Hike #1425; Raritan/Bridgewater/Somerville

 

Hike #1425: 6/26/21 Raritan/Bridgewater/Somerville Loop with Scott "Tea Biscuit" Helbing, Shane Blische, Stephen Argentina, Paul Ferlazzo, Serious Sean Dougherty, Mike Heaney, Justin Gurbisz, Robin Deitz, Marissa Panton, Jenny Tull, David Goldberg, Diane Reider, Kirk Rohn, Varsha Sarabudla, Professor John DiFiore, Violet Chen, Galya, Alyssa Valenti, and ?

This next hike would be yet another outstanding loop trip in the area of the Raritan River between Somerville and Raritan.

We had recently had an outstanding trip through this area, and then missed out on some of the stuff I was planning to do, so I put together another trip that would be very similar and cover some of that ground I had wanted to hit.

Like the previous hike out this way, I chose the Raritan Mall as the meeting point, at the corner of Rt 206 and Orlando Drive, on the east side of the town of Raritan.

This time, we wouldn't make the long walk into Duke Farms, and instead walk parallel with Orlando Drive. The road walk isn't all that far, and it is far different than it had been in the past because so many buildings on the south side of Orlando Drive have been demolished.

My plan had been that we would come off of the Peters Brook Greenway at the end, but just like the previous hike out here, I would bit off more than I could chew. But it was still great.

We started walking Orlando Drive, and I wanted to try to hit some of the popular spots and give some history like I had done in the past.

The Raritan Power Canal was the first bit of history to point out.
As we walked along Orlando Drive, the Raritan Power Canal, now filled in through this area, used to skirt the north side of the road, with Canal Road on the other side.

The power canal once served many industries throughout the town of Raritan, but only the easternmost section of it is filled in today.

Pretty soon we reached the old Nevius Street Bridge to the left. Nevius Street used to cross the power canal by way of a pony truss bridge before crossing the Raritan. The Nevius Street Bridge, a 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. Now pedestrian only, it was closed in 2005 with the adjacent opening of John Basilone Veterans Memorial Bridge.

There was once an old wooden mill on the near side of the Nevius Street Bridge, but it was replaced by the Gothic Revival castle structure we saw there on this trip. This castle was actually a water pumping station on the canal constructed in 1900 by James Buchanan Duke.

We walked across Nevius Street and back, of course, because there really is no walking by it without going out onto it. It's quite a nice scene.

From there, we continued on the filled in former power canal, and passed beneath the new bridge for River Road, the John Basilone Veterans Memorial Bridge, by way of a concrete culvert. Just ahead of this point, the power canal remains intact and watered.

A foot bridge leads out onto the edge of the canal, which did not have a towpath and was not used for navigation.

Before we headed out that way, I wanted to take the group for a side trip to visit some historic markers. The Old York Road came in from the right near the power canal, which was the major road route between New York City and Philadelphia. The road was developed on or very close to the old native American trade route known as the Narraticong Trail.

There is a marker at the intersection about the Old York Road and earlier trail, but what stands out the most here is the statue of the United States Marine Corps gunnery sergeant John Basilone, Medal of Honor recipient and resident Raritan New Jersey.
A real life inspiration for Rambo, Basilone fended off enemy forces for three days without sleep, and carried a sixty pound machine gun.
Upon his return home, he was offered promotions and accolades that he turned down, citing the he is a "simple soldier".
Basilone was killed in the Battle of Iwo Jima after destroying enemy block houses single-handedly.
The annual John Basilone parade in Raritan New Jersey passes by his statue here on Old York Road.

After this stop, we headed back to the foot bridge over the power canal spillway and began following the historic route to the west.

The views of the water were absolutely outstanding on this occasion.
We moved along, and there is also a very nice section of crazily exposed tree roots along the path, which really looks pretty amazing as well.
We made our way along the power canal until we came to another trail intersection where a paved trail went left, the power canal trail continued straight, and to the right the trail crossed the power canal on the a former 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.
It was relocated again in 2007, and erected over the Raritan Power Canal just west of Raritan New Jersey for pedestrian access to Duke Island Park. It's really a pretty impressive bridge.

We stopped to take a dip somewhere around here. I think we might have got to the spot where there used to be a rope swing. There had been a dam at the castle pump house until more recent years, but the Raritan was backed up for a long ways in the past, and we used to use the swing from the power canal into the river. Now, it's not quite so deep to be able to do that, but still a good spot to take a dip.

