Hike #1241; Raritan to Bedminster

Hike #1241; Raritan to Bedminster

7/31/19 Raritan to Bedminster with Jennifer Berndt, Kralc Leahcim (Lerch), Cupcake (Chris Kroschinski), and Dan Asnis

This next hike would be a point to point night hike I arranged between Raritan and Bedminster area, although I changed it quite a lot right from the beginning.

Greenway on the Raritan

I had planned on a route that was going to include Washington Valley Park and the East Branch Reservoir, Buttermilk Falls, and Chimney Rock, but then the weather forecast was looking like absolute crap. It was downpouring when I was heading out to start, so climbing over the rocks near the reservoir as I was planning would be particularly treacherous.
Beyond that, most of the Middle Brook Greenway I was planning to use would be a muddy mess in the event of any rain. The water would also be really mucky for swimming. If that wasn’t enough, I’d had an injury to my knee while cutting brush.

My leg injury

While I was at work earlier, I was using my Happy Saw (a Corona pruning saw I use like a machete to cut down brush) and got caught in the heavy brambles. I swiped it down right into my knee and was bleeding like mad. It was so bad that I could not get it to stop bleeding.
So, I was a bit concerned about getting it in the water and potentially getting a worse infection.
With all of these variables, I came up with an alternate route that would still be interesting, cover some new stuff, as well as a lot of the other stuff I was originally planning to do.
The route wold use the same later portion of the hike, but in the start cover the Peters Brook Greenway, a section along the Raritan I had never done still during daylight hours, the Bridgewater Mall, and a golf course to the north of there. It ended up being a lot more new stuff for me than what my original plan wold have encompassed, so I was quite happy about it anyway.
I met Cupcake and Dan up in Bedminster, and we found a spot where we could leave the cars.

Former South Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey

I made the meeting point the post office, but there was barely even any room to meet temporarily. Fortunately, we found a parking area in a lot just south of the post office accessible from Rt 202. We left cars there, and then took my van to the start point on the edge of Raritan, at the Raritan Mall.
Cupcake and Dan went to get some pizza, and I went to get something to drink around the corner from the mall area.
Once we all had our stuff, the three of us began walking to the south, across Orlando Drive, and into a lot adjacent to the driving range where a paved trail starts.

Under Rt 206

I had run a hike on this area not that many years ago, and none of the trail was constructed yet. It was only about a year ago that we went through and found it to be completely constructed, although it often goes under water during times of heavy rains.
We followed it rather clearly, and despite the fact that there were signs saying that the trail was closed due to flooding, there were no such signs up on the opposite side, and none of it was underwater. We didn’t make it all that far before Lerch arrived at my van, and then jogged to meet up with us on the trail before passing beneath Rt 206.

The greenway

Just before the 206 underpass, we crossed the former South Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, which is now on the power line clearing heading across to Duke Farms. I pointed that out as we went by, and then admired the views of the Raritan River that opened up after the underpass.
The section on this other side is part of the Peters Brook Greenway, which I did my first hike on back in 2007 or so I guess it was.
The trail has since been extended quite a lot. We crossed Peters Brook, came to a great view area over the river, and then continued up to Arthur Chambers Park where we met Jen.

Peters Brook Greenway

There were a lot of cars sort of dillydalling around at this point, but we managed to cross without death.
From there, we followed the greenway across the park, and then out to beneath the former Central Railroad of NewJersey main line, now NJ Transit. The trail crossed a foot bridge on the other side, and then skirted Michael Lepp Park out to Main Street.
Usually, I walk down in the grass through this section, because even though the trail doesn’t go down into Vanderveer Park to the right here, it is nice public land along the creek.

Peters Brook Greenway with bamboo

This time, we actually stayed on the road because it was where Jen had parked, and she wanted to get something else out of her car or put something back or something.
Anyway, while we were walking along this stretch of road, Lerch found some junk laid out that he couldn’t just leave alone.
There was a teddy bear and a note with other random stuff in it. The not read all sorts of stuff about a breakup, and went on to say that “I don’t need any of this stuff anymore, etc”, and the note was written on the back of an ultrasound. Lerch found this sickly amusing, and Cupcake dubbed the Teddy “Abortion Bear”. Lerch then secured the bear to the back of my backpack.

