Hike #1254; Fox Gap to Delaware Water Gap

Hike #1254; Fox Gap to Delaware

9/13/19 Fox Gap to Delaware with Justin Gurbisz and Ken Zaruni

This next hike would be another point to point night hike, this time quite a bit different than what I usually do for these, stretching a bit north of the Kittatinny Ridge. Usually I keep the night hikes south of there, but I realized it wasn’t too far out after all.

Kirkridge Shelter

I had not done a group hike to the Columncile Megalith Park in years at this point, although I’d stopped by a few times, and I wanted to get another group back up there.
I was surprised that so few showed up even though I’d posted it rather prominently. I figured this would be a much more popular one.
Regardless, it would still be a pretty group route, and it worked out as I had planned it to.
We met at Smiddy’s Liquor Store in Delaware, where we pass by every year for our anniversary hike. They’re always good to me, and allowed me to park at their site.

Nelson Vista

From there, we shuttled up through the Delaware Water Gap, then back down through Fox Gap from Rt 33 to Rt 191 to the ridge top. The Appalachian Trail passes through this area, known as Fox Gap, and I used that as the start because it’s a 24 hour lot.

Nelson Vista

We started out by following the Appalachian Trail to the north. The first bit was an out and back because there’s such a great view at the Nelson Vista. We first followed the AT to the blue blazed side trail to the Kirkridge Shelter, adjacent to the Nelson Retreat. I had not been there in years either. It looked like it had been upgraded a bit since my last visit.

Appalachian Trail on Kirkridge

I had to watch on the way out for “The Great Walk”, which was the side trail down the mountain to Columncile, but it was looking quite abandoned.

Power line crossing and Offset view

The blue trail at the shelter looked to be in pretty good shape. When we got to the shelter, there was a guy already there setting up or something. We chatted with him a bit and moved on, as not to bother him too much.

The Great Walk

The blue trail continues back down from the shelter and returns to the Appalachian Trail just a little further up.
When we arrived at Nelson Vista, which is a huge clearing, there were already some people up there at the view. I think they were playing hackey sack or something. I can’t quite remember. We just checked out the view, but didn’t hang out too long before turning back.
We followed the Appalachian Trail back out the way we had come but stayed on it rather than the blue trail for that stretch. We paused to check out the view from a power line crossing along the way. I pointed out how you could see the Offsets from there. Just beyond Fox Gap to the west, the Kittatinny Ridge sort of ends and the Blue Mountain begins. It’s kind of the same ridge, but they double onto one another. Further west in Pennsylvania, they call these “Doubling Gaps”. We could see the end of the Blue Mountain section from this vantage point.

The Great Walk

The two mountains in this area are known as “The Big Offset” and “The Little Offset”.
Just beyond the power line view, The Great Walk crossed the AT. I could barely see the old orange blazes along the route.
The route was made to connect across the AT from the Nelson Retreat to Columncile, but it was not maintained for many years. The last time I did it several years back it was already not really maintained, but it was easy enough to follow.
This time, it was much harder to follow. I tried to see the blazes, but there was not a lot of good grading. I think it might have been a woods road at first, but then it’s just a foot path.
As the grade started to get steeper, it became a bit of a foot path with some side hill work done. It was easy to lose because it had trees fallen across it in several places. I had to pay close attention. It was also not a straight or direct route at all.

Along the Great Walk

It was a really nice trail. I’ve heard that there are talks of reviving it, but for this time, it was not so.
Just after a cool little rock outcrop, we intersected with a yellow trail with a routed wooden sign.
I thought that this would make things easier, but such was not the case. The yellow blaze I saw at the post was the only yellow blaze I saw anywhere.
We turned to the right, but we ended up just following more orange ones.
The blazes got a little more strange in this area, because it appeared to be orange painted cloth affixed to the trees rather than paint blazes. I think this is the only place I’ve seen such a thing.
We walked further along this route, and it probably continued up ahead along the slope, but there was a good woods road going down hill to the left. I opted instead to follow that.

An old barn

The woods road took us under a power line clearing and then into some more woods, where there was an intersection with other woods roads. I felt confident we were now on the Colunncile trail system. I still have never followed all of the trails there, and I didn’t have their map, so I had to be careful and try to figure out the best way.
We made the first right fork in the trail, which sort of paralleled the power line heading back to the east. I watched the aerial images on my phone that seemed to lead us toward the house of the builders of Columncile, which I knew was where to go.

