Hike #1415; Raritan Area Loop

Hike #1415: 5/20/21 Raritan Area Loop with Justin Gurbisz, Jay Shah, Cory Salveson, Linda Salveson, Kirk Rohn, Shayna Michaels, and Carolyn Gockel Gordon.

This next hike would be a pretty awesome night hike around the Somerville and Raritan area.

I had done variations of loops through the area in the past, and I was finding these to be really particularly good for night hikes, so I put together another one.
I had done a loop hike using some of this route in the past with my ex girlfriend Cathy many years ago, and then another version with friends where we made our way along the Duke Island Park area followed by some properties of corporate places.
This time, I would utilize Duke Farms again, because everyone had enjoyed those hikes so much.
I don't ever expect to emulate the glory of some of those great, crazy hikes, but the land is still fantastic for it regardless of all of that.

We met at the Raritan Mall. I headed out after work direct to the site, and had enough time to run into a little liquor store at the north end of the plaza.
The only thing they had that was of the octane I was interested in was the Flying Dog brewery's Double Dog IPA. It's not a bad IPA, but at this point in time, I didn't really care much for most of the stuff there yet. The imperial porter and their barleywines were not really my taste.
I was happy and surprised to see an old friend in the lot this time, Jay Shah.
I hadn't heard from him in a long time and didn't see him on facebook any more. He and his wife Sangita used to come on my hikes way back around 2007, but I hadn't seen him in years.

He told me he had recently retired and that we would see more of him. I didn't see him much after this just yet, but hopefully in the future. A lot of my hikes are a bit of a drive.
I walked with Jay for a bit and reminisced about some of the past hikes including one of the ones where we went to Union County Music Fest and saw Neon Trees, Paul Rodgers, and Blondie.
Our route took us from the Raritan Mall parking lot, which used to have a grocery store, but now almost everything in the place is closed down.

I had wanted to try to get into Duke Farms possibly by way of another entrance, maybe sort of sneak around a fence. There isn't a charge; I just wanted to try to get in there sooner without having to go to one of the other entrances.
We made our way out to Rt 206 off the corner of Orlando Drive, and then walked south along that. There is a gateway entrance to Duke Farms off of that, but unfortunately we would find it shut.
As we walked, in this area was where the South Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey used to cross over. It went righ through the Duke Estate, and we would be on it in a little bit.

It used to cross the Raritan River at the estate, and the bridge abutments are still there, but the bridge is long gone.
To the left of the highway, we used to follow the right of way at times, adjacent to a cemetery, which led between Rt 206 and the Somerville train station, which I would use for parking for the hikes on Sundays. A lot of what is now the parking lot was the rail yard and junction tracks.
I was surprised to see that all of the woods in that area are now gone. The path that used to follow the railroad bed was now plowed all down, and it was a sort of access road to what I presume is a new development of homes or an apartment complex.

We crossed the Raritan River on the road, which has a good sidewalk, but is very much out in the sun.
Once we got to the other side, there is the entrance gate, but there was no way to walk in up there.
I looked off to the right, and there was also no good way of going down and around it along the river. We were stuck going along the road further to the south, which would add a bit of mileage. I had it set up to be able to subtract later if necessary.
There was a big fence along the right side of Rt 206 that kept us from the property, but that at some point gave way to a wall. We were able to go up and hop over the wall, and then there is a  mowed boundary trail that skirts the fence heading around the property to the south and then west.

This was a really good path. We were far enough inside the woods that we could not really even see Rt 206, and we weaved around to the west and could barely even see Dukes Parkway West, from which the main entrance is located.
We continued on this informal trail and came upon a very nice concrete pavilion thing supported by columns. This was a neat little thing we'd not have seen if we'd walked another way.
We soon reached the main entrance to Duke Farms at Central Way and headed north into the estate property.
The well manicured property is full of all sorts of roads and such, and at the first intersection, we turned right to continue on Central Way, which was line with beautiful giant trees on the right.
This led us to the next point of interest: the Hay Barn.
The hay barn was just that, a farm building built in 1905. However, the building burned in 1915, and the roofless shell of the building was retained as sort of an art garden, with various sculptures situated around the walls of the inside.
This was just the first of the fixtures of the estate of the late Tobacco heiress.

Doris Duke

Doris Duke was not only heiress to tobacco fortune, she was a philanthropist who led a controversial and quite reclusive life. 

