Hike #1401; Phillipsburg and New Village Loop

 

Hike #1401: 3/24/21 Phillipsburg and New Village Loop with Justin Gurbisz, Jennifer Tull, and Kirk Rohn

This next one would be a loop night hike starting at the Phillipsburg Mall next to the Taco Bell.

We started by walking around the Phillipsburg Mall, which had been shuttered abruptly at the start of the covid stuff.
We had been doing group hikes through the mall for years, and always had a good time incorporating it into the trips, but the last one was at the very start of the pandemic. It was supposed to remain open just a little bit longer, but then that happened and it closed very quickly to all use. It’s just been sitting there ever since. I found out that my keys worked on it a while back and I could get in. I had in fact taken a walk through one day before going off to do trail work.
Alarms are going off inside the building like crazy and no one really cares.
We walked along the foundation where the old Sears I think it was stood, and then went to the main entrance where we used to go in. There were tons of late utility bills and such that were taped all to the windows. The place became more and more of a sad sight the more time went by.

Since the ceiling of the one store had already collapsed and required it be demolished, I wonder how long it will be before another section comes down.
We made our way from the mall out to Rt 22, and then crossed. We continued to the Stowaway Self Storage area and then headed downhill to the Morris Canal off trail. We got on the towpath and started heading to the east.
It was really sad to see to the north where the new warehouse is going in off of Strykers Road. There used to be a beautiful farmstead within view there, really a step back in time, and they absolutely destroyed that ambiance.

We continued across Strykers Road and passed the site of the weir along the Lopatcong Creek, then made our way along the trail out to the Stein Farm. Then, we crossed Rt 519 to ascend to the top of Inclined Plane #9 West.

This was the longest of the portage railroads on the Morris Canal. 23 Scotch turbine driven inclined planes helped the canal to overcome the elevation of rugged northern New Jersey between Phillipsburg and Jersey City.

We went up the plane, and then continued in the fields beyond.
One of the reasons for doing this hike was that I wanted to try to follow some of the field trails at the Port Warren Park. I’d never really used them as part of anything, so we followed them to the north when we got to where the canal passed into the Stewart’s Hunt development.

We turned through the fields and passed through the first line of trees. The field perimeter trails at Port Warren are not particularly obvious, and so we didn't go too far on it. There is a swath of woods a bit further down that we cut into, and there were giant piles of rock that are probably left over from years of farmers stacking them there when they crop up in the spring in the fields.

We cut through these woods and out to the field access that brought us out to the dead end Woodruff Road.

From there, we continued to Willever Way, turned left, and then right on Carpenter Lane, then left on Thomas Stewart Way. This brought us out to Main Street in Stewartsville where we turned right.

Down in town farther, and at a farm bridge over the Merrill Creek, the Morris Canal Greenway Trail cuts in along field edges. We couldn't get the actual canal for a stretch, so the trail was placed at this point to the south for now. We followed it along field edges and then parallel with the railroad tracks until we came out to Richline Road. We went up steps there, then turned left across the tracks, and then right to continue on the greenway.

We made our way along more field edges here, then skirted the new solar farm properties that were to the left. We crossed a dry wash an an old railroad farm underpass on the right, then turned left up through the fields until we returned to the Morris Canal, which has a nice slightly watered section.
In this section, someone was flying a paramotor thing above the fields. I wondered if it was Tucker Gott, who has some pretty awesome videos of flying all through the area.
We continued on to Bread Lock Park, and it looked like some of the parcourse exercise stations had recently been redone and looked pretty nice.
We continued along the path through Bread Lock Park and I showed everyone the canal boat mock up.

The boat has a lower level that can be entered to see what life on a canal boat was really like.

From there, we continued on the historic canal route and headed around the museum building, then out along the towpath to Rt 57 heading into New Village.
We turned right to take the somewhat new cut off road between the farm land off of 57 over to Stewartsville Road and continued to follow that road until we got to the former Morris and Essex Railroad tracks, then climbed up the abutment to that.
We then continued walking to the west.
We crossed Richline Road again, then Warren Street in Stewartsville, then went under Main Street.
We went high over 519, and then on across Strykers Road at grade. It had been dark for a while when we got to this point.

We crossed beneath Rt 22 heading west just a bit more until around the access bridge to the former Ingersoll Rand property to the south, where there are now warehouses.

We turned left and climbed steeply up the slope toward the new construction site to continue on.
We had walked through some of these warehouse buildings when they were still under construction, and they were now pretty much complete. Monstrosities of buildings, that seem like they're a mile long.
We went by the warehouse and then down through the meadow to Lock Street near the bridge over Lopatcong Creek, then to the right a bit to get on the Morris Canal greenway over in the apartment complex.
We then cut through there to get back to the Phillipsburg Mall where we were parked.

It was a pretty good hike, very similar to past ones I had done in the area, but also threw in a couple of new things as we went to keep it a little more interesting. It's definitely one I can see myself repeating again.