Stacked stones

As we walked, we passed by an old abandoned barn with one door busted off of it. It didn’t seem like many used this trail too often.
The woods road eventually came out in what looked like a yard area. We were close to the house, but I didn’t want to just emerge there. We turned back, and then make the first turn on the next trail off to the right.
There was another trail steeply coming down the mountain from the north, which probably follows a utility line from a point closer to the Appalachian Trail. I might use this as part of another hike in the future possibly.

Weird root ball

The trail we had turned on had not been used really at all in a long while. It got to be badly overgrown, and eventually we just cut over to the right to get across a small stream, then up to a more prominent trail. At this point, there were lots of rocks in an old stone row, all stacked up.
We headed down hill and got to a much more prominent trail intersection. I was a lot less concerned when we got there. We were heading to the main, more popular part of Columncile. We made a right turn, and then passed an upside down tree root ball, and then started seeing vertical stones.

Thor's Gate

The rocks were all throughout the woods in this area, with the prominent Stonehenge like stacked doorway leading the way to the open garden section of the park.

Columcille

Columcille started out as a non profit organization in 1978 to promote “transformation through outer and inner work”.
It has it’s origins in Casa Colum, which means “Home of the Dove” in Gaelic, a small house opened in 1975 by William Cohea Jr as a “salon by the side of the road” where “tired sinners and reluctant saints” could drop by and share their experiences and ideas.
Williams had visited the Isle of Iona and was inspired to create an open space where anyone of any religion or tradition was welcome to engage in renewal and transformation.

Megaliths

With Fred Lindkvist and Friends of Columcille, the original foundation grew and the St. Columba Chapel was erected in 1979.
The building took it’s name from Colum Cille, a 6th century Irish Monk who founded the monastic community on Iona.
After the chapel building was completed, the St. Oran Bell Tower was begun, modeled after an 8th century Irish ruin. Shortly after that, a stone circle was constructed, followed by meditation pond, and rocks and landscaping all around following that. The main entrance we were going in was trilithon Thor’s Gate. There are something like 18 or so megaliths standing in the area.

Looking through Thor's Gate

We headed down hill along a path among megaliths, and then to the right to the sort of octagonal shaped Saint Columba Chapel. It has a giant wooden door to get in.

St. Columba Chapel

I turned the big latch, and we entered the building. Its’ an amazing little spot.
There is a big rock in the center of the building when the door is open, and some seats along the edges. There was no one else in there when we arrived this time.
We had a look around, and then made our way out to the paths around the property.
We turned to the left, and then there was one past the little meditation pond and over a little bridge toward the St. Oran Bell Tower. These structures are all reportedly constructed of native stone from Ireland.

St. Columba Chapel

We walked inside this one, which had a totally open top. Justin pointed out that there was a giant transparent rock on top, possibly some kind of quartz. It’s easy to miss if you’re not really looking around to see it.
We made our way out of here, and then followed through the open swath of land heading sort of down hill slightly. There was a ring of standing stones, and then a couple of really tall ones.
we continued past these, and headed out to the very corner of the property. There was a rock that had a sort of natural bench looking cut in it next to the last megalith.

St. Columba Chapel

We got to the very edge of their cleared area, where there was an end to teh fence into the woods a bit. We walked around that and emerged onto Quaker Plain Road.
We walked the road down hill gradually and passed the intersection with Persimmon Lane. The road wasn’t incredibly busy, so it was pretty pleasant.
We continued heading down hill and passed the intersection with Blue Mountain Drive to the left. We continued to the right on Blue Mountain Drive.
I know there was a trail connection to Blue Mountain Drive in the past, but I didn’t know where it was exactly, and wasn’t ready to chance it this time.
It was going to get dark pretty soon, and my goal next was to get on the Minsi Lake trail system, and then finish that before dark.

St. Columba Chapel

We continued a bit more down Blue Mountain Lake Drive, and there was another woods road between houses I thought to use, but we didn't’ do that one either.

St. Columba Chapel history

We walked just a little bit further down the road to reach the parking area with the boat launch at the west side of Minsi Lake.
I had been to this site and walked some of the perimeter maybe a little over a year before, and it was completely drained for dam repairs. I figured it would have been refilled by this time, but such was not the case.
Not only was it not refilled, it had now completely grown in with all sorts of vegetation. I would imagine they’re supposed to clear that before they try to refill it, because that would be a lot of stuff in that water decomposing. It must have been about three years now the thing has been empty.
I had been in touch with Celeste, who was going to try to meet up with us late on this one, but I couldn’t figure out exactly where to have her park. The nearest I could think of was at this lot at Minsi Lake, but it was a good thing I didn’t have her do that.