She was considered a celebrity, but didn’t fit the mold. Some of her policies were not what we might consider a suave environmentalist today (like feeding deer, which has been done on the Duke Farms property), however several preserves bear her name and were associated with her land holdings. Duke Gardens is managed by Duke Farms and Duke Island Park in NJ are the most famous, and Doris Duke Preserve in Sterling Forest NY is another.
Since her death in 1993, interpretations of Duke's will and management of her properties has come under a lot of scrutiny, but we regardless have some beautiful preserved lands. 

It's very sad that it was decided to demolish her mansion on the property. Her gardens of the world exhibit were removed in favor of more native things. I'm all for that, but a contained area of something different also has its appeal.

Walking through this park always makes me think of my late friend Page Foley, who in many photos bore a startling resemblance to Doris Duke. I would send her photos of Duke whenever I found a new one, and even her parents agreed on the resemblance. I attended a work seminar at Duke Farms when I found the photo posted here and sent it to her.

The strange thing was, I was hiking Duke Farms when I got the text message from my brother that Paige had died in Lehigh Valley hospital after getting pneumonia and her organs shut down.
We made our way into the Hay Barn and checked out the sculptures, then got on the Hay Barn Meadow Path heading west through woods.
We passed by an enormous old tree stump.
Pretty soon, we reached the right of way of the South Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey again.
I had walked almost this entire line from Flemington to Somerville, except here.

One would think that I'd prioritize walking something like this over the other stuff out there, since I'm so into railroads, but for whatever reason I never got to it until this time, and so this bit of it I was missing became one of the reasons for doing this hike.
We followed the right of way to the north for a bit, now called "railroad way".
It led parallel with one of the estate roads for a bit, and eventually took us out to Oak Way, beyond which it wasn't so accesible.

We turned away from the rail bed at Oak Way, and then took some of the other trails through the property to the west. I don't remember exactly which ones, probably Turtle Pond Trail or something.
This took us through to the handsome Coach Barn and Clock Tower, a handsome stone building built in 1903 surrounded by manicured gardens.
Another bit I wanted to add in to this one is one of the least used sections of the Duke Farms property to the north.
We headed around the Coach Barn and across Overlook Way. Near the Coach Barn was a side path and gate that could be opened into a lower flood plain of the Raritan River, which had a public trail around it.

We passed through the gate and headed down hill through very pleasant woods, and then crossed over a little stone bridge over a tributary.
The trail was an old roadway that led us north, and then alongside the Raritan River. It had not been mowed at all any time recently, and obviously was not walked very often. We ended up getting a ton of ticks on this section, which we had to constantly pick off.
Still, it was a really pretty little route and I would definitely do it again. There were also a lot of really pretty big trees on it.

The trail continued to the west and came out to the old route of Nevius Street on the north side of the property, and just south of the Nevius Street Bridge.

Nevius Street Bridge is now pedestrian only. The double intersection Pratt through truss bridge was constructed in 1886 by the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Canton Ohio to replace an earlier wooden structure erected in the 1840s.

Immediately across the bridge and on the left is a Gothic Revival castle structure, a water pumping station on the Raritan Power Canal constructed in 1900 by James Buchanan Duke on the site of an earlier wooden mill.

The dam was removed, just upstream from the bridge, and the John Basilone Veterans Memorial Bridge was opened in 2005 just above that. That was when the old Nevius Street Bridge was closed to traffic. We got across the bridge, and then immediately turned left on the historic route of the Raritan Power Canal. The first part of this is all filled in, and just a grassy swath. We passed through a concrete underpass for the trail made for the new John Basilone Memorial Bridge, and then continued out to a foot bridge over the outflow of the extant power canal section just ahead where there is parking. We continued along the narrow berm of the canal, which was not a towpath, to the west.

The route is quite beautiful with views of the water and plenty of turtles.

The root system of trees around the area criss cross and make for a particularly bucolic setting. We continued on the power canal itself up until we got to the the intersection with the trail and the old Hibernia Mine Railroad Bridge. This Bridge originally served as a span over the Hibernia Brook, for the Hibernia mine Railroad in Northern Morris County's Farney Highlands.
The bridge was built in 1879 by the Phoenix Bridge Company of Phoenixville Pennsylvania, under its original name: Clark, Reeves, and Co.

