Hike #1262; Westbrookville to Port Jervis

Hike #1262; Westbrookville to Port Jervis

10/11/19 Westbrookville to Port Jervis with Jillane Becker

This next hike would be a sort of spur of the moment one, planned because I wanted to see and document a lot of the Delaware and Hudson Canal I had already hiked, but didn’t get to see very well on the second to last one in the series.

An old restaurant in Westbrookville

It had gotten dark on that one, and we didn’t finish until quite late. By doing this, I could fill in the blanks in terms of images. I’m really trying to share a comprehensive visual guide for the entire canal route on Metrotrails, and with as significant a piece missing as I’d had, I figured I needed to go and do it. Plus, I really badly wanted to see it.
It was so pleasant walking, it was driving me crazy not being able to have a visual frame of reference.
Jillane agreed to go out for a long hike with me, and I wanted to see this section before I covered the next section with the rest of the group to have it documented. We headed out, and stopped by to see the Crossroads Diner on the drive up, in Bridgeville. It had just been removed from the rest of it’s building frame, ready to be trucked to upstate New York for storage and hopefully later use.

History in Westbrookville

We made another pit stop on the way up in Newton because she wanted to see a thrift store. I knew it would set us behind a bit, but overall I didn’t care too much.

The old canal in back yards in Westbrookville

We then continued to the north toward Port Jervis. Had it been earlier, I would have gotten us an Uber from there to Westbrookville and just walked back, but with the amount of time left in the day, I wanted to do it opposite. I wanted to see everything starting in Westbrookville the most.
We headed over toward the post office and Pine Kill Deli, and then turned opposite to park down in the Basha Kill Wildlife Management Area to the east. The access road is a little rough, and we parked out in a field section. An old couple were heading out walking from the same lot wearing full camo.

The canal in Westbrookville

I think they were heading out hunting together, which was somewhat cute.
We headed back up the access road to Rt 209, and then crossed to visit the Pine Kill Deli before heading out.
We got some snacks and drinks, and then headed up 209.
We couldn’t walk the canal directly because the creek known as the Pine Kill was missing the aqueduct that carried the canal across. Beyond, it goes through some back yards, so we would have to walk a little further up.

The canal

There was an abandoned restaurant on the left side of the highway, I forget what it was called. There was also a former school house that was now a residence.
On the right side, the Westbrook House, built by Tjerck Keuren Westbrook around 1750 was still standing. There was also a fortification at this point at the time.
The home had interesting vertical hand hewn wooden braces in it’s facade, all exposed. I’ve not seen a piece of architecture quite like it I don’t think. Westbrookville is of course named for this settler.

The canal approaching washout

The Old Mine Road, first commercial road in America, is the now Route 209 through there.
We continued past the intersection with Otisville Road, and could see the canal off to the left along the backs of people’s yards. Just ahead, we crossed into Orange County.
There was a driveway on the left side, which took us to the canal towpath. It looked quite clear enough to walk on the right side from here, and so we did so heading to westbound on it.
It didn’t stay so good. There were some sections that were pretty badly ovegrown.

The canal in Westbrookville

The canal route was pretty well intact, with houses along the sides of it for a bit. There was one really bad section with thorns growing over it. Because we were in Orange County, all of it is supposed to be completely public land, so we should have been good. It was however very hard to follow at this one time.
We made our way along, and then came to a major washout where there probably used to be a weir, and it goes into someone’s back yard. On the previous hike we left the canal at this point and cut through people’s back yards and out to back roads to get back to the cars.

Washout in Westbrookville

Had I known it was passable, we would have just followed the canal a little further. Jillane and I just walked down hill heading the opposite direction we had previously done, and crossed a little corner of back yard grass. We then climbed up to the towpath again on the other side, which resumed rather easy to follow.

The canal was overtaken by Rt 209 slightly in the section ahead, where we got a little close to it again. There was reportedly a basin in this area at one time. The towpath remained intact through this section.

The canal

Soon, the canal turned off away from 209 a bit. This was a particularly beautiful section with Eastern Hemlocks, on a high shelf above the Basha Kill well below in the valley.
We continued pleasantly through the woods, and the next point of interest was the former site of Richardson’s Bridge, just after the site of Richardson’s Basin. Both abutments to this bridge were still in place, and had pretty impressive stone work. We passed through here and continued through more pleasant woods, and the next point of interest ahead was a former weir site.

