Hike #1409; White Lake to Columbia

 

Hike #1409: 4/24/21 White Lake to Columbia with Justin Gurbisz, Serious Sean Dougherty, Jennifer Tull, Kirk Rohn, Jim "Mr. Buckett" Mathews, Shayna Michaels, Carolyn Gockel Gordon, Eric Pace, Jeremy ?, Professor John DiFiore, Joseph Niemec, and Cindy Browning

This next trip would be another night hike, and one of those really great, fun ones. It was also the one where Jenny and Carolyn hilariously got the reputation of being drunks!

This was a hike I'd mostly repeated over and over, but there were a few new things I'd wanted to see.

The main bulk of the trip would be the Paulins Kill Valley Trail. The western portion of this was originally the Blairstown Railroad built by John I. Blair to his namesake town in 1876. That same line was taken over by the New York, Susquehanna, and Western Railroad about 1881. The line was abandoned in 1962, and the right of way was saved in part because it was envisioned that it would become a water conduit that could work hand in hand with the Tocks Island Dam project above the Delaware Water Gap, if that had ever happened.

Of course, that dam project was defunct by Carter in 1979, and officially deauthorized by 1992, so the railroad bed became a state park.

The first part of the hike would take place in White Lake Natural Resource Area, where I used to live, and I wanted to incorporate a new trail that had been developed there, which I didn't have anything to do with. I helped to develop the blue trail and red trail while I was there, but this new southern loop sounded pretty cool, so that would be the main addition to this.

The meeting point would be the New Jersey site of the Portland-Columbia footbridge, along the edge of Rt 46 where we could park. We then shuttled in my van and I think one or two other cars to the starting point.

Cindy was running late at the start, but she managed to find us on the ride up there. We were able to spot her car in Blairstown as an early out.

We then headed up Stillwater Road/Rt 523, and parked at the lot where the Ridge and Valley Trail used to come out of the woods before entering the north side of White Lake Natural Resource Area, the county property.

The trail through the wlidlife management area out of this lot has been closed and abandoned unfortunately. It was a really cool route, but it was so overgrown with Japanese Barberry that it'll have to be redeveloped elsewhere.

We started walking from the lot along the edge of the fields of the state land, then cut up over the curb and entered the county land on the well cared for trail.

Since I lived there, the trail blazes have changed from the grey slate markers with Ridge and Valley emblem on them to a yellow plastic diamond with the logo on it. The slate markers were getting hard to maintain, and hunters liked to use them for target practice. People also hammered them too far into the trees and they would break.

We followed the trail to the south, past where there was once a cabin, and then past the old lime kiln. We continued down near the edge of the fen, then climbed the other side along the south side of White Lake. We paused when we got to the former mess hall of the girl scout camp, and I pointed out how the tree root system grew on top of the collapsed building ruins. Those roots all look suspended in the air now because they had grown on what was the rubble of the building.

We walked ahead from here, and we passed the new trail that I wanted to explore. First though, I wanted to show everyone the Marl Works ruins.

This was a processing plant on the shore of White Lake, sort of like a lime kiln but on bigger, more industrial level. Marl is a limestone based sediment that is found on the base of White Lake. 

It was dredged off, processed at the Marl Works, and then hauled away to the Newark area where it was used to neutralize their sewer systems. There was direct rail access to the Marl Works by way of a spur from the NYS&W Railroad just to the east of Marksboro Station.

The Marl Works were also used as an industrial ice house complex in the years before refrigeration.
The site had been abandoned for many years. For a while, there was a workers quarters still standing adjacent to it, but that has been long gone.
From the Marl Works, we headed back in the direction we had come from to the new trail intersection I had wanted to see.
The trail broke off of the Ridge and Valley Trail, which is the main trail intended to eventually connect the Appalachian Trail and the Paulinskill Valley Trail.
It goes in a weaving pattern back and forth through some of the interesting topography of the area, and then makes its way onto a little ridge with an overlook of a wetland to the south of the lake.

The trail was well maintained and really very enjoyable. I was quite glad we had done it.

The trail came back out to the Ridge adn Valley Trail at a little foot bridge where it follows the old spur railroad bed to the Marl Works. We turned left there to reach the little parking area off of Spring Valley Road.
At the gate there, the road and the railroad bed trade places.
I think this took place in the 1930s. The trail continues on the original route of Spring Valley Road and crosses a little old stone bridge to reach the intersection with Primrose. The railroad was where the road is now in that area. The trail turns right at Primrose and cuts across the intersection at an angle and then picks up parts of the original Spring Valley Road again.

The railroad has been blasted away so the right of way isn't immediately apparent, but going down present day Spring Valley Road, the cut is visible to the left where it passed through.

It then headed east to make connection to the NYS&W a short distance away.
We took the trail on a bit of a switchback along the outflow of White Lake and the little swamp, and then emerged at the parking area for Paulinskill Valley Trail, which is the former site of the Marksboro Station.
We turned right there to begin following the rail bed west.
We crossed over the Paulins Kill on a girder bridge in nice woods, then continued and crossed it again on another through girder bridge at the upper end of the slack water of the lake at Paulina.
This has been an area of debate because the state wants to remove the Paulina Dam. I think this will cause some hydrology problems with the railroad bed.

I think the Paulina Dam in the little settlement of Paulina is probaby the most beautiful dam in Warren County. It dates back to the 1700s with the original mill, and the cribbing holding it together is original.