Peters Brook Greenway with bamboo

This went on as some sort of ongoing joke for a while, and somehow I get blamed for picking up the bear even though I was not the one that secured it to the backpack.
The trail turned right on High Street and then left into Schaub Park.

Raritan view on Peters Brook Greenway

We continued on the path from here out to East Cliff Street, and then across through another section out to Grove Street. The trail turned right to cross Grove Street bridge, then left into the Van Fleet Gardens area. This took us out to Bridge Street.

Peters Brook

The trail crossed, and then turned left down hill to follow the edge of Exchange Fields. There’s a cool section where there are small stone cliffs along the creek in this area, which doesn’t seem quite right in the suburban setting.
We emerged on Davenport Street where we had to turn right, and then left onto Green Street.
The trail reached and crossed Mercer Street, and then continued along the brook, beside an apartment complex that occupies former industrial buildings. This section took us out to Mountain Avenue. We turned right when we got there, and didn’t continue on the greenway.

"You are the smell before the rain"...?

Instead, we continued to the end of the road and then ascended to climb the foot bridge that crosses over Route 22 to Bridgewater Commons Mall to Lot #6.

Clouds

There’s a little tributary known as Mac’s Brook that makes it’s way to the right of the lot. We followed the edge of it out to the outer buildings of the mall where we stopped for a dinner break. As I recall, I think we stopped at the Shake Shack, which I had never been to before.

Peters Brook Greenway and the old factories

Jen ordered some kind of a burger that was a double; it had the regular meat patty, but in addition came with the vegetation option, a fried mushroom patty on top of that. It seemed pretty odd, but then sounded interesting. The guy at the counter said that it was actually a really delicious burger, so I decided to try one as well.
I was not unhappy with this. The burger was delicious. The fries were some of those really narrow ones that you don’t get in most places too. They were also really great. I was stuffed when we got done, but happy.
We made our way from here to the north, parallel with Commons Way for a short bit.

Striations

There was a paved path that went to the left from Commons Way, through a grassy swath, and then out to a modern covered bridge that passes back over Mac’s Brook.

Near the covered bridge

I always liked that covered bridge, ever since the first time I ran a hike through it back in January of 2004.
After we passed through, we walked straight on to enter Bridgewater Commons Mall.
We entered through some sort of main entrance and then got to a spot where we could see the different floors and escelators. I was totally surprised by how many people were in there. Most of the malls seem to be dying, but this one has a very healthy number of customers. We walked along the base level for a bit, and then I saw that there was a wine place inside.

Covered Bridge at Bridgewater Mall

We went nearly to the other side, and then realized that the place with the wine was back at the other side. There was no one in there when we arrived, so it was perfect timing.

Covered footbridge

I think the place was Old York Cellars, which is a winery located in Ringoes NJ, and one that I had been planning to visit on one of the hikes for quite a while, but never got around to.
The girl serving us seemed interested in the crazy hikes we were doing at least to some degree.
We hung out there a bit and sampled everything, and then I got a bottle of something.

Covered foot bridge

I forget exactly what it was, but it was pretty good.
Once we were done there, we continued through the mall out toward the north end.
Somehow, I made a wrong turn and we ended up on the bottom level, and exited the mall too low in the parking lot for where I wanted to be. If we had stayed up one level, we would have exited exactly at the north end of the mall.
We made our way out, and then crossed Commons Way into another parking lot. We skirted this for a bit on the west side, and then saw an exit going up from Rt 202 that was now closed off. We cut down hill and then turned right to follow it up.

Bridgewater Commons

The old exit took us up to Garretson Road, where we turned to the left.
We were able to step into parking areas on this side that made for better walking. We skirted a school building, and then a paved path followed the edge of a ball field. We followed it through a swath of trees, and then over a foot bridge, which I didn’t realize took us over the Peters Brook. I had thought the brook ended just to the west of where we had turned off, but it turns out it goes much further north than I had previously expected, and we would follow close to it for quite a while more.

Busy Bridgewater Mall

I was impressed that parking lots over in this area had solar panels over them. I really liked the idea when I’d first seen it at William Paterson College, so it was nice to see them using it somewhere else as well.

A horse I found for my brother

We crossed Garretson Road to the Bridgewater YMCA in hopes to find a way of walking through, but it was kind of rough.
We cut to the left, along more solar fields, but the development to the north had a fence all the way around it that I didn’t see in the aerial images.
We skirted the fence, cut into a bit of woods, and then followed the fence line out to Voorhees Lane.
We turned to the right here and walked for a bit, and soon were along Green Knoll Golf Course. We went a little further than I’d wanted, so we backtracked slightly, and then followed the gravel road along the north side of the development buildings, just before reaching the golf course.