Richardson's Bridge site

The weird was pretty much gone, but a very stable, prefabricated foot bridge had been placed over the expanse. There was even some caged rock to make up the footings.

Old weir site

Just a little bit past the weir site and bridge we reached Port Orange. The Port Orange Road crosses, and a couple of houses left from the settlement of Port Orange are on adjacent Rt 209. When we hiked this before, I almost went out and hiked 209 for the stretch, but I’m glad I didn’t. The section is quite nice save for that bit by Westbrookville.

Pond partially at Van Inweigens Basin

Beyond Port Orange Road, the towpath was much clearer than it had been even before that.
At the road, there was a stone causeway built where the road would have gone over the bridge. When we see this, it’s usually because they dismantled the original abutments to level it off into the crossing with a box culvert around 1899.

Most canals just went out of business, but the Delaware and Hudson still had money, as the simply shifted the company into railroad from canal. They had already more rail mileage than most railroads with their gravity railroad.

Box culvert for Pierson's Bridge at Van Inweigen's Basin site

We headed off into the woods, and immediately moved off farther from Rt 209 than we had been previously. We passed under a power line, and the foliage was getting near it’s peak. This was just a beautiful section. I was so glad we came up to do it.
The next point of interest was the former site of Van Inweigen’s Basin. To the right of the canal, there was a large more modern pond. It looked like it would have been a part of the canal, but it actually sits up higher than where the canal level water would have been, and stretches further to the west. The towpath is completely washed out here, and the prism floor is eroded far beyond where it’s depth would have been. The modern pond only occupies part of where the original basin would have been.

Comfort's Basin

There is an ATV path that goes down and around the washout, but I missed where it turned off on the left, which is curious considering the fact that the last time I found it at night.
We ended up going down into the prism and over the rough rock rubble to the stream, and then headed off trail to the ATV track across the water. It was pretty dry, so it was easy.
We then climbed up the other side to resume on the towpath.

Along Comfort's Basin

Just beyond this point was the former site of Pierson’s Bridge, which has another one of those stone causeways over it. It looks like the box culvert just drops off at the end to the washout, but I think the lack of water running that way was partially protected by the culvert.
We continued from this bridge site and along the towpath through pleasant woods.
Soon, we came to where houses appeared to the left of us. Just beyond that, Oak Ridge Road and the canal towpath became one. We could have walked in the prism, because there were ATV paths in it, but we continued along the road, which was pleasant enough.

Approaching the canal store

This would be a horrible place to meet another car. It was literally one car width, and if anyone came down it, one would be forced to back up for sure.

The road joined with Old Road from the left, with the stop sign growing over with poison ivy vines, and it became wider. There was a bridge site to the right in the canal along here, probably the former site of Comfort’s Bridge.

The canal from the store porch

Just ahead, we reached Comfort’s Basin, a still watered former canal basin on which homes have been built. The water was much lower than it was the last time I was out there, and always lower than it was in canal days. We could see by the houses on the other side that the water had been higher, as they had more modern wooden docks built out over the now empty prism.
The road changed names to Lakeview Drive, and we continued out to Rt 209. We crossed directly onto another section of paved towpath that was formerly used as road known as Berman Road. A short distance ahead, we crossed over Oakland Valley Road, with the old canal store on the left side.

Approaching Lock #51

We were walking by, when we realized the side door was wide open. We decided to have a look before we continued. It was a rare opportunity.

1851 Neversink aqueduct abutment on left, 1828 on right

The place looked as though it had been prepared for use as an apartment. There were now no longer stairs connecting the upstairs to the downstairs. There were signs in the windows saying to cease work, so the land owner must not have gotten some sort of permits to do anything there.
We checked out the other side, and there was a door open to the crawl space, but nothing else. We didn’t get to see the bottom level, but I got the view of the canal from the porch.