Columcille

The lot was totally blocked off and the trails officially closed to public, and they don’t allow dogs on them at all anyway.
Of course, we walked around that and got on the trail system anyway, which headed through the woods to the north side of the lake bed.
We continued along and the trail did not really remain on the side of the lake. It more so moved it’s way back further inland, and there were signs labeling this the Mount Bethel Fens Preserve. I know The Nature Conservancy owns some land back there behind the lake, so maybe that is some of it.

Columcille

We continued to move along through the woods. None of the trail was really marked properly, or even at all. The first time I walked it back in like 2003 it was a nice and rustic trail, but I think it is even farther from the lake front than it was back then. It appears that they had used large machines to clear a new trail a bit further back, but it really wasn’t all that nice of a route. It’s nicer than when it was initially cleared, but still looks like a bulldozer path or something.
It got to be a little confusing further out there, and you could tell when we were in the middle of nowhere, because it was growing in a bit, and showed less evidence of having had some sort of machine driving on it.
We eventually started getting closer to the other side, and it was obvious that the path was a bit more trod. It had seemed like it was getting darker, but over at the other side, the light shone through quite a bit more.

St. Oran Bell Tower

The trail emerged at the end of a parking lot, and this one was also cut off to public access.
We walked down through and headed toward the former waterfront. I couldn’t believe how badly the weeds had grown in since my previous visit.
We followed the shore from a vantage point where I could point out the clearing on top of the ridge for the Nelson Vista, where we had been a bit earlier. I love spots like this, where we can really get perspective for where we had been earlier.
I matched up one of my photos from a hike I had done here in 2003 to about the same scene now. I wonder how they’ll ever bring this lake back, with all of the vegetation growing along the floor of it.
Apparently they have some sort of time frame, where it’s supposed to be refilled around 2020, but it seems like they have a lot of work to do.

St. Oran Bell Tower

In the lake, there were all sorts of weird circular things. They were round fixtures with sort of lathe popping up all around the outside, and lots of ballast rock in the middle. I was calling them “Gravel UFOs”. They are apparently to help for amphibious and/or fish habitat I am told.
We made our way from here out the main driveway, and ended up on East Shore Drive. It was starting to get dark at this point.
I had considered walking a portion of the old Lehigh and New England Railroad to the south of there, because I had followed it before and it was alright, but over the past few years it’s not really a good route any more. So many adjacent land owners had taken the thing and made it very private. You used to be able to walk clear on through pretty easily from Portland all the way to Pen Argyl. Now there’s just too much encraochment, too many posted signs everywhere.

Looking out of St. Oran Bell Tower

Just below Minsi Lake was the former junction with the East Bangor Branch of the Lehigh and New England. It ran to Bangor and apparently once had a connection to the main line. It’s hard to find the connection, but I talked to an old main who told me all those years ago, and we managed to get through on it.
We turned left on East Shore Road here.
The sun was going down very pretty, and we had a view to our right out toward New Jersey. I could see the hump shape of Mount No More in the distance as we walked along.

St. Oran Bell Tower

We walked on down the road to the intersection with Totts Gap Road where we turned to the right. Some of the roads intersection to the east were dirt. I’ll have to walk those some time.

Columcille

When we crossed where the Lehigh and New England Railroad used to cross, I barely recognized it. To the right, it was parallel with a power line. We joked about a car just laying out there, sort of hidden in the weeds on it. The railroad bed could probably be accessed there, but back in the direction we were coming from. Eastbound, it had lots of no trespassing signs and now a very serious gate over it. It made me sad to see that we can’t access this any more. A great opportunity was really missed when they let these rights of way go. I read they let go of more of it out in Lehigh Township too.

St Oram Bell Tower

We continued down Totts Gap Road until we got to the little settlement of Johnsonville, at the intersections of Totts Gap Road, Lillian Lane, Johnsonville Road, Ridge Road, and near Minsi Lake Drive. There was what was probably an old hotel building now used as another business on the northeast corner. We walked across the porch of that, then along a frontage driveway I think on a church property to continue on Lillian Lane to the east. These roads weren’t too busy, but it was annoying every time a car came speeding on by. I couldn’t wait to get off of the roads.

Columcille

We continued following the road to the east, and the moon started to rise in the same direction we were walking. It was quite nice.

Columcille

We came to a ninety degree bend in Lillian Lane, and turned right, where Heiden Road continued to the left slightly up hill. Lillian crossed over the active railroad tracks at grade, which was where we would turn.
This railroad was another I’ve walked several times. It originally the Bangor and Portland Railroad, built between the towns of the same name in 1879. It was then extended down along the Martins Creek to Brainards NJ where it connected with the Belvidere Delaware line in 1885.

