Hike #1232; Bloomsbury to Milford
6/28/19 Bloomsbury to Milford with Ken Zaruni, Zach Robinson, John DiFiore, George DiFiore, and Jeremy N.
This next hike would be a point to point featuring the new section of the Highlands Trail as well as a bunch of other stuff through he lower Musconetcong Valley.
The old CNJ in Bloomsbury
There were two reasons for putting this hike together.
First, I wanted something that would have swimming spots, and I knew there would be places for that at the Musconetcong Gorge as well as along the way in Riegelsville area at the new boat launch.
The other big reason was the new section of the Highlands Trail.
Going way back to when I first started hiking it, the trail just ended when it got to Dennis Road on the west side of the gorge and didn’t continue.
Bridge in Bloomsbury
Even when I went to work for Hunterdon County Parks, and a road walk route had been chosen with new sections to come, none of that road walk was blazed. It was considered to be temporary anyway.
The “completion” of the trail to the Delaware River in 2010 was just a sort of formality so they could begin work on the trail on the Pennsylania side, planned to extend the trail out beyond the Susquehanna River. I was very involved in scouting hikes for this, but almost all of my work was shelved, and when I was ousted from the club, they sort of started fresh.
CNJ overpass
We installed the blazes at the Delaware Canal in Riegelsville on the PA side, but no other Highlands Trail blazes were ever installed west of there, nor were any put in on the section back to Dennis Road. There was a section that was to go through Musconetcong Wildlife Management Area that also was never completed. My friend Glenn had scouted and flagged it off, but fully developing it was shelved because of landowner issues and because it was just too difficult to maintain what was already in place. If it couldn’t be taken care of, it wasn’t worth opening it all up.
Lehigh Valley RR Musconetcong Branch
We met for this hike at the convenience store in Milford, just up from the old train station where I got some photos for my then and now compilations, and met up with the group.
My old work buddy Zach finally showed up for this one. He had worked as seasonal staff at Spruce Run for a few years, and I’d invited him many times over then, but he never made it out. Of course, this being his first hike, it ended up being really quite hard to complete! Hopefully if he does another one he’ll see it’s not always quite this bad! Some of the terrain ended up being a bit harder.
Slack water on the Musconetcong
The only newcomer on this one was John’s son, who got along quite well with the group.
We all jumped into my van to shuttle to the starting point, which was to be Bloomsbury area.
My original plan was to hike up hill on Staats Road to where the Highlands Trail goes into the Musconetcong Gorge Nature Preserve, descend to the old Lehigh Valley Railroad branch, and then make our way to the new bits of the Highlands Trail. We’d then trace the Highlands Trail route out to Riegelsville, head into Pennsylvania, then take Delaware Canal south to Upper Black Eddy.
Musconetcong River passes beneath the Lehigh Valley Railroad
As we were riding in the van to Bloomsbury, the sky opened up into a torrential downpour. It was pretty crappy, and I realized that the Highlands Trail wasn’t well cut open on the section at the top of the hill. I also realized it was quite a hill to climb back up if we started down.
Musconetcong Branch
I decided that instead of starting in Bloomsbury and going up hill, we would instead follow the old rail lines to the Musconetcong Branch. If we had gone up hill, it would have been unpleasant because sometimes walking through those sections of the Highlands Trail is like walking through a car wash if you do it after a heavy rain like we had.
I got another then and now photo compilation as we drove, at a CNJ culvert underpass, and then we parked in downtown Bloomsbury. There, I got a few more then and now shots of the bridge going over the Musconetcong at the old mill.
Old raceway in the gorge
After the bridge, we headed up hill through town and picked up the old Jersey Central Railroad main line, which is clear but not that often used. It’s out of service to the east of Bloomsbury, but tracks remain on through.
We continued east around big bends, and I pointed out where this main line used to continue east before the construction of Rt 78, which truncated it in 1986.
The tracks were connected to former rival Lehigh Valley Railroad when this was abandoned, and we hiked this route to the active tracks, which was only supposed to be for a little bit out to Musconetcong Gorge.
On the Musconetcong Branch
The section was much longer than I’d remembered it was. It took us a while to walk the tracks to where the old Musconetcong Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad used to break off. This was an industrial spur that served the Riegel Paper Mills at Warren Glen and Hughesville downstream on the Musconetcong. I don’t recall when it was abandoned, but it’s been out for quite some time.
Musconetcong Gorge Nature Preserve used to have this blazed as part of the white trail, which made a loop with the Highlands Trail, but it was let go. This is kind of sad because it has a waterfall on it.
Along Musconetcong Branch
We headed into the woods, and after a short bit came to the side path that led down to the Musconetcong.