We continued on the towpath ahead, which was well mowed and manicured more than anywhere else we had been on it. From Comfort’s Basin on, there are multiple basins. This was certainly because there would have been a backup in traffic of boats here. There are six locks just ahead, and each one would have taken time to lock through.
We were now in the final leg of the summit level of the canal. From Kingston NY to Honesdale PA, all but the next six locks we were to pass by lifted westbound. These six lowered to the Port Jervis Level, which was seventeen miles to Lock #57 at Montauk.
We weaved around, and took a break at a nice little pavilion sat along the towpath. There were good benches and stuff through this area, and trash cans to get rid of our drink cans.
In front of the pavilion were a couple of snubbing posts where mules could be tied, but they were likely moved to these locations from the locks just up ahead.

Historic view of the D&H Neversink Aqueduct

We continued from here to Lock #51 site. The lock was buried, and the house to the left was the lock house, although the owner told me that it was built earlier than that and reused for that purpose when the canal came through. The lock was also known as “Pie Lock” because of fresh pies that were made at the site.
We walked to the right a bit, because I wanted to see if there was anything left of the Neverink Feeder, but it was blocked and posted not to trespass.
We continued down by the filled in lock, and then past the power building to the right, now abandoned with it’s power canal there. The canal was actually above and behind this, but it’s overgrown.
We then reached the site of the Neversink Aqueduct. It was a beautiful site this time of year, and we could clearly see the abutments to both the original 1828 wooden trunk aqueduct and the 1851 John Roebling suspension aqueduct. The original abutment is now used as the foundation for a house, but the original trunk pocket can be seen with the differences in stones in the part that was filled early on.

Neversink Aqueduct site today

The west abutment to the original aqueduct is badly deteriorated, but standing to some degree. Jillane took a break beside the river, and I climbed up to the top of the later aqueduct. I got some photos in the wooden trunk area, as well as behind the old one. I had to climb down and around the outside of the old abutment, which had some impressive curved stone work, and then around it. I was afraid of a stone falling off of it and killing me. Flooding has not been kind to that abutment, and it looks as though more of it falls off with every heavy flow.
I climbed through the former trough area of the 1851 abutment, and then climbed to the western wall of it in order to get a then and now compilation photo using a historic photo from about the same point. I couldn’t get totally out on the end the way I wanted to because the blocks were deteriorating and would likely not have held my weight.
Once I had the photo, I headed back down to where Jillane was still beside the river, where she had discovered a giant Sycamore tree that was quite dead at the bottom an swaying.

Old neversink aqueduct abutment

The breeze was pretty strong in the tree top, and a giant crack in the thing expanded and contracted with each sway. It made a low pitched groan that echoed heavily with the wide cavity through it’s hollow base. Some sort of animal was definitely living in it. Jillane told me to put my head in it, but I was not about to do that.
From here, we headed out westbound, but Jillane walked the road adjacent to the Neversink River to the bridge carrying Rt 209 across, and I decided to wade across. The water wasn’t too cold, and I figured if I went down stream near the rocks, it wouldn’t be very deep. I was wrong on the second part of that.

Neversink Aqueduct from above historic view

The water was actually quite pleasant feeling, which surprised me since the Neversink River comes right out of the Catskills. The Neversink is usually colder than the Delaware.

Neversink Aqueduct from the west

The water came up to above my belt line and got the bottom of the blazer pockets wet. I was lucky not to fall in, because the footing was a bit slick.
I heaed up to the other side and tried to get a photo of the other side of the aqueduct, but I failed in getting the right position on it for a then and now from the side.

Lock #52 and lock house

I followed the canal ahead a bit, and soon came to Lock #52. I could see it more clearly this time than the previous time I was there because there were less leaves. The lock tender’s house still stands next to it, although somewhat altered.

Lock #54

I did not try to continue on the canal this time. I’d wandered through that the previous time, and it was a chore. Instead, I walked Prospect Hill Road out to Rt 206. Jillane was coming off of the bridge when I got there, and we walked by a few houses where there were some halloween displays out. The Monticello Branch of the New York, Ontario, and Western Railraod crossed just after where the canal crossed, and we crossed the highway onto Canal Drive.
The road closely parallels the canal, which remains above the road to the right, but out of sight. When I saw the berm start to go down, I felt pretty certain that was Lock #54.

