Hike #1396; New Brunswick to Bound Brook

Hike #1396: 3/3/21 New Brunswick to Bound Brook with Justin Gurbisz, Jennifer Tull, Carolyn Gockel Gordon, Joe Tag, David "Captain Soup" Campbell, and Shayna Michaels.

This next hike would be a point to point night hike between Bound Brook and New Brunswick mostly on the Delaware and Raritan Canal, but also a bit of the Middlebrook Greenway and some other stuff at Rutgers. I thought of doing this first of all because we had just finished another hike where we started this one.

A cause for celebration on this hike was the return of our long time friend Captain Soup (aka David Campbell). He had run off to Wyoming for a while, then came back, then left again.

At this point, he had moved back to New Jersey, and was staying nearby temporarily, so it made sense for him to come back out and do this hike. I was pretty happy to see him, and figured we would end up seeing a lot more of him on the hikes as time went forward. I had plenty of Sunday ones knowing his schedule with hopes that he might join, but it turned out that this would be the only hike he'd join the entire time he was back, and then he ended up moving back out to Jackson Hole not all that much time later.
We met at the Shop Rite in Bound Brook and then shuttled with as few cars as possible to the start point, which was by the On the Border place where we finished another hike recently.

From there, it was my plan to walk to the back of the lot and cut into an apartment complext directly, then follow their pathways in order to get toward a pedestrian bridge over Rt 18.
When we finally got started, we went to the right side of the parking lot and I tried to find a way through. We went into some weeds, but there were chain link fences blocking us from going further into those apartment areas. We ended up in a swath of woods that wasn't going to work for that purpose, so we had to go back out to the parking lot and go left.

We just followed the parking lot out to Phelps Avenue and cut through the parking areas from there.
It didn't really set us that far behind at all, and Phelps basically leads to the north to where the foot bridge access is. When we got to Rt 18, it was just barely to the right.

We got across the foot bridge, and I was feeling pretty good, drinking some Lower De Boom Barleywine ale. We headed along Rt 18 for a bit to the west, and then descended into Elmer B. Boyd Park, a City of New Brunswick Park. This is the location of the tide lock, Lock #14 on the Delaware and Raritan Canal.

This is the only lock that is not part of the state park service, and actually many people don't even realize this part of the old canal is even accessible or even exists.
The place has been pretty well preserved and rehabilitated. Stone lock walls are in place and in wooden sheathing is even there. Lock doors are even put into the gate pockets on some of the spots.
From here, boats would have traveled in the Raritan River out to the bay historically. Now, this would not be possible because not only is the canal cut off just to the west, concrete bulkheads have been put in place to keep storm waters from further damaging the lock walls here.

We walked up along the edge of the lock, and there was a mighty big jump from the edge of the wall down to the bulkhead, but I knew I could make the jump. I stupidly decided I would try it, and I was not really wearing thick enough shoes to be making the attempt.

I also did not know that the bulkheads were very rough surface concrete, not some flat thing that I likely would have been able to land without any problem at all.

I made the jump, but the way I landed, I twisted my angle a bit, and caused what was likely a stress fracture in my heel. The pain shot up through my leg, and I even twisted into my knee a bit by the way I landed. It was a miracle I was able to walk away from it at all. I thought at first that I would not e able to continue with the hike. In all honestly, I probably shouldn't have. I know most anyone in the shape I was in, and the amount of pain I was in, would not have made the effort.

I continued walking right away and paced around a bit. I couldn't put weight on the spot where the pressure hit my heel, and I wasn't even sure how I was going to get back over at the moment. I was so shaken up I'd forgotten that there were foot bridges to get back over just a bit down.

I had thought Justin was going to make the jump and join me, but after I'd had this injury, he remained over on the other side. The others started going ahead, and I fought in my own mind about what I was going to do. I could have called for an Uber and just gone back to my car. The others could handle the rest of it without me for sure.

I figured at first I have to move ahead and at least get to the foot bridges back over the canal and take it from there.
I basically stayed on the towpath until it got covered over just about at the Albany Street Bridge and decided I was going to push on ahead.

My thought process on this was that if I kept moving on it, I would keep the blood circulating and promote healing that much faster.
I know a doctor would tell me to ice it, but the way I see it, the swelling that came about after this is the body's reaction to protecting the injured spot. I needed that swelling. I would step in some water to help ease the pain with the cold, but other than that, swelling is important.

I could not move fast at all. I was able to fill the group in on some history over here about the destruction of this part of the D&R Canal, including Lock 13, and of course how the canal was built in 1832, chartered on the same day as the Camden and Amboy Railroad.

We passed beneath the end of the Albany Street Bridge, which is a handsome stone arch built in 1887 and widened in 1925, and then continued along the narrow concrete walkway that hugs the giant wall that supports Route 18.

Everyone powered ahead of me pretty quickly in this section.
Some of the best of the graffiti I had seen from the past was sadly painted over when we went through this time.
It wasn't long before the group was about out of sight. I would have to guide them through a couple of little things, so they'd wait for me here and there, but I was definitely holding them up, unable to keep pace.