It’s a really beautiful place where the Musconetcong flows beneath the former Lehigh Valley Railroad by way of a lovely double stone culvert. I’ve always loved swimming at this spot, but it’s been getting pretty badly silted in.
I wanted to start my talk about the Musconetcong Gorge dam at this point, because it really showed exactly where the slack water from the dam reached to.
Today, the river for a mile above the dam is badly silted in, but that’s not the worst problem.
Then and Now...
The Paper Mill Dam down below is the largest dam on the entire Musconetcong River. The spillway section of it appears to be in pretty good shape, but the power canal that once served the paper mill is wide open, and the bulk of water is flowing into it.
📷
From the canal, the water then flows out a stone lined weir to the north side of the canal, and then down into the Musconetcong down stream. If this continues to happen and erode, the entire river could blow through the canal and then out the weir site. This is a category one dangerous dam, where if it breaks, it is imminent life will be lost down stream.
The urgency of this dam removal seems to fall on deaf ears for many. It should really come out before any other ones come out, because it’s such an issue.
We got down to the culvert, where there is a fallen tree laying in the water. The silt is so gross on the Hunterdon side that I just went out onto the log and jumped from that.
Scout Run
Ken came in right after me and didn’t realize just how bad the silt was. He ended up getting into it pretty bad. In retrospect, I should have just gone over the culvert and jumped in from the other side where it’s cleaner and rockier. When it was time to leave, I just went that way.
We made our way back up the steep path to the old Musconetcong Branch and followed it to the west. We paused to check out the waterfall, and I pointed out where the old white trail came down, which is still there and blazed, but not put on the map any more.
Nature Trail
Originally it was only this loop, and the Nature Trail loop in the preserve, along with the railroad grade and the buried pipeline clearing.
When I was working for Hunterdon, an e mail came in complaining that someone had gotten lost on the trail system, and they decided to just reblaze the entire trail system. It was among the most foolish moves I have ever seen in my life in terms of trail maintenance.
Three staff members spent a full day out re-marking the trails. This consisted of taking every single trail and changing the color to something else. The orange one became blue. The white became yellow. Another section of the orange one became red. To make matters worse, the old metal trail blazes were not removed. They were left in place, and not shown on the map to further confuse park patrons. A new trail was added that year by Student Conservation Association, and blazed white, a long ways away from, but still parallel with the original white trail. This sounds like it’s almost a natural solution for once....
Scout Run view
I was sent up during work one day to oversee some of the SCA crew and their work, and to provide some assistance with chain saw. When I got there. I realized another enormous mess: they were given two trail routes to build only about one hundred feet apart from one another climbing up the hill. The crew chief confided in me their frustration that they had wasted countless hours because they weren’t given clear direction, and the person setting up their assignments had flagged off two routes and changed their mind on one, but never removed the flagging tape.
New Highlands Trail
I was already disgusted at what had happened with the trail blazing, so this just put me over the top. I brought it up at one of the next trail committee meetings how irresponsibly Musconetcong Gorge was being managed.
They blew it off and said that all they had to do was to change their maps and they were fine with it. I reminded that that this trail was already in at least three more serious printed publications including stuff by Appalachian Mountain Club, the printed Highlands Trail guide, and the NYNJ Trail Conference’s New Jersey Walk Book, which would still be available several more years before the next printing, until which their publications would be false.
New Highlands Trail
I was further disgusted that this was blown off, stating that it’s not their responsibility to deal with other people’s publications. I felt it was horribly elitist thought, and that they were creating a much more serious liability than what existed prior, especially since the place the hiker had been lost was not even addressed through their re-blazing.
The only thing that wasn’t really screwed up was the Highlands Trail, which remained blazed with teal diamonds. Hunterdon did manage to piss off volunteers though, because they added redundant yellow trail markers to the entire route of the Highlands Trail, which almost made it seem like they were trying to take credit for it.
Rt 519 construction
With the new extension, they also managed to screw things up even more, but it almost seemed like they were trying to make amends for some of the screwy older blazes. The new route was marked in red, in addition to the teal Highlands Trail blazes. So, at one point where it’s along the Nature Trail, the trail has blue, orange, and teal blazes. I think they basically failed again with this. A new through route really doesn’t need anything but the Highlands Trail markers just to keep it simple (Hunterdon actually requested that all markers say “Highlands Trail” on them, which would have made it blazed differently through Hunterdon than it is in three states and seven other counties).
Rt 519 construction
We continued on the rail bed, and we did a side trip down to the big dam in the gorge. I pointed out to everyone how the water flow was passing through the gate to the raceway that served the paper mill, and how it was then running out the weir into the river below.