Striations

Following this path led out to the formal cart paths on the far east side of the course.
Cupcake was talking about how he worked on some bridges in this course.
We headed north, and crossed the Peters Brook two more times on course bridges. We passed around a pond, and came within close view of their club house building. There was one car that turned around and seemed to have their lights on us, but they left with no problem. We were able to walk right on through to the north, until we were pretty close to Talamini Road.

Sun setting

There was a trail that went to a dead end closer to the road, but I figured we could have a better way out to it, so we backtracked onto the paved path heading west, left the pavement, crossed a green, then reached a second hole area where we turned to the right to reach the road and a small fence.
We took some time to get over the fence, and then followed Talamini Road to the west.
When we reached Country Club Road, we turned to the right, to head north. We followed Country Club through the residential development to Roosevelt Street and turned right. We then followed Garfield Ave to the left. This road didn’t go through as a drivable route, but we could walk it.

Abandoned exit

We followed the closed section of Garfield to the north and reached Dow Road, and then turned to the right. We followed Madison Ave to the north, with the idea that we would then follow Cedarbrook Road to the right. I thought about it and changed my mind.

Sunset in Bridgewater

We instead followed Cedarbrook Road to the left. Dan had not made the turn where the rest of us did, and so it was easier to meet up, and it would be less questionable where we’d be walking northbound. We reached Country Club Road, met Dan, and turned right.

Abandoned exit

This took us out and parallel with the exit ramps between Interstates 78 and 287. We then turned to the right on Burnt Mills Road.
We turned to the right and continued until we got to the entrance road to Burnt Mills Park.
I had hiked this a couple of times before, including before the trail connection was in place.
Now, the trail goes in at the north side, so we had a good through route. We took a little break when we got to the playground area, and then continued out across the fields to the north. There is one private home off the north end of the park, but other than that we were into woods.

Abandoned exit road

We continued along the path weaving around, with deer exclosure fences around us.
We crossed over a little brook on a trail bridge, and eventually came out alongside Rt 202, where the trail made use of the pedestrian bridge on it’s southbound side. Once on the other side, it took us to the left along River Road, and then across into River Road Park. The pavement ended there, and we walked through the gravel lot to the north until we got to the ramp up to a pedestrian bridge over the AT&T access road.

solar panels at the school

The trail descended again, and then went alongside the AT&T road beneath Rt 202. I turned down to the North Branch of the Raritan River on the other side, where we stopped for a good swiming break.
The water at this point was way deeper than I’d expected it to be, and was quite nice.
When we got done with our break, we turned to the north along the Bedminster Hike and Bike Trail beneath the AT&T road, and then up through woods parallel with the North Branch at first. It soon moved away from the river, and there was a nice view of a large pond to the left.

Pond on Bedminster Hike and Bike Trail

We continued through the woods, and continued up to Miller Lane Park, where we emerged behind the police station. At first, I was going to turn here to get out to the highway, but it was better to stay on the trail just a little longer.
We continued back into more woods, and then turned to reach the Bedminster Public School. The trail skirts the side of it, and then emerges into the school’s parking lot. The trail turns to the right through another swath of trees before ending at another park on Elm Street, but we turned to the left on the school’s access road back out to Rt 202.
We cut directly across from here, where there was a sidewalk and a couple of buildings with businesses in them. One sidewalk went right between the two, and headed into the parking lot we had left the cars in earlier to complete the hike.
While there, Jen realized she didn’t have her phone, and we thought she had left it along the river. Cupcake took me back and dropped me off where I could run the AT&T road to the trail and check for it.
I didn’t find anything at the river, which was exactly where we thought it would be. It was on airplane mode, so we couldn’t find it with the “find my phone” app. I ran the trail back across the foot bridge and to River Road Park where Cupcake picked me up.
We made our way from there back down to Burnt Mills Park, and fortunately found it there at the playground. With the chrisis averted, Cupcake dropped Jen back off in Somerville and then took Lerch and I back to our cars in Raritan to finish the night.
I’ll have to soon get back to the original planned route for this hike, maybe before the weather gets too cold to do it.