which loops around. We followed it from the area with a pretty pond to the right, out to a wood line, and then there was a crushed stone path heading into the woods ahead. I didn’t remember seeing this previously, and figured it was a better route anyway. We followed that through to the same path a little further on.
There was another cut over to the right, where the main trail goes across a bridge over a little brook I can’t find the name of. The brook passes all the way out through Hidden Valley Park, which was where we were heading soon.
Trail in Hidden Valley Park
The main paved loop trail went off ahead into a really pretty pointless loop, skirting the edge of the wood line. I think it was Jenny I was walking with in the front when I said that this ws just a sort of side thing for extra stuff, and I wanted to see if everyone would figure out if it was pointless or not.
To make it even funnier, there was a second one of those crushed stone paths into the woods that just makes a tiny loop. I decided we would do that too. Everone was pretty oblivious walking on through it as it lollipop looped back out the same way we came, and we headed over to the little bridge.
We continued on the main trail out to the south end of Briant Park.
In retrospect, we could have gone straight across into the woods along the brook because it’s public land, but we didn’t. I should have turned left and taken the trail through the woods that takes us out behind Knights of Columbus, but we instead kept going on the streets briefly.
Hidden Valley Park
We turned left on Harvard Street out to Shunpike Road, and then went left out to the Knights of Columbus. I was surprised no one knew was a Shunpike was, typically piece of crap road that closely paralleled the tolled turnpikes in the old days that the cheapos would ride.
We continued to the right at the Knights of Columbus parking area to the path out of the back side of their yard. This took us into a woods road heading gradually up hill and parallel with the old Rahway Valley Railroad.
The road route becomes Michigan Avenue if followed all the way to the end.
Hidden Valley Park pond
This section would be the main bulk of the new connecting trail with the Watchung Reservation, through Hidden Valley Park.
A lot of people don’t know this area exists. My first time through, Joe Tag left me notes on the ground so that I could find my way. For someone who doesn’t know, it’s not necessarily easy to navigate.
We continued up hill and crossed over the Rahway Valley Railroad tracks. The rail bed, if made a trail, could fit into this connector greenway itself. It will have to be more closely lookd at. I do think it should go through Briant Park to add the diversity.
Underpass at Summit Road
We continued up hill along a slight slope, and then leveled off for a bit through some very pleasant woods. The woods road dipped down and we had to cross over the brook again. It was not very bad, and easy to just step over. It rarely runs very high through here, but I could see the county wanting to put in a bridge for when it is higher. There must have been one at one time for the Michigan Avenue extension. My friend Dan Macmahon lives out that way and we once hiked this past his house.
We continued back up hill slightly, and the old road became paved approaching development ahead. The vegetation was greening up in this area, some early signs of Spring.
Summit Road underpass
Near the crest of a slight hill, we turned left on a foot path to the south. There was no sign, no blazing, nothing to say that this was the way to go. This will be an important spot.
I was thinking we might want to reroute this altogether and just put in a new path, because this trail did get rather overgrown. It also went rather close to someone’s private land. People ride horses back there, and I figure we could leave the original path to the horseback riders, and maybe have something that remains more high and dry, as well as narrow for hikers.
Another Watchung Reservation trail...
The trail eventually came out to the high wall along Route 78. There, we turned to the right to follow it west. There was no apparent path to the east along the wall.
The path section went by a couple of beautiful little ponds, and there were a couple of private homes to the right. I’d not remembered noticing before, but one of these houses appeared to be an old gabled Dutch style home. It probably dates back to the 1700s if not earlier. We hurried on by the houses as not to disturb anyone. I worry that formalization of these trails might end up causing a stir.
Old water co building
The trail continued until we eventually approached Summit Road. There, the way I’d always done this was to head to the right and cross Summit Road within a fence with a grassy swath, sort of a half nature bridge.
When Interstate 78 was built through the Watchung Reservation, it was a big big deal. It was held up for many years, and one of the stipulations to it going in was that the “nature bridges” be built over it to allow for passage of animals. They are wide typically, and have an earthen surface and trees on them. Summit Road has a natural swath with a trail in it on the east side.
Abandoned trail and puncheon
Other roads have similar things, but Summit Road has that swath as well as underpasses below both sides of the road. The last time we did this, we had crossed Summit Road, and then used an underpass beneath the road. Coming from Watchung Reservation, we went under the road first, then switched back to cross the bridge and come back down. A similar thing exists on the north side of 78 along Summit Road, but I had never followed this before.
One of my thoughts for this hike was to try covering that section to the north. At the meeting, when we discussed marking the trail in yellow to match the rest of the Lenape Trail, it was argued that they already have a yellow trail in Watchung Reservation. John Trontis suggested a variant of a yellow with a black dot or something. I took that further, and said we should formalize the trail around the north section and out to the Glenside Fields as a yellow dot trail, and then the Lenape Trail connection could just connect from that. It sounded like we had an understanding, but I’d not seen the entire route I suggested yet.
