Hike #1419: 6/3/21 Milford/Little York/Holland/Riegelsville with Professor John DiFiore, Jenny Tull, Rich Pace, Ron Phelps, and Jennifer Berndt
This hike would be my next night hike, and this time a variation of one I did all the way back in 2010. A lot more trails exist than did back then, and I wanted to try to cover some of those, but also some of the other stuff that I'd really enjoyed over ten years prior that the current group had never seen.
Joining at the beginning were old friends Rich and Ron. I'd hiked with Rich more recently, but hadn't seen Ron in a long time. It was definitely great to see him again, as we'd hiked hundreds of miles together and had a whole lot of great times over the years.
We parked in downtown Milford and headed to the northeast a bit.
We turned left on Rt 519, and then soon turned right on Mill Street across an old pony truss bridge over the Hakihokake Creek. This tiny road leads past some residences out to York Road, where we turned right.
Pretty soon, we turned right into the Milford Borough Park, which had a bit of a paved trail through some of it and a pavilion. The park is right along the Hakihokake Creek, which is pretty. We cut across ball fields on the north side of it and returned to York Road, which changes names to Javes Road I guess where it leaves the borough of Milford.
We continued to the north across an old pony truss bridge over the Hakihokake Creek similar to the previous one, but a little longer, built in 1901. There was a name plaque in the middle of the bridge, but it doesn't specify if they were engineers, other contractors, or politicians.
We crossed the Hakihokake again, and soon made a right turn on Miller Park Road, which is another beautiful back road.
Miller Park Road is actually unpaved for a bit, which makes it quite a splendid road for walking. We followed it gradually uphill along the Hakihokake until we reached Little York-Mount Pleasant Road.
When I had hiked here before, we had turned right and then left on Ramshorn Road. I had been working on developing a trail system for Hunterdon County's Schick Reserve ahead, partnering with the township to connect the system through to their parks, and one of the accesses was off of Ramshorn.
We had cut back and flagged off a pretty interesting trail system, and even got to the GPS work on them. I was out there on the job when I worked with Hunterdon Parks, with planners Bill Clother and Doug Kiovsky. I really miss being so involved in trail projects like that sometimes. Warren Highlands is pretty good, but we could be doing so much more.
This time, we would take on a different route. Hunterdon County under the leadership of Tom Sheppard who had been the head naturalist, had been developing the trails system, and although not so much of the route I worked on was used, they did have a trail system through Schick that I needed to see.
My plan was to go east across the preserve, then past the county owned barn to the corner of Hickory Corner Road and Schick Road. This plan kind of fell through as well, but it was still nice.
We headed to the left on Little York-Mt Pleasant Road, and then came to the boundary with the Schick Reserve.
There, we headed steeply uphill into the edge of the fields, where we found the beautiful mowed trails around the edges. It was drizzling a bit, but we just got our umbrellas out and enjoyed the walk.
I realized as we got to the end of the first field that we could not get through to the east side of the reserve this way. There was a near impenetrable fortress of multi flora rose and then a creek that had to be crossed.
When we were planning the trail, we considered using an old beat up farmer's bridge made by simply laying logs.
It was one of the problem spots for the new trail, and obviously it is a problem spot still today.
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| The old farm bridge in Schick |
We continued from here along the field edges, and shifted from the south side of these fields to the north after switching to the next one. This brought us to the east side, to Schick Road.
Schick Road is another nice unpaved road I really love walking, and so I was glad to have gotten some of that in on this one.
We continued on that up to Little York-Pattenburg Road and headed to the west a bit. On this road, Jen found us, having gotten out of work and met late. She would park her car at The Little York, an old coach stop that is still a bar and eatery to this day in downtown Little York, a small community that retains a great historic ambiance.
The two story place had a typical triangular roof, but it was actually built as a three story Federal style structure with a rather flat roof. As I understand, there was a fire on the third floor and the building had to be shortened.
The settlement actually dates back to the 1700s, and there are several historic mill structures worth checking out while walking through town. I don't think I went into the establishment for anything this time, although I have in the past.
I was already drinking something called the PBJ Concoction; an imperial stout made with peanut butter, wild strawberry, tahitian vanilla, and chocolate. It was a typical strong one.