Lock #55

I missed seeing Lock #53 because it was up by the Prospect Hill area behind the abandoned house that I had skipped.
We walked down the road a little bit more, and then I saw another dip. This was of course the site of Lock #55. I climbed up both to 54 and 55 to have a look. When I had hiked this previously, I just stayed down in the canal prism to get the best views of the locks, but this time I wanted to try to make a little better time on the road.
There was a house to the left of the road, which might have been a lock house, because it was old, but I’m not sure.
We continued to the intersection with the old Guymard Turnpike, where we turned slightly right, and then left along the canal past an occupied former lock house at Lock #56, also known as Mineral Springs Lock. This one was in pretty good condition, but really grown over. Guymard Turnpike crosses over the west end of the lock, and so that part is filled in.

Lock house at Lock #56

From this point, I told Jillane we had to make a decision. We could either turn back to my car in Westbrookville by following Guymard Turnpike either to the O&W Railroad bed below, or better yet the old Erie right of way, now the route of the Long Path, up on top to Otisville and then back down the road. She didn’t want to do that, so we continued to make it a full trip on the canal. I didn’t mind which way we went either way. I planned to call an Uber when we got to Port Jervis to get back.

Lock #56

We made our way onto the towpath beyond, which went by a house that now appeared to be vacant. I don’t think it was the last time I was there.
The canal left the yard and continued with a power line following it. The power line appears to have been out of service for a pretty long time. Some of the poles are knocked down, and in some areas the wires are dangling down into the towpath. Jillane commented that it would be really terrible if it were the Summer, which is exactly when I last walked the piece, and it was terrible. On that hike, we ended up spending hours swimming because we couldn’t have handled it any other way.
We continued for a long while on this section. We saw an abandoned car down along the far side which I didn’t notice the previous time. We crossed where bridges used to be. It was overall pretty pleasant. It seemed longer to me than it did the previous time.

Giant Sycamore in the berm

When we got to the last farm road crossing up to 209 where the towpath remained walkable, the trail turns off to follow the berm side. The blazing is somewhat spuratic, but good enough to see. We passed the enormous Sycamore tree I like in the berm, and then continued along in the canal prism itself.

Canal washout

When I walked this before, the group left me and went up to a deli, but I headed along the towpath. No one followed me on the towpath, and I had to go down and up hill around a washed out section of the canal. I didn’t realize at the time that there was a better way around.
We walked from the start of the washout onto the slope to the right, and just after it came to a very nice little foot bridge that went down steps, across, and back up more on the other side to resume on the towpath. It hadn’t been well used in some time, but it was there.
Once up on the other side, it was really weedy, but only for a short while until an ATV path came in from the left. It got better, and we headed up to Rt 209 and Huguenot Deli.

Foot bridge over the former canal

We were now coming into the town of Huguenot, where the canal crossed the Old Mine Road, which is now Rt 209. It’s named for French Huguenots that first settled here, including the Guymards.
I got a snickers bar or something as I recall, and a Four Loco Sour, which was really nearly too sour for me to handle. There wasn’t much of a selection of beer I was interested in.
We headed from here up Rt 209 past the fire department, and past the abandoned business the canal runs through from the left. We then turned to the right on Peenpack Trail.
A short distance away, the canal crossed. A house on the left used to be the canal store, and it’s filled in through the yard. There are no signs saying to go anywhere, and if you didn’t know how to get through you wouldn’t find it. Fortunately the last time I came through from the other direction.
We headed in a driveway, and then there was an ATV path that followed the towpath and came out. A guy was walking out in his yard around there, and he just looked over at us. I gave a friendly wave, and he just looked on at me.

The canal below Huguenot

The towpath was good for walking for a while, but then the ATV path turned off to the right and it became overgrown ahead. That’s because there was a brook that went through a weir or something ahead, and the towpath is purged out. I had walked this previously, and didn't want to bother with it again, so we followed the ATV path.
This path took us to the berm side of the canal, past a yard near where there was once reportedly a dry dock, and then through the woods along the berm side. Eventually, we had a clearing and a good way down to get back to the towpath.

Hornbecks Culvert site

We continued along a nice section, and then came to a spot where there used to be a little aqueduct, actually a stone culvert one, known as Hornbeck’s Culvert. We had to climb down and back up to get through this spot, and the towpath resumed easily beyond.