We soon approached the giant arched Raritan River Bridge, a railroad bridge built by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1913. It is made of stone, but most of the arches were encased in concrete between 1948 and 1950.
The first bridge that served this site was a double decker, wooden howe truss structure built in 1848, that carried the railroad on the upper deck, and a other traffic on the lower one.
Work began on a replacement bridge in 1877, and the entire bridge was burned in 1878 before completion.

The bridge was updated in 1896 with a deck truss span and a draw section for over the canal. As I understand, when the 21 arch bridge was constructed, there was trouble with the passage of boats with high clearance, and so it hurt traffic on the canal.

We continued on, and the group was waiting up for me when I got to a staircase that went up toward town.
We moved on together from here, and the path turned hard left when Rt 18 crossed the Raritan, and then crossed George Street at a crosswalk.
We continued from there along George Street heading to the east.
As we walked George Street, above us to the left was the Buccleuch Mansion, built in 1739 by Anthony White, son in law of colonial NJ Governor Lewis Morris.

Formerly known as "The White House Farm", it was deeded to the City of New Brunswick as part of Buccleuch Park in 1911. Fortunately, unlike so many other historic residences, this one was saved and restored.
I thought this was kind of nice to hear especially considering Rutgers has been known to destroy so many awesome historic structures. It's way too much a money game with these schools these days.

Off to the right, the spot where the Delaware and Raritan Canal, where it is owned by the state park service, spills over into the Raritan River. Just a little beyond this point to the west is the Landing Lane Bridge, the last access point before that spillway.

The paved path we were following started to turn uphill to the left just before this point, so we skirted the grassy edge of George Street, then continued onto Landing Lane to reach the canal towpath.

I got a group shot when we got to that point. The group had waited for me there, but I didn't expect them to keep waiting like this for long. We were following the canal from here all the way to Bound Brook, so they could just power ahead. It was going to take me a long time to get to that point.

I moved along at the best rate that I could, gritting me teeth, and taking sips of the strong stuff to make the pain a bit more bearable. I couldn't put hardly any weight on my heel at all.

Occasionally, someone would fall behind for whatever reason and I'd catch up with them, and then they would move on ahead. I made my way through a lot of this alone.
I walked by the Five Mile Lock, and then it seemed like the Queen Bridge in Bound Brook was not that much farther away. The rest of the group did mostly wait up for me at that point.

I believe we took the side trip this time again to see the oldest bridge in America, the Old York Road bridge that was built to span the Bound Brook, but was covered over with fill of road and railroad in later years. It was only a tiny distance away, so we went to have a look.

The top of the arch of the ol bridge was still visible.There's still a little bit of water that flows beneath the arches there. It is hoped that one day the bridge will be excavated and better preserved.

Lock before destruction

From here, we cut to the left parallel with the rail yard heading west.
Bound Brook is a pinch point where the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and the Reading Railroad all came very close together in basically the same yard. We followed a road parallel with the right side of the Reading line. This took us out to tracks of the former Lehigh Valley line where we crossed, and then continued on kind of straight. The flood protection berm path starts just ahead in this area. We could have gotten over on West Main Street here, but it was easier to just skirt the grassy hill and ascend to the top of the flood berm just ahead.
I was so glad that Joe went this way, because the last time I attempted to include this on a hike he didn't want to try it, and he really liked it this time.
The berm stays high above the couple sets of tracks, and then starts to turn to the north. Pretty soon, it runs completely parallel with the Middle Brook.
This brings us out to the Jersey Central Trails where West Main Street used to cross them at grade. There are flood doors that can be closed in the berm at this poin in the event of a flood, which ended up being a major deal some time after we did this hike, when NJ Transit was not stopped and flood doors were ordered closed. A train ended up getting jammed in the doors and the entire town of Bound Brook flooded.

Lock before destruction

We went to the right from the berm, crossed the tracks, and then crossed Talmage Ave, after which we climbed back up on the berm on the other side.
This section skirts Middle Brook Park, then continues next to residences. The pavement on top of the berm abruptly comes to the end at private property, but we are able to get through by turning to the right through an opening and coming out behind a bank on Union Avenue, directly across the street from the Shop Rite to close out the hike.
It was a really nice hike that I really wish I could have enjoyed more.
The injury to my foot that I sustained on this trip would be a big problem for me over the next few weekends especially, and the pain would last for more than six months after this. I would have to wear more padded shoes for a while and take every step more consciously until the pain subsided.
I don't like to admit that maybe getting older means getting weaker, but I have noticed that something like this didn't used to happen. I could land these jumps no problem before.
Then again, I had gained some weight, so more force with the jump. I had injured this same heel many times before. But maybe I do take longer to heal than I used to.
I still have a greater than average threshold for pain, but I continue to damage myself. I don't want to damage myself beyond usefulness, so I will have to be more careful.

Lock 13 before destruction