1/6/21 Fiddler's Elbow/Harmony to Phillipsburg with John DiFiore and Joel Castus
This next one would be another point to point on the Warren Highlands Trail. In fact, it would be almost the same hike I did with the group for New Years Day, but this time I had a few things more I wanted to do.
It was one of those covid days that we'd not be allowed to all be in the same shop together, and so I would end up getting a whole lot of trail stuff done while most sat around.
John and Joel joined me, and met at the boat launch in Phillipsburg again, and then we took the same route from Fiddler's Elbow, down Harmony-Brass Castle Road, and up Ragged Ridge.
It was a perfectly clear day, so the views were quite excellent this time.
We crossed over Ridge Road on the way down, then continued through the field section on the other side.
On the way down there, there was the need to cover over blazing of the old trail route where it descended to fields prior to Rt 519. Joel went and did that while I prepped the new turn blaze.
There are still other improvements I want to make along the field edges and such, but one of the routes I wanted to change was a section going from 519, down along Buckhorn Creek, and then back on Hutchinson Station Road.
Deidre and Dave Dech of Warren County Planning Department and I did a walk through on the trail the one day, removing branches and painting blazes, and we did a little scouting trip along the route to the creek. The state owns land in there we'd like to use, but I never looked closely enough to check feasibility. So the three of us walked through, and really liked it. Dave also photogaphed the crossing to see if we could get a crosswalk in place.
The first part is easy, along fields and such, but when it gets close to the creek, there is a really steep spot down used by ATVs. It would be bad to try to do this with the trail, and I knew there would hve to be a switchback. There might also not be enough room on the south side of the creek to use state land, so just in case I wanted to have a better look at it.
We reached the area of the fields where the trail crosses a power line right of way. At that point, Joel and I bushwhacked down while John stayed further up on the field edges.
I wanted to see if there was any potential to have the trail cross Buckhorn Creek and stay in state land parallel with Reeder Road.
We found a single rock in the middle of the stream that was just barely enough to hop across on. It might be a good spot for a bridge, but not to just put a trail in.
It was too bad, because there was a good foot path in place on the state land on the other side parallel with Reeder Road. We were able to follow that easily for a while, until we reached a spot where a private home's yard encroached onto state land along the stream.
Joel and I bushwhacked up to Reeder Road to go by the only house, and directly on the other side there used to be a second house, and before that another road that went across the Buckhorn Creek. The area was also once home to a saw mill. We followed the former driveway and road down to likely former house site, and then walked along the creek heading out toward Hutchinson Station Road.
John stayed on the south side of the stream and followed along the hillside to reach Hutchinson Station Road on the other side. We then followed Hutchinson Station Road back out to the previous trail route on Rt 519.
I still never blazed the 519 road walk because it's just so crummy. The route on Hutchinson Station is far better, and if we could develop that, I knew we'd have a much better trail.
We turned left into the fields from Rt 519 and walked the state owned field edge out to the bank barn in the Van Nest-Hoff-Vanatta Farmstead, and then headed along more field edges to the existing foot path. We climbed from there along a little stream and up to the area being cleared for the new parking area on Halleluja Hill, with the Jesus poster on the back of the kiosk.
It's always a very pleasant walk from there along the trail route over the little tributary and then out to the old abandoned Miller Farm, with the skeleton of the bank barn remaining along the path.
We made our way out to Harmony-Brass Castle Road, crossed onto the Merrill Creek pipeline, and ascended toward the reservoir, picking up the abandoned former alignment of Allens Mills Road along the way (see the journal for hike #1383 for dissertation on this).
The trail crossed Fox Farm Road and we headed up to the perimeter trail of Merrill Creek Reservoir, then turned to the right. The trail blazing in this section is horrible; they used spray paint and made these horrible blobs that didn't look very professional. They really all needed to be redone.
We continued to the Fox Farm trail parking area, and then followed Fox Farm Road again to the west.
We soon reached the spot where the trail heads into the former Oswald Stecker fields, and I think Bill Cortese, the neighbor next to the trail, came out and talked to us this time. If he's around, he usually comes out to say hello.
There's been problems on this tract for a long time, in that people use it as a driveway to get to their homes during times of snow, and he told us that he hadn't seen that as a problem yet this year despite having one major snow already recently.
There needs to be more posts in this field section, and there needs to be some sort of parking area. There is only a kiosk there right now, but nothing else, and in season the farmer plants crops right up to the edge of it. The farmer also removed what was left of the wire gate to bar vehicle entry to the property.
We continued on from here across the fields, and had a fantastic view of the Delaware Water Gap to the north, much better than the hazy, rainy day we had on New Years Day.
We made our way over Shandor Summit and then switch backed down the hill toward Harkers Hollow Golf Course. No land owners came out and gave us a hard time this time, and we followed parallel with the course on the right, turned right on Rt 519, then cut the corner left out to Strykers Road. Strykers led us to Farmers Fairground property, and we followed the edge of it all the way to the county Geiger Tract, and then to Belvidere Road.
I forget if we saw Scott Smith this time or not going through there, because we go right by his house where the trail goes up.
We followed the trail over the hill, past the view at the Little Water Gap/Weygadt Gap, and then down toward the Delaware River.
I don't remember if we walked the thing I usually do with the giant pipe or not this time, but I think we might have.
There's one more new segment of trail I had gotten through Land Management Review on the way to Northampton Street in Phillipsburg, and that is the segment behind the cemetery, on the slope above North Main Street.
The state owns it, and on the property is the old chimney that was reportedly the clubhouse associated with Ingersoll Rand. The route has some abandoned road sections that will lend themselves well to the trail, but stabilization work and several switchbacks and side hill constructions will probably be necessary to get that done. Since the trail is already marked through the area, this is low on the priority list, but I'd like to eventually do it.
It wasn't long after there that we reached the end point at the boat ramp in Phillipsburg.
I was thankful for the company of John and Joel on this one, having a better look at what work I needed to get done, and how we could make some of the reroutes a reality. I never get tired of this trail, which has become somewhat of a signature for me.
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