The old canal

This section is really a trip to me. It’s in the middle of nowhere it feels like, but it’s also in the middle of communities. If this were the Morris Canal, all sorts of houses and such would be built on it, but this was amazingly pretty intact. It doesn’t seem possible that it could traverse this much land without crossing roads, but I think it only crossed one.
At the point it did cross the road, someone did try to block the towpath off with all sorts of sticks and such, which is technically illegal since all of it in Orange County is public land.

Blockage

We were able to easily walk around it though, and we continued through an even more wooden area heading to the west.
It was starting to get quite a bit darker, but we were still good passing through here. We paralleled a road that went to Martin Lake, a community below, and I don’t remember ever actually seeing the lake.
We passed around a rock outcropping called Bird House Rock, and soon the road made a turn away to the left. There was a sand quarry access road that purged the towpath ahead, and that’s where we got back on it the last time I was out, but this time we went straight.

Bird House Rock

The last time, we went swimming out in the quarry. I had thought to go this way, because it might have been easier walking for a while, but the towpath was just looking so inviting, and I had not seen this portion yet.
We walked with the quarry to the right, and far below to the left was some sort of access road.

Towpath at the quarry

The quarrying had destroyed all of the berm wall of the canal, from half or a little beyond the edge of the prism, but the towpath remained in near perfect shape for most of the duration of the quarry.
There was a high wall cut in from the right, so we couldn’t really walk down into the quarry anywhere except where the towpath was first purged, so we were committed at this point. We kept on the towpath until a small ATV path went off to the left. I figured we could try to keep following it, but it was rather badly quarried away.

The canal along the quarry

Still, we pushed on through. It was getting pretty dark, and I didn’t want to chance too much. As it turned out, there was a steep, near vertical drop at the end of where the towpath should continue. That would not do. We had to turn back through a mess of high weeds to get back to the previous ATV trail that left the towpath and followed that down.
We ended up down to the left of where the canal was, adjacent to a quarry access of sorts and a building. I could see the ATV paths on my google aerial images, and it seemed like we could get through. If we had turned to follow the other access road out, it would take us out to 209 back closer to Huguenot, and I didn’t want to do that. We kept following the ATV paths.

At Orange County Transfer Station

There was a section of quarry usually full of water, but not at the moment, so we were able to go through that and then follow a pretty good ATV path back up to where the canal used to be. We then reached a regular quarry road. A second road climbed further up hill, and I figured that was where we had come out the previous time from the towpath.
I went up slope, and sure enough found the towpath.
It was almost totally dark by this time, so it was slow going continuing on the towpath ahead.
We kept on it all the way to an access to the right, which led to a building out in the middle of nowhere labeled on maps as “Orange County Transfer Station”. We headed up hill slightly to that and past the building, then back down hill where the dirt road resumed following the old canal route. It was easy from there.
We simply followed the road, known as Canal Street, through the property and then out through a gate at the end where Ryan Street comes in from the left.
We continued walking the dark road ahead a bit more, and passed the intersection with Robert Street. At that point, we were in Port Jervis, so I pulled my phone out and started checking the Uber app for rides out of there.

Captain Soup for Mayor

The first girl to respond wasn’t apparently interested in going to Westbrookville.
The second guy to answer went to a block back from where we actually were, and then didn’t get us. He didn’t get my messages saying that we were on Canal Street and Orange Street.
Jillane pointed out that there were Dave Campbell for Mayor signs along the road, and I had to send a photo of one to Captain Soup out west.
I wasn’t finding anyone to give a ride. We went into nearby Roy’s Pizza for a brea, and my phone was nearly dead. I used up almost all of my external charger power as well.
We each had a slice of pizza and I kept checking for some way to get out of there. I realize now that part of my problem with the GPS thing was that the idiots at the Spring store turned off my roaming data, saying I wouldn’t need it anywhere I got. That was not the case.
I finally got a guy driving down from Poughkeepsie to come and get us. He happened to be on the interstate, and it worked out for him on his way home.
We were a little worried there for a bit about getting a ride back, but it worked out in the end. We’ll just have to remember not to rely on Uber when we’re in Port Jervis again!

HAM