Rich and Ron left us at some point right about here. Jen left her car in Little York, and we all started walking up Ellis Road to the west.
The road goes up a rather steep hill, first by attractive farms, and then very steeply up farther until leveling off near the intersection with Stonehedge Road.
Just a little west of here, we came to the entrance to the Musconetcong Mountain Preserve.
This was another one I worked on years ago, but had no trails while I was there. The access used to be further up, at a spot where there wasn't enough line of sight to have an official parking area.
Now, they have an access near where we had our official use only access. Two brothers I worked with had permission to drive in through their friend's property to the farm house that used to stand back there.
The farm house probably dated back to the 1830s. It was made of stone with a stucco on the outside, and had huge floor boards. There was also a barn back there. I'm told that when Hunterdon County acquired it, it was still lived in. It's a shame that the county lets things fall apart, and then demolishes. I was really sad that this particular farm house was not put out to bid for salvage at least.
The trail goes in from a parking area near the end of the driveways. There is a little pond on a side trail to the right after going in, one main trail, and some side trails.
My goal going in this time was that we would actually do the side trails to the south before it got dark. I had done the main trail through it since it had been opened, but had not yet touched those side ones. I think one of them was even missing from the map.
We walked the one to the south, and it took us up and around some former farm fields. It was pleasant enough, but after a time, it seemed like we weren't going where I thought we would be. I think we had to backtrack at some point and eventually got to the woods road route we needed heading west.
The trail we were using had already grown in somewhat since the last time I had been out there. Invasive Autumn Olives are growing through all of that land, and it just closes in on the trails terribly.
I had to keep watching my phone GPS to make sure we were heading to the west through the property. We needed to come out in municipal land to the west side.
I knew we had reached the right place when we got to the brook that skirts the west side of the county land. We crossed it, climbed a hill, and found the field edge trails we had used the last time we were there to get through had now been marked somewhat.
The last time, we went right on these trails, but this time we would go to the left and skirt the fields more.
The last time, we went right on these trails, but this time we would go to the left and skirt the fields more.
The trail led through a line of trees and into a larger field, and then south closer to the Oak Hill Golf Club. I had figured if we needed to, we would head out across the golf course, but that wouldn't be necessary this time.
We headed to the south a bit, through field edges, and then headed to the west. This brought us back out behind buildings of the Riegel Ridge Community Center.
We walked out the access road to this, out to Rt 519.
I had wanted from this point to check out a section of woods that is supposed to connect Shire Road to Andersen Road, but Rich told me earlier that these trails were in terrible shape. Seeing as though it was now dark, I would opt not to add any extra variables to this one.
We turned right on 519, and then soon turned left on Andersen Road. This led us past the other preserve I had intended to go through, but there wasn't nearly enough daylight to be even trying.
We followed Andersen out to Shire Road, turned left briefly, and then right onto Ademic Hill Road. I had followed this route exactly before, and it's really a pleasant road to walk.
It is also home to the signature piece of architecture of Holland Township.
The Volendam Windmill was built in 1965 by Paul Jorgensen. It had not been used since 2007 when a storm took off two of its sails.
The wind mill used to be open for tours, and I went on one when I was very little. I remember standing on the walkway around the outside of the second story. I think the tour was given by Jorgensen's wife. Now, it hasn't been touched in years and every time I go by it looks to be in worse shape.
The authentic style mill like those in Holland used to grind flour is really something out of the ordinary and will hopefully be preserved before it's too late.
We walked by the site and I pointed it out, but there wasn't much we could see in the dark.
We continued down Ademic Hill Road where it got pretty steep, and reached Mt Joy Road which is the route of the Highlands Trail. We turned left and followed that out to the Riegelsville Milford Road, turned left, then right at the fire department out to Old River Road and turned right.
This brought us soon back to the boat launch were we had met earlier to finish the hike.
Rainy weather can be a bit of a drag, but I really liked this route. It was probably the most tame hike we had had in quite a while, so it's good to balance things like that. It still amazes even me that we can continue to do these hikes twice a week, and even then there are still new things that we hadn't done before on each one.
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