We made our way from here back up to the railroad bed and continued to the west, until we got to where it used to cross a bridge over some sort of a pond next to the paper mill, which now sits vacant. We turned to the left at this point to get on the Nature Trail, which was the spuratically blue or orange blazed one.
New Highlands Trail
This is a particularly pretty trail. It follows a gas pipeline shortly, then turns to the right to follow the Scout Run a bit up stream. It crosses a nice wooden bridge and meanders along the creek a bit up stream, and then turns steeply across and to the right up hill on little trail steps.
The route has a guide wire as it passes along the top of a precious above the Scout Run.
The trail starts to level off into a side hill, and I was starting to get concerned that I wasn’t seeing any new Highlands Trail blazes anywhere. We started to climb a bit, and there was still nothing.
Rocky section of the new trail
Just before we got up to the parking area on Dennis Road, the new trail broke off to the right at what used to be just a corner at the Nature Trail. It headed along the slope and then started to descend a bit.
The trail work on this new section was quite outstanding. There were bits of steps, water bars, side hills. They had been doing a fantastic job on it. I can only assume it’s the SCA and/or other volunteers.
The trail started heading down hill, and even though there was full foliage cover, it opened up enough that we had some limited views into the Musconetcong Valley to the north.
Very nice stone steps
The trail weaved around a bit, and then emerged on Route 519 just above Warren Glen. At this time, the road was closed off for some sort of widening construction.
A little cascade on Highlands Trail
It was weird to see that road like that, and even weirder that 519, a substantial main road, was closed off for construction at two different points (the other is near Phillipsburg for culvert replacement).
It was hard to see where the trail crossed the road, but someone spotted the blazes on the other side, and we headed into more woods.
This next section was really cool. It just meandered around like crazy, which as pretty neat. I think the section is 2.1 miles long, but it felt like it went on forever. It was in very young forest at first, with a lot of undergrowth, then climbed to another point where we could se somewhat through the trees to the Musconetcong Valley to the north of us.
The group coming out of the new section near Bellis Rd
The trail hit some pretty rocky spots after a bit. I was impressed that it was some “wuss trail” as I sometimes call them. It was a serious hiking trail.
Coming out to Bellis Road
I was sweating bullets because of the arduous terrain, so when we came upon a lovely little creek, even though it wasn’t very deep, I had to lay in it. It was quite a welcome little spot.
SCA or at least some experience trail group had been here, because there was an impressive set of stone steps leading up the opposite side from it. A rock hop took us across.
We had a good little break here before moving on, and the trail got rather rocky again heading to the west.
I didn’t know what to expect where the trail came out. I knew that the latest acquisition was a lot of fields, and I figured there would be a long field walk section to get out.
Near Finesville
It turned out only to be a short section. The trail emerged along cultivated corn field and turned hard left up to Bellis Road in a short distance. I didn’t notice any parking, but there is apparently supposed to be parking somewhere in there. No matter, we didn’t need it this time.
We simply followed Bellis Road from here along the previous Highlands Trail route, which took us around a ninety degree bend a bit further up. I showed everyone roughly where the Highlands Trail was intended to go but never finished, and we then went around another sharp bend near some old stone homes.
Finesville Bridge
We continued on the road and soon came to the little settlement of Finesville, where a dam had recently been removed on the Musconetcong River. A historic truss bridge still spans the river there just below the former dam site, and there was a new historic marker in place to talk about it.
Finesville is named for Philip and John Fein who settled the area from Germany, who built the dam, and ran an oil mill, grist mill, saw mill, hotel, and store. In 1751, the Chelsea Forge, a charcoal iron forge, was erected along the Musconetcong here, which established it as a permanent settlement.
Finesville Bridge
The forge provided weapons for the Continental Army during the American Revolution to help defend Valley Forge.
The old Fein Grist Mill burned, and was rebuilt and repurposed as the early Riegel Paper Mill.
We checked out the old truss bridge, an 8 Panel Pin-Connected Pratt Through Truss constructed in 1890 by G. M. Rusling of Hackettstown NJ. It was rehabilitated in 1981, but still retains a good amount of it’s historic ambiance. We made our way back over and continued from here on Mt. Joy Road, which continues west through Musconetcong Valley.
Historic image of Finesville Dam
The old factories dominate the area on the Hunterdon side of the bridge, save for the old hotel building which might be the one mentioned from much earlier, but not sure.
The old dam site today
We turned to the right on Mt. Joy Road and heading to the west next to the old buildings. There is a large old barn to the left just ahead, next to which is a trail easement. I pointed out here where the Highlands Trail was planned to come out.
Old hotel?
