Hike #1405: Randolph/Shongum School to Gladstone

 

Hike #1405: 4/6/21 Randolph/Shongum School to Gladstone with Chris "Cupcake" Kroschinski, Justin Gurbisz, Shayna Michaels, Allie Breadel, Kirk Rohn, Jim "Mr. Buckett" Mathews, Sarah Jones, Jack Lowry, Eric Pace, Jason W. Briggs, and Kenny Zaruni

This next one would be a night hike, this time between Randolph Township and Peapack Station.
I had done some sorts of variations of this in the past, and I wanted to try to use a few different paths as well for this time.

We met at the Peapack Station, and then shuttled with as few cars as possible to our starting point, which was adjacent to the Shongum School on the Randolph trail system, at Arrow Place.
We could park beside the road, and then walk to the south just a little bit to pick up the trail system along the left side of the school.
We went around the school and there were side trails to Elaine Court and Washington Valley Road, but we kept to the left, which took us gradually uphill and through a swath of woods heading kind of northwest.
The trail continued to the north over a hill, and then across Hanover Ave.

Another side path led out ot another cul de sac or something at Rickland Drive, and we continued to the west through the woods on the gavel surface trail.
We crossed over Radke Road and meandered through more woods, over a little bridge over a brook, then continued to the north and then west to an intersection.
The trail went left and right, and I had already done the fork to the right as part of my hikes in the past. We went left, which was also a part of that past hike, and then skirted the rear side of Freedom Park. We turned to the right into the main part of the park and then continued to the parking lots.

My old friend and former coworker Allie was out, and she was now doing police work, so I was glad that she got to meet my friend Jason Briggs, who's father has a long history of police work, and it seemed like she was getting some good advice form him on her career.
Unfortunately, just after making new connections, she somehow got booted off of facebook because of some fraudulent hacker thing.
We crossed Millbrook Ave, and then turned onto the trail to the right a bit, alon the former Cohn Farm property.
We meandered through woods taking the fork to the left, and then came out to cross Carrell Road and entered the Brundege Park. We skirted a pond and took the left fork of the trail there which led us across the India Brook, which flows out of a small pond we skirted at the start of the Brundege Preserve.

The trail took us to the south form here, up a hill a bit, and then came up to and along the edge of Church Road. It continued parallel with the road out to the Sussex Turnpike. We crossed, and then it skirted a big white fence heading to the south after passing a restaurant on the left.
We continued on more undulating terrain to the south and through woods, and on this stretch we saw my old buddy Cesco Tetto, who was riding his bike all over creation.
We stopped and chatted for a few moments, and then we continued along the trail to the south a bit more. There was a side path to the left, and then soon the westbound Patriots Path joined from the left.

Eastbound, that trail descends through the Clyde Potts Reservoir property. We continued straight on the Patriot's Path for a bit.
We came to the end of Dolly Bridge Road where trail follows the abandoned road to the right, and the Patriots Path goes straight. We continued across here for just a little bit more, and the northern end of the India Brook Trail soon breaks off to the left into Coleman Hollow ahead.
We turned left there. The first bit of this trail is really easy and wide gravel like the other Randolph Trails.
When we got to Coleman Hollow Road, we turned right on the road, crossed India Brook, and then cut left into the woods on the white blazed footpath, which didn't look to have been maintained in a while.

I really love this next section of trail, but it was starting to get dark.
We followed the trail to a more prominent intersection and then turned left. Pretty soon, we crossed over the India Brook on a foot bridge. Just beyond that, the trail picks up the berm of an old dam, and continues over somewhat rocky terrain. This leads soon to Buttermilk Falls, a pretty cascade with a pool in front of it. It was warner out, but not terribly warm yet. I still decided to go and stand in the water to cool myself off just a bit. We then continued down the trail which follows the east side of India Brook for a while.
When the trail finally crosses, it had always been a pretty rough rock hop to get over.

I was kind of surprised this time that someone had built a sort of wooden foot bridge. It was a ramshackle thing, but not too terribly bad. It was also still rough to get across.

We managed to get over, and then continued down better trail on the west side of India Brook. This took us out on Mountainside Road.
From there, we continued on the trail straight across into a gravel road area, where there is parking and a little loop access road.
We followed crushed stone trail at the end of this further along the India Brook for a while more.
Soon, the trail intersected with the blue branch of the Patriots Path. At this point, it follows the former Rockaway Valley Railroad bed, which was built in 1888 to haul peaches mostly. At that time, northern NJ was the peach capital of the world. Unfortunately, the peaches died in the blight of 1890. The railroad struggled to get by and was abandoned a couple of times.

The first time it was let go was 1913.

There were efforts to upgrade and extend the line from Watnong into Morristown up until 1916, but these efforts were ill fated and the line was sold for World War I scrap.
We turned right on the railroad bed and followed it out to Ironia Road.
We went to the left out to Roxiticus Road to get to the next leg of the journey, which is the Schiff Reservation.
I had gone through this preserve before, but there are still plenty of trails all through it that I have not yet incorporated into the hikes.
We walked Roxiticus Road just to the west a bit, and the old entrance road is now trail going up to the right.

It is said that the hills in Schiff were used by Continental Army troops from 1779-80 to protect the Raritan River pass, though these claims have not been verified. 

In later years, different families own the property, and the largest tract was donated to the Boy Scouts of America by Therese Schiff in memory of her son Mortimer Schiff.
It served as a boy scout camp for almost fifty years, from 1932 until 1979 when it was sold and became part of Schiff Natural Lands Trust. Further acquisitions were added to the property and the trail system today is quite extensive.
We took the access trail uphill a bit, and passed several other trails on the left. We then came to the open field area near the top of the reservation. We continued sort of straight, and descended from this area to the far right where there is a trail that switchbacks to the west, toward the North Branch of the Raritan River and Union Schoolhouse Road.

I think my original intent was to take this down across a brook, then take Mosle Road south to Branch Road. We would then follow Willow back toward Peapack toward the end of the hike, but for whatever reason, we just got on Mosle Road and I think we followed that straight on through to the end.
I think we probably had done enough distance, and I didn't see Mosle as being that bad a road to walk, so we just continued on that way.
There are a lot of great back roads through that area I would like to walk again as parts of night hikes, if I can ever get around to doing them again. Maybe one of these days when the baby gets older it'll happen.