It serves as a railroad bridge until 1894, when it was moved to Somerset County to serve as a road Bridge for over a century, along the South Branch out near Neshanic Station.
It was relocated again in 2007, and erected over the Raritan Power Canal just west of Raritan for pedestrian access to Duke Island Park.
We turned left here along a more prominent, paved trail that led down away from the power canal to the left. The route took us down beside the Raritan River, and then came to an access road. The trail turned off of that road to the left after a short bit, and then went through a nice section of woods until it emerged on the south side of mowed wide open fields of Duke Island Park. We passed by a spot where there was another dam that has since been removed, and then headed into more woods after the grassy fields. I think I went into the water a time or two here.

We continued through more woods and then eventually reached the only dam still remaining on the Raritan in the area, which is where it starts to become Confluence Reservoir State Park.
This dam, as I hear, is going to be removed in the near future.
I've always liked going for dips in the river in this area, but below the dam, so it really shouldn't effect it very much.
The sun was starting to go down at this point, and I really wanted to get through this next section before dark.
We headed back up to the paved trail, and the Raritan Power Canal trail joined with it on the right.

We passed by the dam, which I believe is known as the Head Gates Dam (the Raritan Power Canal is fed from here, and I'm not sure how they will continue to keep that watered if the dam is removed. Time will tell) and then came to the road access from the right. In the past, I had brought the group up that road to get out, but not this time.
We continued up a slope along the Raritan, and then down slightly. The foot path continued along these slopes, which really wasn't bad. The few fallen trees could be stepped over. The trail was lined beautifully with purple Dame's Rockets.

We eventually came to a low point where the trail seemed to disappear, but a walk slightly to the right led us to the end of an abandoned road that came in off of Old York Road to the north.

Nevius Street Bridge

The road took us near a house on the left, and we quietly walked by to emerge on Old York Road.
My plan from here was to walk north on Milltown Road to the east of necessary.

If it was at all possible, I wanted to walk through the tract of land between Old York Road and areas to the north, which is county park owned.
I wasn't sure what to expect here.
We turned right on Old York Road and crossed it, and it didn't take long before we reached the entrance to a trail to the left side.
It was perfect. The trail was wide and appeared to be regularly used by mountain bikers.
We headed slightly down hill on the trail and trie to stay on the most prominent route. 
There were several side paths through the section and I could spend hours exploring all of this.

The trails had routes that went to the right, that I assume go out to the dead ends off of Milltown Road.
This entire section is known as the Chipman Tract. Despite the fact that it is very heavily used, I found out it is technically closed to public, although it was not signed as such on the road.

While we were in this property, Carolyn called to meet up with us. She was parked up near where Milltown Road met Rt 202 to the north. I told her what we were up to, and that my plan was eventually to come out to Milltown Road, and that she should start walking down that. I told her not to go farther than North Avenue however, because that was where we were going to be coming out of the woods at the farthest.
We continued through along the river, and there was a terrific high slope above the river in this area. The trail remained clear, and then we came to where we could see the houses at the end of the roads.

The trail did exactly what I wanted it to do; it came out at the end of North. We exited the woods by a sign that said not to go in that way, and then just walked the road out to Milltown Road.

We turned left on the road, and in a short distance, Carolyn was walking toward us on it. It was just about dark by this point. We had gotten through the rough stuff I wanted to right in time.
We followed Milltown Road together up to Rt 202, and my next plan had been to go into North Branch Park, but it was looking like we were going to run over the miles I was planning on if we did that. Instead, we headed to the right on Rt 202, and passed beneath the bridge of the former Central Railroad of New Jersey, now the NJ Transit Raritan Valley Line.
We turned left from there into the Bridgewater Towne Center Shopping Mall, which is actually just a strip mall.
We went into the Wegmans to get some drinks, and they didn't really have anything I was interested in. Carolyn got some Lagunitas Little Sumptin and I still had enough of my own stuff left, so I didn't need anything more.
My plan from here had been to take North Branch Park and then cut to the east and use a series of paths skirting a development, and other stuff along the way heading back.

This plan was not going to work so I had to cut out North Branch Park, but still figured we'd get to those development paths.

At the north side of the lot was a Home Depot. I planned that we would go behind the stores, and at the north end of the Home Depot, we would cut through a swath of woods to a town house development to the north.
There was the idea of getting on the tracks for a bit, but that didn't look too good, and it looked like the town house community was well gated off. If only a couple of us were there, we could have found a way through, but this was going to be too complicated. We walked along the rear of the Home Depot, following the fence, and we were blown away that there were no holes through it.

One would think that people living this close to a Wegmans and a Home Depot would make a bee line from their development directly there rather than getting in their cars, heading up and around the next underpass on the tracks, onto Old York Road, and around, but there was nothing.