A little bit past this barn area, there is another informal trail that goes down to the right into more Musconetcong Wildlife Management Area lands. I had scouted this extensively in 2010 for the trail and located about where I thought it should go, but we never got around to cutting it. Maybe one of these days.
Sun setting
The first bit of that is nice through evergreens, but the rest is pretty overgrown, so we just stayed on Mt. Joy Road.
After an area with lots of houses, we came to a very nice slope with an outstanding view of the sunset. We had to pause for a few moments to take it in. It happened at just the right time.
We continued on Mt Joy Road as the sun set, and the views remained good for a little while.
Mt. Joy Road came out to Route 627, Riegelsville-Milford Road in Holland, and we turned right briefly, then immediately left to cut across the old Bel Del Railroad tracks.
Sunset
We turned to the right on the other side along Old River Road heading to the north.
Sunset
It wasn’t very long before we got to the parking area for the boat launch into the Delaware. This was one of my planned swimming spots, but surprisingly no one was really into it.
We walked down to the boat launch, and I took a dip myself. It was quite refreshing after the sweating from before. I could see the Riegelsville Roebling bridge, built by John Roeblings Sons in 1903 to replace the original covered bridge that washed out in the Pumpkin Flood of that same year.
Roebling Riegelsville Bridge
I didn’t take too long here; we headed out and across the parking lot, which is built on the site of the former Riegel Paper Company’s plant. At the end of the fence, we cut through and up to the old Bel Del Railroad to use it’s bridge to get over the Musconetcong River.
Roebling Riegelsville Bridge
We stayed on the tracks to the next crossing and turned left for just a short distance to reach the Roebling Riegelsville Bridge. We crossed, and there was a lively shindig going on at the historic Riegelsville Inn on the other side. I asked the group if they wanted to stop and see what was going on, but no one really wanted to. It’s probably a good thing, because we went over the mileage I wanted to.
To the left of the inn, the Highlands Trail reaches the Delaware Canal towpath. Here, we got on it and followed the towpath left, sort of south along the Delaware River.
Riegelsville then and now
I had assured everyone that there was a convenience store where we could get snacks not too far away. Google had said that they would be open rather late, and I counted on that.
Sunset
Well, I shouldn’t have counted on it. We walked the section parallel with the town of Riegelsville, and when we got to the foot bridge that went over the lock at Durham, and walked back north briefly to the Exxon Station, the doors were locked and no one was around.
This was a major disappointment. It was a good thing I had more to drink.
At this point, there was a lot of road work going on. The old Rt 611 bridge was being torn down, which was parallel with the current one. The road was closed partially through the area for the construction.
Sunset at Mt. Joy
We continued south, and the towpath stayed pretty close to the highway for a while. We passed a couple of houses, and then went through the open area of Trauger’s Farm.
Sunset
The trail soon turned away from the highway into a long wooded stretch.
I felt bad for Zach, because he was hurting pretty bad. The mileage was going to come to being about twenty rather than what I was planning, because the out and around we did on the railroad bed at the start ended up being much longer than I had remembered.
Fortunately, I had another Gatorade and some water left I could give him. Still, he was doing really great, especially for his first time out with us.
Riegelsville Bridge
The canal and towpath soon came back out close to Route 32, as 611 travels further inland.
There was no access to the road until we got to the Indian Rock Inn.
Zach could push on, but he wanted to see if he could get a ride anyway. He tried to call his brother and his dad, but didn’t catch them at Indian Rock, so we continued on.
The canal turned away from the road yet again, into a rather secluded feeling area. Zach eventually got a hold of his family to scoop him up with only about two miles remaining, but it was a brutal one.
Upper Black Eddy Milford Bridge
Zach and I even started running or a bit to use different muscles. Even I was starting to feel it at this point.
When he got his family, I saw the Ringing Rock connecting trail, which I had forgotten even existed since it’s so new, and I told him how he could get out to the road that way.
It was just a quick crossing of the canal on the old bridge, and the road turned left to lead out to the parking area for it. He managed to get out, and I got a hold of him later to be sure that he was picked up alright.
From there, I started running the canal myself heading south into Upper Black Eddy.
Milford Station
The trail remained kind of secluded until I came out to cross 32 on it, and a little beyond was where the others were waiting for me.
Together, we continued out to River Road and over the Upper Black Eddy-Milford Bridge into town. The cars were right where we left them with no problem.
I was really pretty tired after this one, but it was overall pretty cool.
It was good to explore some new areas and revisit some old ones that sort of felt a bit new to me, but it was kind of a lesson not to trust so much my judgement on miles at last minute rerouting. I could easily have made it a much easier route if we’d gone slightly different at the start, but oh well.
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