Columcille

The Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad took over the Bangor and Portland and made it their Bangor and Portland Division in 1903.
We continued walking the tracks into a nice cut ahead. It was pretty dark, and although ballast rock is a pain to walk on, it was a nice break from the road.
We soon passed beneath Ye Olde Highway, which is predecessor to nearby Rt 512. I told Ken and Justin about the silliness that ensued on past times hiking this, when Tea Biscuit, Peeps, and I work meat coats (lab coats) on a circuit and police were trying to find us all day.

Columcille

We crossed over Sand Pit Road, and then continued on along to reach a short parallel piece of Million Dollar Highway, adjacent to the old Mount Bethel train station.

Columcille

The old station is now handsomely maintained as a private home. It might date back to the original Bangor and Portland Railroad, judging by it’s shape.
We made our way from here across Railroad Ave and into some woods as the area got to be a bit more developed. We crossed over Middle Village Road as we reached the outskirts of Portland, then swung around to cross over Rt 512 on a bridge. The open deck with he ties to walk on I think used to be the only way, but now there was a metal grating along the side that made crossing easier.

At Minsi Lake

After the bridge, we went into a cut, and there was a junction with another track that went of to an industrial site to the right. I almost went the wrong way there. I’d forgotten that the wye heading in to Portland and the junction with the old Lackawanna main was a bit further.
We headed into a very dark cut in town, and then the wye was just beyond.
At this point, I had posted that there would be two choices. My route was to turn right on the old Lackawanna main heading to the south, then cross the Delaware on the old through style truss bridge.

Minsi Lake in 2003

The other choice, slightly longer, was to turn left and then cross over the Delaware on the Columbia-Portland foot bridge, then follow Rt 46 south.

Minsi Lake now

I have walked that way before, down 46, but it’s nothing I am in any hurry to ever do again.

Minsi Lake bridge

Ken was originally considering going that way, because he figured it’d be too dangerous to go across the bridge. Just when it was at the wye junction to go north or south, he jokingly said “I don’t like my family that much anyway. Screw ‘em!” and turned to walk with Justin and I toward the old bridge.
The tracks took us over a bridge across Rt 611, while the west end of the way crossed over the highway at grade. We soon began to descend along the edge of the old main Lackawanna.

Old Lackawanna main

We continued south a bit more, closely parallel with Rt 611. We then reached the Portland power plant on the left. The plant had somewhat recently closed. I think this might have been my first time walking by it since it closed down.

Moon rise

I’m not sure what the long term is for the plant. There is still a power generation thing, I think gas or something, but that’s it now. The coal plant is done for.

Bottle mess

We continued past the plant, and the tracks moved off toward the crossing of the Delawaer. The tracks surprisingly looked pretty shiny right up to the edge of the bridge. They’re not supposed to use it any more, although there are still rains on it, but maybe they have.
We started crossing, and I just skipped across pretty easily. I thought it might be more of an issue at night, but it was really far more simple than I had anticipated. “
When I got near the middle of the bridge, I jumped down into the framework on top of one of the piers. I had always done this in the past, going back to the earliest hikes. It was disheartening to see so much broken glass down there this time. I had worn these shoes on this hike that Dan Lurie had left out in the Sussex Branch lot on a night hike probably two years ago, and they had holes through the bottoms to the ground. I was lucky I didn’t have a piece go into my shoe and cut my foot.

Dry Minsi Lake and Nelson Vista clearing on the ridge

Once we got to the other side, it was really weedy. There had always been a good way through, but now it was quite a mess. We started bushwhacking through.

Minsi Lake bridge

Justin and Ken got down some easier way than I went. I fought through a lot of what I think was Japanese Knotweed, and then made my way down the slope to the left.

Minsi Lake Bridge

We had to go a little ways along because otherwise we’d fall from the concrete piers.

Dry Minsi Lake

I bushwhacked through the weeds a little further than necessary, just so I didn’t emerge on someone’s yard too closely.

Gravel UFOs

We were soon on Rt 46, and were able to turn to the right to head back to the cars.

View along the road at sunset

It was a bit earlier than we thought it would take, which was cool, and we did the entire route as planned.
I got a ride back to my car from Justin, and got myself home at a bit more decent hour.
There’s still a lot more to see and do throughout that area we hiked. There are plenty more dirt back roads, there are more trails at Columcille, and there is the boardwalk at the archery complex at Minsi Lake I have not been on in years. I’ll have to consider some more hikes up that way utilizing some of the past routes I’ve done, meeting at points I can easily get to from work.

iAY!

The only concern with those hikes is that there will still be enough interest to merit hosting them up there. It seems like I get more people showing up when I do things in Morris or Hunterdon. Maybe there will be another influx of interest and we’ll try some more.

HAM