Hike #1252; Mt Olive to Long Valley

Hike #1252; Mt. Olive to Long Valley

9/5/19 Mt. Olive to Long Valley with Sue Bennett, Celeste Fondaco Martin, Annika Krystyna, Ken Zaruni, Justin Gurbisz, Brittany Audrey, Cupcake (Chris Kroschinski), and Dan Asnis

This next hike would be another night hike, this time between Mount Olive and Long Valley. I had planned out a route I wanted to take that would include some new trail stuff as well as some more I’d never done before. It didn’t exactly work as planned, but what we did do ended up being pretty cool.

Mt. Olive trail fun weeee

I had done some of the Mt. Olive trail system starting as far back as when development started in 2009, but there are still little bits of it I haven’t done.
This time, I looked at a few things that had been put in, thinking maybe I could do some of them and not others, it would all depend on time.
I really like the section of trail that skirts through the swamps in Mt. Olive, and I really liked swimming in Maiers Pond when we had done that last year, so I planned that to be part of it.
We met at our end point, one that I use very often, the Krauszers in Long Valley. From there, we shuttled with as few cars as possible to our start point, at the Home Goods on Rt 46 in Mt. Olive. From there, we could just walk out to the intersection, and then cross over to Old Budd Lake Road, where the trail cuts immediately into the woods to the south.

Old car

The trail immediately passed by some houses, and then went up a bit of a slope near the new development that was still under construction to the right. Some of the trail was kind of hard to maneuver through because there were sort of vernal pools and such in the way. It hadn’t been cleared much on this end, but Ken told me there were new sections of board walk a little further on, which are really nice.
The last time we had come through this area, it was pretty wet, and we had to circumnavigate along some of the swamp lands because of it. Boardwalks alleviate some of that.

Swamp lands

We passed by an old car along the path, and made our way out toward those wetlands. The board walks and bridge and such were pretty nice to see.
The trail took us out to Gold Mine Road, which I only realize now is pretty funny, because there are not many roads with that name, and my previous hike to this one started on an unrelated Gold Mine Road in Pennsylvania.
We waited a bit for everyone to catch up, and then continued on the white blazed trail to the south through more land that gives the illusion that we’re in really deep woods, when we were never really far from houses at all at any time. When houses started coming into view to the left, another trail joined.

Ken and the boardwalk bit

Some of this area was what was labeled as “Developer’s Incentive Open Space”, I guess some kind of cluster development that allowed for public open space adjacent to it for trails and such.
We turned to the right at this next trail junction, where white blazes seem to end, and there are these random red metal ones with hiker emblems on them, now growing deeply into the trees.
The wider more mowed trail led us out to Elias Drive at the entrance to a development. We turned across this, behind the sign at the entrance to it, and then turned to the right for a bit along Flanders Road.

HAM

I hadn’t noticed before, but the next older house to the right looks like it might have at one time been an old school house.
We didn’t have to go along the road for all that long before turning left into Turkey Brook Park’s east side.
Cupcake and Justin were to meet up with us there, but I somehow mixed up north and east and whatever in telling them where to go, and they were over at the Seward House on the west side.
We continued across the parking lot, then along a surfaced trail following the east side of the park for a bit. There were sort of access roads named for different people going off to the woods, and we continued to the south side on one of these. When we reached the tree line, we turned to the right, west, and skirted below ball fields in areas that used to be just a bunch of disturbed dirt piles. I remembered my first time bringing a group through here when it was just big piles of dirt with nothing on them. Now it was Ailanthus and invasives.

Scenic swamp on the trail system

We stepped over the edge of a gate and then reached the woods road trail that goes down hill toward Maiers Pond. There was another trail to the left that came off of a power line next.

Mt Olive white trail

We continued straight down hill into the woods, and two more trails joined in from the left. The favorite of mine is the orange one that actually follows the Turkey Brook itself, but we wouldn’t be following that one this time.
We continued ahead to Maiers Pond to take a break. Justin and Cupcake were not there yet, so we waited for a while for them.
I had wanted to swim, but the water was looking kind of scuzzy. With all of the Harmful Algae Blooms (HAB) in all of the waters throughout the area, I didn’t want to mess around with going into it. It was just gross looking.