We turned to the left here and followed the paved through through some more woods eventually out to the edge of the Raritan River in Duke Island Park.

Where the trail comes out, there is a vehicle accessible road. There were a lot of people swimming and such here, and we did go back down to take a dip again, but we waited until where there weren't so many people around.

There used to be another dam in this area as well, and we could see where it had been removed some time ago. I understand this was called the Roberts Street Dam.

We then followed the paved trail from here out through a swath of woods and to the picnic grounds of the main part of the park, which had a good amount of people in it. We passed by picnicers and continued along the path as close as we could by the river.

There was definitely a park presence on this occasion more than I'd ever seen in the parks before, so we had to watch that we were somewhat behaving with them around. One guy was going around keeping people from swimming.

We went back into the woods at the far side of the open fields, and pretty soon came to the Dukes Head Gates Dam. It is the only remaining dam on the Raritan between the confluence of the North and South Branches and the confluence with the Millstone River.

I understand that this dam too is scheduled to be removed, but there are a couple of problems that I do not know how they will address.

The first problem, which they're already coming up with a solution for, is that a sewer line associated with Raritan Millstone Water Treatment Plant as I'm told. It seems like that is quite a ways down from there, so I don't know why it's an issue.

The bigger problem in my opinion is the old power canal. The water flows from the Head Gates into the power canal because the dam provides the slack water needed to fill it. Without the dam, the power canal will empty, effecting recreation all the way down to the middle of the town of Raritan. Maybe the power canal will be allowed to dry up and grow over since it really serves no other purpose for which I'm aware, but it is certainly something they'll want to address.

We walked down to the rocky shore just below the dam, and I usually take a dip there as well. Just as I got in the water and sat down, out of nowhere came a Somerset County Parks employee telling me to get out.

This looked like a young seasonal employee, probably just standing around and waiting for anyone to get in there. Or, maybe they saw us earlier and decided to follow the group. There was a patrol car that was roving parallel with us back near the fields, but I figured they were just passing through.

I got back out and made nothing of it, and we didn't waste any more time at this point. We went back up to the trail, which rejoined the power canal a bit, then came to the parking lot at that end.

The last time we hiked through here, I discovered this foot path that led to an abandoned road up above the dam, and so we used that again this time.

We headed up the trail, over a hill, and then back down through wood. As I was on the top of the hill, I could see the kid walking.

We continued on along the foot path, down hill, then slightly back up to the right to reach the end of the abandoned road. I waited for everyone to catch us there, and instructed them to stay somewhat quiet as we passed private homes. The road is chained at its end on Old York Road, and goes near a private property that I didn't want to have a fuss over.

We all quietly moved along the road around a corner, past a yard, and out to Old York Road.

Like the last time we were out here, we crossed and turned right only for a short distance, and then turned left into a foot path leading into the Chipman Tract.

The last time we came through here, it was a bit too late to be doing any exploring. This time, we had arrived a bit earlier, and I really needed to take a dip. After authority boy was watching us, I wanted to get to somewhere secluded.

We followed the path through the tract like we had done last time, but this time we took the first fork that went to the left, back down toward the river edge.

This ended up being a great choice, because we got right along the river, which had a good deep spot out of sight from anything of significance to swim. We spent a good amount of time there.

This was the North Branch of the Raritan, as the confluence between north and south branches is very close to Old York Road, and visible from its bridge over the North Branch.

When we were ready, we left the river and tried to go upstream, but there was no good path. We had to walk back up hill to the main trail, and then turn left back down to the river again to avoid any nasty bushwhacking.

The trail soon dipped back down closer to the river, and we started getting close to where the trail and river were close together again, and then there was some sort of a sluice type of path down to the left.

I had kind of wanted to try to explore the other side of the river, but didn't want to force any of the group that were uninterested to do it, so several of us including my brother, Varsha and her boyfriend, Stephen, Kirk, and Justin all went with me down to the water. The others all remained higher up on the path. I instructed them to walk out to the access at North Avenue, then follow that to the east to Milltown Road, and we would meet them over at the bridge for Rt 202.

It wasn't long after the others left that we made a very interesting discovery down on the steep shore of the North Branch.

A zip line was attached to a tree on the near side, and went out to an island in the middle of the river. The near side is Somerset County land, and the far state park land under jurisdiction of Round Valley.

Of course, we had to try this thing. I wasn't going to be the first to do it however. I think it was my brother that probably tried the thing first. If he could do it, we all figured we could.