There was evidence of sections of the fencing having been broken and promptly replaced. The fence was about ten feet tall, and then went down to about eight feet. Near this point, there was a hole in the fence maybe three by three feet, and I crawled through. There was an obvious path down to a small brook, and I could see the town houses beyond with their lights on, but this would likely have been a mess if I tried to get everyone through there.
I decided we would continue to try to find something a little better.
We made our way along the entire back of the complex and found really nothing good. 

I had already been concocting a plan while we were walking behind the stores on how to get through ahead.
We continued to walk along the back and almost out to Rt 202, where we skirted some evergreens, cut a corner, and then walked east on 202 for just a little bit. We then turned to the left onto Edgewood Terrace, which forms a sort of loop. At the first intersection for the loop, we went to the right.

In just a short distance, there was a break between homes. We walked right through, and it took us on a wide set of yards behind a couple of businesses. We then came out on Vones Lane.

We went right across the road and immediately into a parking lot that was not really being used.
We continued across the lot, and at the end, just stepped over grass and into another parking lot for more businesses.
At the end of that lot, we reached Raritan Self Storage which was fenced. We cut to the left through grass, and then immediately to the right through grass and under trees parallel with the storage property.
We emerged from a line of trees onto the grassy swath on the west side of Ortho Drive, a pharmaceutical company complex access road. We turned to the left and skirted this land to the far left, and pretty soon a paved trail appeared and followed around the perimeter of the complex.

It was my plan to use some of this trail all along, but we ust got onto it a bit further to the south than I had been planning.

The trail took us north and near the cul de sac at the end of Barbieri Court, then cut to the east, along the north side of this complex.
It came close to some parking lots, and then there was a sort of cleared area off into the woods to the left.
My plan originally had been to come in through the woods, off trail, from Vones Lane over that way, but this time we didn't need to bother with that. I'd try that again another time.
We continued to the east on the trail, which dipped down into the dark woods below the parking lot but still continued to parallel Ortho Drive. 

We crossed a foot bridge over a little creek, came out of the woods close to the road, and then crossed the entrance road to a Johnson and Johnson child development center. The trail then remained close to the road from that point to where it ended at Rt 28/Easton Turnpike.
From here, we dashed across the road directly. 
Avalon Assisted Living of Bridgewater is right across, and we went through the parking lot with the building to our right. At the end of the parking lot, there were dumpsters and such. We went around them, then dipped down and entered the green of the Raritan Valley Country Club. A couple of foot bridges went over a brook almost immediately after going into the course, which was perfect.

The paved path took us somewhat northeast, and then to a tunnel that goes beneath Country Club Road. We of course had to use that, and then continued to skirt the north side of the course for a bit heading east.
Once we got over near the farther east section of the course, we started heading south parallel with Birdsall Lane, which ended quick.
There was a fence to the left, and when we got to the end of the course, there was a fence there too.
I think this was one of those times where myself and others climbed right over it, and then someone else in the group simply opened up a gate on it and walked through.

We dashed directly across Easton Turnpike, and there was a Burger King directly across!
I had been hungry for hours but hadn't really gotten anything. 

There had been a burger place where we came out of Milltown and I was really tempted to get something then. So I had been thinking about burgers specifically all this time. This was perfect.
We all went over, and of course, because of the covid craziness, everything indoors was closed.
One of the only good things that came out of the pandemic was the fact that we can more often get away with walking through the drive through window areas. We were able to do this this time!
We went through and I got a couple of double cheeseburgers and I forget what else, but the timing was great because we were almost done.

We head to head south from here toward Rt 202 again, so we went out behind the stores and such, and in a short distance came to where Thompson Street hit Rt 202.

There was no crosswalk or anything here, and 202 had a median, which made this more complicated. I think I just ran across an hopped the median, but I think a couple others went on down and crossed over at the nearest crosswalk.
We continued down Thompson which took us across the former Jersey Central tracks, and then turned to the left on La Grange Street. We followed this through neighborhoods to the east until we reached Rt 206, then went to the right.

We were able from here to just walk through the strip mall parking lots which are contiguous with the Raritan Mall lot we had met in to close out a very fun and diverse hike.

Nothing too particularly crazy happened on this one; it was just a particularly interesting trip with a whole lot of diversity which is exactly what I love. I'd definitely have to do another variation of this one because it was almost guaranteed to be good.