Trail blaze swallowed by a tree

Once everyone was together, we continued walking around the west side of Maiers Pond, then around the south side of it heading to the east. The white trail soon turned into a pink trail, not because it’s supposed to, but because apparently someone spray painted them.

This Ailanthus is getting inundated by Mile a Minute Vine. The irony.

There was a lot of beaver activity at the dam for the pond. They seem to have raised the level of the pond a bit over where the trail turns away from it to the south. There is a plank over a section of it that leads out into the woods.
We weaved on through and then crossed one of the Turkey Brook tributaries. The blazes diverged from the obvious path that people have been walking through this area, and I tried to follow the official route, but it was kind of crappy. It eventually led us out to Schoohouse Lane, where it crosses over to reach the Mt. Olive High School. We however turned to the right here to follow Schoolhouse Lane.

Maiers Pond

Dan was a bit behind, but we soon saw him come out of the woods where he could see us.
We made our way out to Corey Road and turned to the right, then turned to the left when we got to Victoria Drive. We followed this a short distance to Theresa Drive to the south, and came out to Flanders-Drakestown Road.
I had followed this for a hike in the past once before, coming out of the Silver Springs Farm property, but at that time there was no trail there and we had a hell of a time getting through the fields there. I had noticed that there was now a trail there on township maps, which is one of the reasons I chose to do this hike, to see what they had done with those trails.

Maiers Pond

Silver Springs Farm is almost across from where we came out on Flanders-Drakestown. It’s just a brief jog to the left, and then right into the fields. When we did it last, I saw orange flaging ribbon going along the edge of the field, but in the woods, so I assumed this was a new trail. The website showed the trail terminating at the fields on the other side.

At Maiers Pond

I just figured that since there was a trail to the other side, it had to go somewhere. I assumed that the field edges would now be maintained.
I couldn’t have been more wrong about all of it.
When we got to the edge, we started heading to the woods on the parallel edge of the fields, but it was private land and a sort of driveway. I instead cut into the tree line and then out to the fields.
I figured we would be okay in the fields; it was not going to be as bad as the last time we were out because now I at least knew where the breaks between the fields were.

Along Maiers Pond

We started walking the edge of the field to the west a bit, then to the south. We were along an impenetrable tree line to the right for a bit, but then it started to open.

Maiers Pond

I cut through a bit early, but then waited for everyone when we got to the real cut through for the larger machines. High corn was planted in almost all of the fields.

Trail at Maiers Pond

When everyone had caught up, I let everyone know that there were two ways of doing this next section. The field edges were not great, so we could either try to go around the outside, or otherwise cut DIRECTLY through the corner and try to go to the cut through in the next field. Not everyone seemed totally into the bullying through the corn idea, but we all did it anyway.
I watched my GPS and tried to go straight the way it was telling me to go. I didn’t look at it again really until I was just about out. I tried to follow the land contour a bit to get out to the other side where I needed to be.

Mushrooms in the trail

I actually ended up coming out of the corner exactly on the spot I needed to, at the cut through to the next field. The others ended up going up hill a little bit too far and emerged up slope from the cut through.
When we were all together again, we headed through and then turned to the left parallel with the next field.
At the south end of this next field, there was another cut through to another field directly to the south of us, which seemed like it’d be the correct way, but it wasn’t. We instead turned to the right and followed a line of trees along the field to the next corner, where we could cut through to the next long field to the south.
The first long field we had come to does not reach as far south at it’s far end as the next ones do, which is why I had us wait until that next one to head south. We skirted the edges, and sometimes had to get into the first few lines of corn because too many weeds were growing in along the edges. We eventually reached the woods on the other side.

Tree ID?

It was in this area that this new trail, as per the website, was supposed to terminate at the field edges.
By this time, the sun was setting beautifully. When we were away from the higher corn and could get a perspective to the west, it was just stunning.
We admired the view for a bit, and Ken went off to see if he could find the trail we were looking for.
He had seen the same map that I did, and tried to compare on his phone to get exactly where that trail was supposed to be. He got right to that spot, but there was nothing there.
I joined him in a little bit, and we both looked painstakingly for this trail, not to find it at all.
This was pretty frustrating. I walked along the tree line looking for some of the flagging ribbon I had seen the previous time out, or at least some kind of trail blaze, but there was nothing at all.
We all kind of stood around for a bit just trying to figure out what to do.