And so, I think everyone that went down to the thing used the zip line to get halfway across the river.

Varsha probably had the best form on this because she was the lightest of all of us.

We all had to do this, some of us multiple times. There was no way of getting back from the island on the same zip line without getting wet, it's just a fun thing someone installed.

After we spent some time here, we figured we'd better get moving along. I decided I was just going to try to walk up the river from this point for a while. The water was calm and pretty. We continued along, and the pretty water shifted from very shallow at the north end of the island to deep.

We were soon walking with our backpacks on our heads because it was approaching neck deep. It became apparent that we couldn't remain in the river to continue on.

There were too many houses to the right side, so that was out of the question. The other side though, had some very nice pathway along the edge of it, and it was state park land.

Tea Biscuit and I headed out there. I'm not sure all who followed us right away, but they were all doing pretty well anyway.

We continued along these nice clear paths on the shore for quite a bit, but the one started to lead inland when I wanted to get out to the Rt 202 bridge. We turned right and ended up in crappy brush.

We bushwhacked a bit, and got back in the river. Soon, we reached the Rt 202 bridge and the group was waiting for us there. Some went up one side, some the other.

I decided that I was going to try to wade the entire way under the 202 bridge. This did not work out. The water there is way over my head, and I had to save myself before getting my pack drenched. I made my way up to the edge of the bridge and the rest of the group, and we soon made our way down the slope on the other side of 202 onto a path that led into North Branch Park. I had not tried to walk this trail in many years, but it was certainly still clear enough to walk. It's a bit overgrown at first, but then leads right out to the ball fields at the south side.

We continued then through the wide open fields of the park. It can be a bit wet I have found out in the past, so I directed everyone past the first playground and parking area, and through the fields directly to a little covered bridge that spans a small tributary. A park headquarters building is straight ahead here, which looks like it might be an old building possibly from the 1700s, refurbished as a park building. I have looked for the history on it, but could not find anything.

We cut to the left at the building, crossed another couple of little tributaries on foot bridges, and made our way down below the North Branch again.

We reached the north end of the open fields of the park, and a gravel road led through the section of woods to the north. We followed this to a power line cut, and then went directly across. I had followed the foot path on the other side of the power line many times before, to reach the former Central Railroad of New Jersey stone arch bridge over the North Branch. We made our way along the shore, which was alright at first, but it started getting really bad. I was not expecting it to be nearly impassable. The brush was just overwhelming.

I really had wanted to get to the bridge before dark, and we could barely see it along the river in the distance, but this was just getting to be too much work than it was worth.

I made the executive decision to cut this bit from the hike. We would have to try to go back a bit.

We had already gone through a bit of a mess, so I tried cutting through more directly to the power line. Once out of that, there was a big ditch in the middle of the power line I had not expected. I just walked down and back up the other side because I don't mind getting wet, but getting the rest of the group across it at a more reasonable spot was going to take a bit more time. There was even a bit of a pond in this mess.

Once we got to the other side of the power line, we followed the service road along the edge of it, and then got back on the same road we walked through the swath of woods on to get back to the main fields of North Branch Park.

We turned left and followed the access road along the tree line to the parking area off of Milltown Road, and I looked over the maps to make an alternate plan from here.

We turned left on Milltown Road, which makes a hard right turn and passes beneath the former Central Railroad of New Jersey. It is amazing this underpass has never been replaced since the 1850s because it is so heavily used and remains single lane.

Luke met up with us here, and was perched up on the bridge abutment to our right when we approached. He had picked up some Jack Daniels or something for us for the rest of the hike.

We turned right here on Doolittle Drive, and followed it south to some ponds at a large town house development. Once we crossed the tributary that flowed from the ponds, we turned left onto a paved trail which skirted between the pond and the north side of the homes. It was a relief for me to get here. This was the route I had wanted to follow on the previous hike, but we ended up stuck behind the grocery stores, and ended up having an excellent alternate route. This time, I was just tired because of the bushwhacking and water whacking stuff.

We followed the path past the pond, behind buildings out to Winder Drive. Then, we went up steps, turned left, then right again to continue along the tributary to those ponds to the east.

It had gotten to about total darkness by the time we left North Branch Park, and so at this point it was just pleasant night hiking on easy stuff.