Old Glenside Ave
So, we passed this way I’d never done, beneath Summit Road, and then further along parallel with Rt 78.
The trail skirted around a dead end street with some houses along 78, but then went inland a little bit to make use of more of the reservation.
It got to be kind of a sloppy area because we had to get across the Blue Brook. We managed, but the further we went, the worse it got. There was one more house that had an access to this trail, and after that it had not been maintained in a very long time. We tried to stay close to 78, but then it was basically like bushwhacking. We came out behind a chain link fenced old water company building where it got easy for a time, and we followed the access road to another structure to the west.
The building said “Commonwealth Water Co. 1889 1916” on it, but not sure when exactly this thing was built. I would assume the later date.
We went around the fence on the other side of this, and we had to hop from one dry area to another on little knolls. It looked to me like there had never been a trail through here at all until just before the end of the tree line at Glenside Field. There, I could see puncheons sort of under water heading out closer to 78. This was certainly a trail, but no one had taken care of it. Further, when we got to the fields, there were signs saying to stay on the trail facing the messy woods section we had just come from. It certainly was a formal trail, so even if the plan to connect with Lenape Trail fell through, this should be fixed.
Abandoned old Glenside Ave
We skirted the edge of the ball fields. I had only ever been to this area once before, in a time I’d really rather not think about, but it did bring a bunch of it back to me.
When I was dealing with all of the crap with my former boss regarding the water system issues, where he blamed me for thousands of gallons of sewage going into the reservoir, and then I had my car damaged, transfer to a place with an hour and a half commute ever day, and getting what seemed like no support at all for doing nothing wrong, I was sent to a psychiatrist with the state on work time to deal with it. I was having an awful time thinking straight, and ended up missing my appointment.
Weird drainage system above 78
I ended up having a mental breakdown at Glenside Field when I couldn’t get to the appointment on time. Everything was too crazy to deal with, and absolute, undeniable facts with photographic evidence, phone records, and plenty more seemed to be ignored and I was getting punished for doing literally all of the right things. Thankfully, all of that stuff played itself out and worked out in my favor in the end. It was just an incredibly tough time, and so that all went through my head as we were reaching the area where I’d parked, at the far end of the lot with giant plowed up snow piles.
Weird drainage
A good trail goes under 78 adjacent to Glenside Fields and Glenside Ave, but we wanted to continue on for a bit more. None of us had ever crossed any of the nature bridges that were entirely just woods and a path yet. The next one up didn’t seem like it could be that far, and it also seemed like there should be an obvious path to it in such a busy area.
Such was not so.
We ended up walking through quite and interesting but messy route I won’t be repeating again.
We climbed up slope and dashed across Glenside Ave, and then turned to the right briefly. An abandoned, paved road continues parallel with Glenside and then along 78 westbound.
Looking down on 78
As best I can understand, the abandoned paved road is the original alignment of Glenside Ave from prior to the construction of Route 78.
We followed the thing for a bit, and then found a very old dump spot with tons of paint cans.
I posted the photo of it on Metrotrails, and ended up getting all sorts of ridiculous attacks about how I should have gone in there and cleaned all of it up. I basically told the one woman “Why don’t you go do it? I don’t have a truck, and I’m not pulling my car over along 78 and climbing a chain link fence”. It’s amazing what people expect, yet won’t act themselves.
Hole in a fence, hole in a tree
We continued along this abandoned road for a time, but soon the chain link fences that separated us from Rt 78 crossed it, and the old pavement dipped off to oblivion with the highway racing by. We got through the fence, and had to bushwhack a bit from here. The slope wasn’t too terrible, so we could walk it well enough.
Soon, there was a drainage line coming down at an angle from the west. It was a concrete laid sluice with a corrugated metal half pipe laid in it. A rather strange design. We were able to walk that like a trail as it gradually ascended to the west.
One of the nature bridges
A lot of bad fallen trees sometimes made it too difficult to go on through. At one point, we climbed over a fallen tree to get back on the side of the fence away from Rt 78. We then continued up hill along the fence through woods. We sometimes passed back through as there were somewhat frequent openings, until we got to the height of the land. It was an interesting area to be in.
Eventually, after one peak, we were able to head back down, and there was a sort of old woods road going away from 78 to the east. It was here that we came upon the nature bridge, the most secluded of them.
Nature bridge
There was a sort of ATV path going across in the middle of it, but mostly it was just warm season grasses on the bridge, with a few trees closer to the edges. The middle of it was much wider than we’d anticipated it would have been. We almost wouldn’t have even known we were crossing it. Justin was so caught in conversation with Kevin that I don’t think they even noticed we had crossed it.