Sunset

I finally decided that we needed to move along to the south. We ended up doing quite a lot of zigzag moves back and forth on this slope.
We kept heading downhill and to the west, but then started coming into a view that was a clearing for a private home. We had to backtrack, and then head to the west a bit. We ended up on a route of some height of land heading down hill until we came to a woods road to the west of where we were supposed to be. I at first thought that this was the trail we were supposed to be on. We turned to the right and followed it out to the house we were heading toward wrongfully before. We had to backtrack again.

Fields

Fortunately, the woods were not full of all sorts of undergrowth. We were able to navigate it rather easily.
My intention with all of this was to come out at the end of a corporate road that is a bit north of the post office area, but we ended up going way out of the way.
We started bushwhacking down hill a bit more, and were going to come out behind the Shop Rite of Flanders. We never did find the real official trail I don’t think. We continued to the very back of the store where we had to climb down a weird slope in order to get to the lot. This took a little bit of time, but eventually we all came out there.

Sunset over silver springs farm

During this time, I was on the phone with Rich Pace who had called me up. He was saying he and his girlfriend might be joining one of my hikes one day soon, which would be awesome.

Sunset

We walked around the store to the right, and then came all the way back around the plaza to the left. We stopped or a break at a pizza place.
I hung out outside and waited for everyone to get what they wanted. It was a good break after the long section of craziness.
From here, we headed out of the complex along the edge of a retention pond. I wanted to cut through to the next business as easily as possible and without having to walk Rt 206, but it was just not possible after dark. We had to climb down and back up the retention pond, and then down to the highway again to move on.
Annika hurt her leg on this section, and she used Uber to get back to her car. It aggravated another injury, so this knocked her out of hiking for a while unfortunately. I went back and helped her get back up the other side again, and then we were off heading south along the edge of Rt 206.

Moon over the High Bridge Branch

As I was walking south on 206, on the edge of the pavement I twisted my ankle. I heard a snap as I rolled it. I knew that couldn’t be good. It hurt terribly bad.
I kept on walking. I had to favor it heavily and I could no longer walk fast after that. It actually still hurts at the time of my writing this a couple of weeks later.
Once your roll an ankle once, it’s easy to roll it again, so I had to be very careful not to have another problem.
We continued down the highway and turned tothe right near the Flanders Shop Rite, and then turned to the left when we got to Triumph Plastics. We were able to cut through the back of that lot to reach teh former High Bridge Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey. We turned right and followed this all the way back to Long Valley, which was quite nice.
The first section from Flanders to Bartley still has tracks in place, but isn’t too hard.

Sunset

We continued across Barley Road where it becomes the Columbia Trail, the most poorly named rail trail in the state, and continued out through Naughright area.
When we finally reached Long Valley, we turned to the left on the driveway access that takes us to Gillette Trail. The actual marked trail is a bit overgrown coming down from the rail trail where the sign was. We headed out to the old farm crossing of the South Branch of the Raritan River, and I called Dan to let him know what to do to meet up with us. I then jumped into the South Branch for a dip. The spot at the old farm bridge is very deep and refreshing. It was a bit cooler out, and most didn’t want to swim at this point, but I loved it.
After I got out, Dan had still not arrived. We thought we had seen his flashlight through the trees, so he should have been there.
I had told him to turn down the driveway, but it turns out he continued north past that. He was trying to follow Google maps instead of my directions. I told him to go at the driveway, and even though he had to go past gates on either side of it, he decided to to continue because his google maps showed him the trail being further up.
Google maps shows the trail being where a gas line bride is a bit further up, and there is no marking. Dan continued past there and to the well lit new development. I ushered him back and told him how to get to us, but we had to wait a bit. We finally left when I was confident he could get back through, and headed back to the cars. I saw him coming up as I pulled out.
The hike had been pretty good, but it was a good reminder that these trails don’t always exist the way they’re shown on the maps, and we just have to be prepared for just about anything.