We went around a retention pond, behind another town house, and then out to Pinhorn Drive where the trail ended. At this point, we crossed the road and continued along a swath of trees through the grass, with a tennis court area on the right. There was a big slope just inside the woods, and a good path we carefully walked down to reach a fully watered retention apparently called Hidden Pond. We turned left around the pond, then passed between two pond houses to reach Hidden Pond Court. We crossed this road directly, and then entered open grassy fields.

We headed slightly up slope, and then followed the contour of the slope to the east, passed some sort of small building, to emerge on Cardinal Way. We turned right on the road, then turned left on Bluebird Way. We turned right on Renzi Road, and then left again on Vones Lane, which we followed almost to the end. When we reached the last house on the right on Vones, a chain link fence started. We quietly walked around the interior side of the fence and into the swath of woods to the east from here. There was no formal trail, but the woods here had been trodden by someone so it wasn't really a bad bushwhack.

It also didn't help matters that it was so dark out. This was only a tiny swath of woods we needed to go through, and I was having trouble. I eventually found a sort of clear path that turned to the south, and when I could see we were close enough to the clearing I wanted to reach, we just bushwhacked up to it.

The clearing was just a sort of dump area or something off of the north side of Janssen Pharmaceuticals. There is a paved path that goes around most of this complex, which we followed most of the last time we were out this way, and this was the original way I had intended on reaching it.

We cut out of the woods from the clearing and reached that paved trail, then turned left. The trail is quite splendid, and remains much of the time just inside the woods parallel with Ortho Drive, then comes out to cross the entrance road to the Johnson and Johnson child development area. The trail remains closer to the road to the end from there, and terminates with a little loop where Ortho Drive hits Rt 28.

From here, we crossed over directly, and skirted the left side of the Avalon Assisted Living place through the parking lot. We walked behind the dumpster in back of it, and then transitioned into the green of the Raritan Valley Country Club with no problem. We headed east from here, and there is a tunnel beneath Country Club Road that takes us to the east side of the course with no problem. We continued walking along sort of the north side of the course, and headed for the little bridges that span over tributaries. We eventually reached the east side of the course, where a chain link fence blocked us from reaching Birdsall Lane. This was an unexpected issue.

If we had to, we could have walked to the south and gotten out of the course the same way we did on the previous trip, but I really wanted to continue through the way I had planned. Fortunately, someone found a spot in the fence that could be lifted up, and everyone could easily just slide on beneath. Once we were all out to Birdsall, we turned right briefly, and then left into a town house development. I think we might have walked in the grass behind them.

In the far back of the development, we bushwhacked into the woods only a tiny distance. This led us to the loop section of the Peters Brook Greenway north of Clark Woods Field. I'd been doing hikes on the Peters Brook Greenway for years, but this section was developed much later than the others. Actually, Ortho Drive from earlier closely parallels the brook, and one of the foot bridges we crossed on that section was the same brook. The head waters are near where we came into that facility. We turned onto the trail, I think to the right, and meandered through the woods, then skirted the Clark Woods Field. We then headed to the east, to the edge of Rt 202. The trail then ascends and climbs a foot bridge over Rt 202 and 206. After crossing, we continued on the paved path to the east, which leads out to Mountain Avenue where we turned right to pass Immaculata High School. For some reason I always mix up the words "immaculata" and "illuminati". We were saying something about that going by, and I recalled my friend Pirate John saying "Oh yeah, those Catholic school girls and their conspiracy theories" or something to that effect.

I think it was John mentioned the miles we had hit at this point.
My plan was to go down the Peters Brook Greenway through town, which isn't all that much farther, but it might add a mile or so more. We had already gone over fifteen, and everyone was getting tired, so we decided to go for a direct route back to the cars instead.
It kind of sucks because the route is so good, but even I was feeling it.
We headed down to Somerset Street directly and then just went west to Rt 206 and crossed.
Several of us were hungry, so we went over to Dominoes Pizza, which was amazingly still opened, and just relaxed pigging out in the side of the parking lot. Some of the group continued to their cars directly here.
While we were ready to walk on, all of a sudden fire works were going off in the middle of Rt 206, just sat on the median of the highway! That was quite a sight to see!

We didn't suspect who might have been behind the fire works right away, until we considered who wasn't with us, but there was only one of us who was really known for doing such things!

We soon headed back to our cars to finish off another awesome night. It would be my second to last night hike before becoming a father. On one hand, I'm glad that my last couple of night hikes before that were so incredibly fun, but on the other hand it was going to make it that much harder to give up.