Once on the other side, there was no formal trail or anything. We came down to the current alignment of Glenside Ave, which I think at this point is also the old alignment, and turned to the left. We continued a bit, then went off trail to the left through woods down hill.
Lake Surprise
This was the main part of the reservation. We emerged from the woods on Tracy Drive, where it crosses over Lake Surprise just below. We used to road bridge to get across in the middle, and Uncle Soup told me stuff about when he was growing up in this area and hanging out.
Once on the other side of the lake, we turned to the left and started heading south through woods. Several trails come together here, including the main one, Sierra Trail, which was built by the Sierra Club to encircle the entire reservation. We went off of that on a trail straight through the reservation south. Watchung Stables came into view through the trees to the west of us.
Lake Surprise
The trail soon reconnected with the Sierra Trail’s white blazes where it goes all the way to the east side of the preserve. We followed it north to the traffic circle, weaved around to the west side, crossed Tracy Drive again, followed by Summit Lane.
We only went down hill slightly from here before leaving the trail system.
In the past, I’d found an earlier entrance to the reservation which I suppose probably predates the current access on Tracy Drive.
A good foot path headed to the west from where we turned off the trail, and then the old road alignment gets rather washed out going down hill. It’d have been too tough to walk at first.
Abandoned road
We followed parallel with the old road to the east a bit, and then merged with it close to the bottom, where it joined current Tracy Drive where it intersected with New Providence Road. I suppose the road could hve at one time been part of New Providence Road. Not sure.
We turned to the right on Tracy Drive for a little bit, and then cut to the left into the woods, off trail. There are informal paths through this rather unknown swath of the Watchung Reservation, which soon came to a nice spot with a view of Moxon Pond. We can’t go all the way around it, because there’s private land there, but we can do probably two thirds of it, which is pretty nice.
Moxon Pond
We climbed to the height of the land on the east side of it, and then followed along it above the pond, parallel with a road known as Deer Path.
Once we got to the end of the pond, we cut to the right out to the road, which becomes New Providence Road just to the south of there, and has a good paved path parallel with the road closely.
It keeps far enough in from the road that it really doesn’t feel much like a road walk at all. We followed it out to the library property. We cut to the right on the path, and then headed toward the foot bridge that takes us across Route 22.
Moxon Pond
Adjacent to the library here is the Deacon Andrew Hetfield House, an historic home moved to the site several years ago. I tried telling the group about it’s history, but I couldn’t think of the name of it at the moment. All I could tell them was that it was originally down the highway and moved to this point because of it’s history.
The house was built in 1755, and was known as “Dutch Oven”.
The "Dutch Oven" name comes from an antiques store that was in this house from 1935 to 1984. The original section is the 1.5 section at left; the middle 3 bays were added c.1783, with the last 2 bays c.1830, and the middle section remodeled and raised to two full stories c.1873. It was moved twice -- the first time in 1929.
The house was well lit and looked quite nice on this occasion.
We continued across 22 on the pedestrian bridge and turned right on the other side past the police station. We went a little too far at first and had to turn back. I was talking about how we probably shouldn’t be out there, and to keep quiet, and then there was a girl talking on her cell phone hiding in the weeds right next to the police station, so I felt kind of silly.
Echo Lake Park
The previous time out here, we followed a trail on the north side of the Nomahegan Brook. This time, we stayed more to the south. The trail on the north side is called Squid’s Crossing Trail. We were only on that a bit from the police station, and then turned right on Picard’s Crossing Trail, over a little bridge, and continued on the south side out to Mountain Ave on Eliza’s Crossing Trail.
There, we turned to the left, then to the right off of the road and into the grass parallel with a small tributary. We couldn’t quite cross that, so we had to go to Park Drive to continue. We entered Echo Lake Park, and kept to the grass to the right of the stream, then the lake.
We turned right when we got to the Echo Lake boat rental place, and the restrooms were still open. We took a break there until I realized there were cameras, and we moved on.
A paved trail kept us further away from the roads in this section for a bit, and then we came to a bend where the maintenance facility was straight ahead.
In the past, I had found a trail that went around this to the north, so we did that. It came out to a former road, and then we crossed Park Drive again and continued on the paved trail beyond.
The lake was quite beautiful this time of night, and the trail moved further down along the water front as Park Drive went higher. It was a perfect place to be.
We headed down to the beautiful main dam of the lake, but everyone else stayed up closer to the road for some reason. I really love this spot down there, because it’s amazing.
Here is what the Echo Lake Dam looks like during the daylight.
From there, rather than the paved path along the road, I remained along the Nomahegan Brook downstream, which is much more pleasant than the road.
Eventually, we came to the County Rt 509 spur, where we turned right to cross the road bridge, then immediately left onto the paved trail atop the flood protection berm into Lenape Park.
If it were up to me, I’d continue the Lenape Trail through Watchung Reservation, and then down through to Echo Lake Park, Lenape Park, and Nomahegan Park.
