Hike #1469; Franklin Park to Belle Mead

 

Hike #1469; 2/13/22 Franklin Park to Belle Mead with Professor John DiFiore, Kirk Rohn, Randy Woodruff, Serious Sean Dougherty, Justin Gurbisz, Violet Chen, and David Adams

This next one would be another point to point, this time in central New Jersey, and much of it a repeat of a point to point I had done as a night hike in the past, with some new stuff.

I had not seen the entire route in the day light, and I really loved this one so much that I felt it deserved some recognition as a day hike.

It featured nearly connected greenways that no one ever really takes into consideration including the trail systems in Franklin and Montgomery, and a lot of awesome stuff in between.

I met the same location I'd met for it previously, the strip mall with Playa Bowls in it in Belle Mead, and then we shuttled with as few cars as possible to our start point in Franklin Park, at Somerset Plaza.

From this point, we could just walk right in back of the storefronts, and then there was a walking path that went through the rear fence and out to a parking lot off of Fisher Drive.

We turned to the left and were then able to walk along the backs of town houses or apartments to the northwest.

There was too much snow on the ground, and I was again annoyed that I would have to fight through all of this because we had had a bit of a reprieve from it on the last hike. Every hike in January had snow cover and I was already sick of trudging.

We made our way beyond the last of the apartment buildings and then headed in through the woods directly on the other side. This took us out onto a pedestrian path adjacent to Delar Park. When we reached it, we turned to the left and followed it out to Beekman Road.

We turned right on the road briefly, and then left onto Rachel Court where there was another trail at the end that went across a small stream which is apparently called the Nine Mile Run. 

The bridge was in horrible shape, rusted and rotten out beyond usability. It had been like this for a long while, and like the last time out there, we just went down and hopped over the brook. The trail then turned right in back of the homes, and out to a retention pond area where we left the trail continued ahead to Amethyst Way.
We skirted around the buildings and paralleled South Middlebush Road briefly, then turned left at the intersection with Old Vliet Road. This was where the start of the brown trail was for the Franklin Park Natural Area.

I felt much better about doing this section in the snow thanks to this next section, because it was stunningly beautiful. The snow captured on the branches was just amazing, and it wasn't so rough that we couldn't just push them out of the way when the blocked us.

We continued on the trail which paralleled Old Vliet Road, then it reached a driveway where it turned left for a time. 

Soon, the trail turned right again and passed through field edges and slight woods in varying degrees of succession. We passed by a back yard that had an awesome tree house behind it, which I suppose is probably a Summer tree house for a young son, and a winter deer stand for the father.

We skirted more field edges, and then descended slowly to a bridgeless crossing of the Ten Mile Run. This and the Nine Mile Run are both tributaries of Six Mile Run to the north. 

There are some really amazing cliffs on the opposite side of the stream, completely unlike anything one would imagine this far south into New Jersey. 

We crossed and entered Bunker Hill Natural Area, and I believe we kept to the right when we got to the intersection with the yellow trail. 

I believe we followed this to the intersection with the blue trail where we turned to the right again and meandered through lovely forest of snow, with the young beech trees still holding onto their leaves, making the forest look like a giant bowl of frosted flakes.

The blue trail took us out to and across Bunker Hill Road, then meandered through the narrow swaths of woods between Woodfield Court and Supra Court. The trail eventually came uphill and emerged between two houses at the end of Calder Court. We went out that short road and turned right on Winding Way, followed that around a bend a little bit, and then turned right into the gated Princeton Highlands Park, and crossed the Simonson Brook.

We took a bit of a break here to prepare for the next wooded section. Randy had had some beer in his pack, and very sadly it had busted open and he had to clean it out as best he could. 

He must have had a pretty wet back at this time, or maybe not because he always seems to be pretty prepared for everything.

We had to go down and around the base of a ball field from this park on the trail, and then into the woods where there is a bridgeless crossing of another branch of Simonson Brook. We managed this one, then ascended a bit and the trail reached a woods road accessible to vehicle. It is apparently used to reach a water tower to the west, which I'd hiked to before. We continued walking this to the first trail that turned off to the right, or the north.

I had done much of the trail system ahead to the south, but had not covered the stuff to the north, so the first big bit of this hike I had never done was the orange trail on the north side. 

We headed into the woods and went to the far north end of the property, and weaved around through the woods. This is part of the John Clyde Native Grassland Preserve, bit the wooded section. 

The trail descended and soon paralleled the Simonson Brook, and then meandered through more woods to come out in the grass land fields. We then headed through these fields to the west for a while until we came to the main parking lot for the preserve.

It looked like there was new signage and such in place when we arrived. We walked over to check out the signage and chatted with another guy walking through, then headed out the main driveway of the preserve to reach Canal Road in Griggstown area. The preserve used to be called Griggstown Grassland, and was somewhat recently renamed.

We turned to the right only briefly, and then left across the Delaware and Raritan Canal on Griggstown Causeway.

The canal was built in 1832 between tide water in New Brunswick and tidewater on the Delaware River in Bordentown. It is one of America's most intact canals, partially because NJ Water Authority uses its resources.

Adjacent to this bridge was an old house, probably a bridge keeper's house, still standing just before the bridge, and then another beautiful stone one. The door was open on it, so we had a look inside.

It was sad to see that this building probably will not last much longer. 

The Millstone River through this area floods very badly, and with all of the newer developments, it floods far worse than it ever had when these places were built in the 1800s. The floor was heaved so badly it was hard to walk, and even the walls were all misshapen. 

Every bit of surface on the entire lower level was covered in a generous layer of mud, now dried and cracked.
It had a glorious main room with a fire place, and a sort of bi livel with a walkway overlooking what might have been a living room with exposed beams similar to German style architecture.