I think it was a good thing to do away with the Columbia Lake dam, but this one will have a host of other problems, and it might be worth preserving. If they cannot remove the Paulins Kill Lake Dam further upstream, which is a problematic dam, I didn't think this one should be considered as big deal.
My attitude changed one day when I walked all the way across the dam and I was able to stick my arm into the surface of it all the way up to my shoulders. I now know that the dam is in fact undermined and no one wants to put the money in to repairing it. It's a pretty bad situation for anyone involved, regardless of the solution.

We crossed over the river again after crossing Crisman Road in Paulina, and then continued toward Blairstown. We passed beneath Route 94, and headed into Footbridge Park.

We took a break and crossed the foot bridge to go to Dale's Market for snacks and drinks and such.
We then hung out in Foot Bridge park for a bit. Cindy cut out either here or close by.
We were being silly and having a good time about this point. We had a few drinks and were just very happy.
Sean had his guitar with him, and we were singing all sorts of off the wall songs, most of which were from the 70s I think.
We made our way back onto the trail past the old station site, which was destroyed some time before the park was made, which was 1976 for the nation's bicentennial.

We continued along a pleasant stretch to the west of town, and some of the original 1876 right of way of the Blairstown Railroad was visible off to the left where it deviated from the later right of way.
We soon came out to Lambert Road in Kalarama, where the Blairstown Airport is. We had to go around this spot in order to get through. Part of the runway was built onto the railroad bed.
We skirted the edge of the airport area, and then passed the old abandoned house on the left side. It's amazing that building is still there after so many years. The main part of it is very old and has some hand hewn timbers in it.

We got back on the trail again after the airport, then headed out across Gwinup Road. 
Soon after that we crossed Vail Road.
There were stations at one time at both Kalarama and Vail. Something happened where the station at Vail I think it was burned down. So, since the station at Kalarama was no longer needed, it was loaded onto a train and an attempt was made to move it to Vail for use there. As the story goes, the station fell off of the train and broke apart. And that was the end of the stations at both Vail and Kalarama.
We continued across Vail Road, and it was pretty much dark at this point.

Sean had the Lagunitas Waldo's special triple IPA with him on this one, which is quite delicious. Even Jenny and Carolyn were indulging in it, and they were feeling it pretty good.

We crossed West Crisman Road, and then Jenny stepped off the trail to pee and somehow lost her phone in that section. Fortunately I remembered where the spot was for later.

We weaved around closer to the river and then came out to Station Road in Hainesburg. From there, the railroad bed is right alongside the road out to the Paulins Kill Viaduct.

We went off to the right to check out the underside of the viaduct, the seven arch concrete span built by the Lackawanna Railroad in 1911 to cut the big corner taken by the old main line.
Beneath the structure was the former Hainesburg Station on the NYS&W, and I pointed out the foundation site to that, although I'm rather certain that no one will remember that now!
From here, the rail bed leaves Station Road and heads through a swath of woods before coming to the site of Hainesburg Junction. The telegraph office is a collapsed pile of rubble there today, and another building only collapsed in more recent years.

It was at this point that the NYS&W was joined by the Lehigh and New England Railroad, built here in 1886. It had trackage rights over the NYS&W some twenty miles to Swartzwood Junction to the northeast. That right of way is pretty nice too, and crosses the Paulins Kill nearby, but it has a section of private land and some weeds, plus the bridge is undecked, so we wouldn't be crossing that one this night.
We continued on the NYS&W, which is bad enough through this stretch.
This was a section that was under dispute as part of the trail, although it is quite ridiculous. It is all a single right of way, and it went to Supreme Court and was deemed a single piece of property.

The right of way passing through this section gets really badly muddy, and it's my opinion that the land owner sabotaged the right of way and made it flood out badly. I used to be able to drive my camaro through this entire section back in 2001, and now it's so muddy that even a four wheel drive couldn't easily get through it.
When I started working for the state, they had hung a sign up on the next road crossing, Brugler Road, that read "Not a mother f***ing trail" on it. I removed the sign and brought it to the region office.

It seems like the section is still a problem, but there's not much I can do about that at this point in time.
From here, the trail is routed along Brugler Road to the west for a bit.

The state owns the railroad right of way from Brugler Road to Warrington Road, but it isn't really well cleared. So we had to walk to Warrington Road that way.
The railroad bed continues from Warrington Road into Columbia Lake Wildlife Management Area, which I had not walked through since the removal of the Columbia Lake dam. After the stuff we were drinking, I might as well have still not walked through it because I could barely see anything or remember much of it anyway. We were just still laughing and singing much of the time, although we were quiet going in from Warrington Road.
We headed past where the dam was, and I remember quieting everyone down when we got toward Rt 46. The trail leaves the railroad bed there and uses what was probably a quarry siding.

It then makes its way out to skirt someone's back yard before emerging on Route 46.
We stayed quiet through this, and then turned to the right to cross 46. On the other side, there is a path that leads down and beneath 46 along the Paulins Kill, then climbs back up the other side to follow the last bit of Rt 46 to the Portland-Columbia footbridge.
We arrived at the cars, and Sean offered to drive the drivers back to the start. He was going kind of fast, and Joe was pretty concerned with some of the craziness for the ride in the back. So Sean kept on doing it because it was kind of funny.

I remembered exactly where the phone should be, so we went back over to the spot at West Crisman and went into the woods. I found exactly where we stopped, and Jenny remembered the precise spot where she turned off and she found her phone laying there no problem.
It had been a pretty crazy fun night, and one we'd be reminded of over and over again.