Scene in Echo Lake Park
This entire area is really easy to walk through in the dark. No one else was out on it really. The ambient light from the homes to the south of the park was there, but to the north remains completely undeveloped as the Nomahegan Brook flows through wetlands.
We followed this park out over an access point to a pond to the north, and then out to where it officially ends at Kenilworth Avenue. Here, we did not turn that way. I had found out about another way through when I did a Rahway River themed hike back in 2009 with my old friend Kyle Zalinsky.
Old Rahway River dam
He and I had talked about organizing a hike together where he could show me some of the area where he’d grown up and the way the trails connect all through.
Part of that connection was from Nomahegan Park to Lenape Park by way of an abandoned dam on the Rahway River, purged out at the base. It’s possible to walk around the fences and over the top of the old dam to get to the path on the east side. I’ve used this route multiple times on different hikes ever since and really love it.
We got across, and soon reached official trail on the other side. This section is more official than ever now, because it’s part of the East Coast Greenway Alliance. We will end up coming back to this point eventually in the 911 Memorial Trail series, because it follows that across NJ.
We continued on the trail as it turned to the north, and then passed the confluence of the Rahway River and the Black Brook. The trail crossed the Black Brook and turned to the right, but we were to leave the East Coast Greenway here.
We went up hill to the left on an informal path, which took us out to the back side of a cemetery known as B’Nai Abraham Memorial Park.
We passed through the cemetery to the north side, along Rt 22, and exited out the northwest side into the parking lot for the Target.
As planned, we emerged directly across from Taco Bell, which is in the median of the highway. We dashed across when we could and stopped in for some delicious glory, Uncle Soup’s treat! As is to be expected, I felt absolutely incredible following this delectable culinary experience.
When we were done eating, we dashed across westbound 22, and then cut into the back of a hotel parking lot. There, we were able to step into the woods along the Rahway River. There are some pretty good informal trails following the river in this area.
We stumbled through a bit of woods without too much problem, and plenty of ambient light around, and came out to a dead end street just below Milltown Road. Once there, we turned left on the road to cross the Rahway River on the bridge. After that, we made the third right on Laurel Drive.
This is what the foot bridge in Meisel Ave Park looks like in the light.
If it’d been lighter, and if there were less weeds to worry about, we’d have continued to the Rahway Valley Railroad and followed that through from just a little farther north. There’s a pretty cool old through truss bridge still in place out there, but it’d have been too hard to bully through without being able to see. We skirted through Laurel Park briefly, and then continued on the road out to Meisel Avenue. We turned right there, and then crossed the branch of the Rahway River we had followed through Briant Park and Hidden Valley Park.
We cut to the left into Meisel Avenue Park, and followed around the edges of ball fields.
Jonathan Dayton HS
The trail reached the former Rahway Valley Railroad tracks, and turned to the left on a wooden pedestrian bridge that sits immediately adjacent to the railroad bridge. I pointed out the bridge in the dark, so everyone could flash lights on it and see the rails there. Even in the daylight, it’s rather overgrown and hardly anyone would know it was there.
After crossing this Rahway River branch, the trail turned to the right to follow parallel to it through ball fields and out to the Jonathan Dayton High School.
We went arond the back of the handsome brick structure completed in 1937 to serve Springfield, and Uncle Soup realized that we had in fact come out behind his own high school.
It’s always amazing when we walk some odd way to get to a place that we feel like we should known. Hew as delighted to see the school, and I got a photo of him with it and the sign.
Uncle Soup at Jonathan Dayton High School where he attended
Uncle Soup pointed across the street at what I think is now a bank, and said that that had been a pizza place when he was in school, and kids were going off there to have pizza rather than staying in the school for lunch, but that they had to put an end to that at some point.
We walked by that building on Caldwell Place, and then passed Ruby Park. We cut a corner around a parking lot and then went left on Brook Street, then right on Keeler Street out to Rt 124, Morris Avenue, and turned to the left.
It was a busier street, but I didn’t mind it at this point. It was kind of a nice walk on the sidewalk.
We continued as far as Lewis Drive, and then turned right into residental area.
Uncle Soup at his high school
We turned left on Tower Drive at the intersection, and then reached Baltrusol Ave where we had been much earlier.
We turned to the right here and passed through the opening in the chain link fence to the vacant commercial or industrial building again. Justin and Kevin had a look at it, and deemed it to be sealed up like crazy.
We headed back across to Baltrusol Way and Elmwood to finish the hike with no problem.
This was really a great trip, so much so that I wouldn’t mind doing another very similar variation of it, maybe looping from a nearby grocery store rathern than the developmnt and doing some of the different trails in Watchung. It really didn’t take long from work, and could be some really great experiences with places we haven’t looked at much yet.
HAM
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