Everyone was waiting around and Justin, Sean, and I were the only ones to go further in when some sort of nasty beast sound was behind us. There was apparently a very nasty raccoon unhappy with our presence blocking the way we had come in, so we had to go back out another door.

The second house, the stone one, looked to be in excellent shape. 

We turned left on the canal towpath briefly, and then right on a foot bridge off of it, over a small flow of water and to a parking lot further down the Griggstown Causeway. We then continued and crossed the Millstone River on the current bridge to reach River Road
Washington marched with the Continental Army on an early incarnation of the Griggstown Causeway.

The bridge here is a double pony truss built in 2006 to replace the earlier 1890 pony trusses. The current trusses are ornamental, non weight bearing, built off site and stuck together with bolts if pieces were too large. I hate when they do this and wish they'd just have used the original trusses to give it some sort of familiar look. I suppose because architects get a percentage of the final cost of construction, they prefer not to use anything that previously existed.

It began snowing again around this time. We turned left on River Road, which afforded us some splendid scenes of the Millstone River.

This section was the part that dragged on the most because it was exactly one mile of road walking we had to do.

I suppose the time went by pretty fast, and we stayed away from traffic as best we could.

When we got to the next section of preserved fields on the right side of the road, we cut over and then headed directly for the middle, where the somewhat obscure Beekman Cemetery stands in a fenced in area right in the fields. The historic burying ground dates back to 1814.
A new stone was placed between two of the original Beekman stones, with a legible epitaph.

I had never seen this place in the daylight before, and still want to see it without snow, but one of these days.

We walked from this point over to the line of trees to the southwest. We then turned right and followed that tree line to the north. We cut through the first break in the trees, and then made a bee line right for the intersection of Dead Tree Run Road and Summit Road.

Summit Road took us a short distance to a dead end, and the Canal Link Trail begins there. 
This is a trail planned to connect Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park with Belle Mead. It isn't fully complete, and may never be because it would require a pedestrian bridge across the Millstone River, and with all of the flooding that doesn't look to promising. They would otherwise need to have a route along the roads to either Griggstown Causeway or Rt 206 to the west. That might actually be less far fetched.

We followed the trail to the left a bit, then straight across the field to the other side, and then right to the north. 

This farm, the Campbell Farm, dates back to 1767 when Peter Vanderveer acquired the land for farming. The land was divided into four parcels for his sons in the 1790s.
The farm was purchased by the Campbell family in 1876, and the Campbell descendents continue to farm it to this day. The trail goes through private land over a sort of easement.

The trail reaches a corner of the field and heads into the woods, then almost immediately onto a very long and impressive board walk over wetlands. It spans the wetlands of the Pike Run and the Dead Tree Run. It's just a really splendid route.

When the boardwalk ended, the trail became paved, and then took us out to Dead Tree Run Road, next to the Mill Pond Bridge, also known as Bridgepoint Bridge, built in 1822. 

It is a fixed Stone Segmental, triple deck arch span over the Pike Run in the old Dutch settlement of Bridgepoint, Montgomery Twp, Somerset County NJ.

The bridge is over the dammed slack water of the former Opie Brothers Mill Pond. It is part of a National Historic District that includes the mill and raceway, schoolhouse, wheelwright shop, and general store along Dead Tree Run Road. Truly a step back in time, I was thankful we came back to this place that I had never seen in the day light before.
Recent flooding caused significant damages, but the bridge was repaired and is in good condition.

We had a look around this area a bit, and then headed back over to the trail to continue to the north.
It cut slightly to the east across Mill Pond Road, and then past the soccer complex a bit. We turned left, then past more parking lots to a T intersection where we went left back across Mill Pond Road again. 

The trail follows Mill Pond Road a bit, then cuts to the left into some woods to the northwest, across a small brook, and then another left leads across the Pike Run into Montgomery Veterans Park. 

We headed into this bigger ball field and recreation park, and passed by the playgrounds with the zip line along the left side of the fields. We made our way out toward Harlingen Road, turned right, and then checked out the veterans memorial on the north side of the park.

We headed out to Harlingen Road, and then turned left on Estates Blvd. This took us a bit down hill, and near the waste water plant at the end, a paved trail, the Belle Mead-Montgomery Trail. 

The trail went around the plant, then across a little foot bridge before skirting some of the new developments. 

It took doing this hike to realize the significance of what we were about to walk up on, and the fact that I'd been tracing this for such a long time.

The Mercer and Somerset Railroad had once passed through the section ahead, near where a side trail comes in from a development to the left. 

The short lived railroad was only in use for a few years, built in a haphazard fashion to try to block the National Railroad from being built. When we came to a clearing where a path to the right went down to the Cruser Brook, Randy and I went and checked it out. It looked to me like there was once a dam in the area and that the entire area behind what I was seeing must have once been under water. It was the right kind of topography for that, so it seemed pretty logical.

Then, I realized this was where the Mercer and Somerset had come through. This was no dam remnant, it was the former railroad bridge site.

When I tried to hike that line in the past, this development we were going through was under construction. It was a similar day to this one, very cold and snowy, but we pushed through on it and had to do a lot of detours. I recall going through the under construction sewer plant at the time and Susie Duncan offering up donuts she had brought to keep us out of trouble.

We continued past this point, and there was a property to the north that looked like it might be abandoned, but I wasn't about to take any chances. The group hung out for a bit, but then we all moved on, and soon came upon the impressive long bridge over the Cruser Brook. It is among the longer of pedestrian bridges we have seen in such areas.

We soon came out behind the Montgomery Dog Park, and then headed out to Covert Drive where we turned right. This brought us out behind the strip mall with the Playa Bowls to finish off our day.