Hike #1647: 2/16/25 Emerson to Blauvelt with Dan Asnis, Kirk Rohn, Diane Reider, and Everen
This next hike would be the next in our Hackensack River Watershed series, at this point finally getting so far up the river that we are pretty close to completing what I had intended to do.
Once again, it ended up being a snowy day. I had to make sure to post something that wouldn't rely so heavily on backwoods trails. Something I could do with the stroller rather easily and we could still cover the mileage.
Fortunately, I have a lot of these things in the plans, and the next one in our Hackensack series, while it did have some off road stuff, the snow wasn't enough that it would be a big problem.
It ended up being, as usual, a much more interesting trip than was anticipated.
It's kind of frustrating that so many sit these hikes out, because we really had such a good time.
Trying to figure out how this was going to be routed was a bit of a challenge. I usually have plenty of stuff to make the hike good, but the toughest part is figuring out the beginning and end points.
I want to try to keep the hikes around fifteen miles. Doing so requires finding parking that will work for us at either side. I like using grocery stores and such for these, because we're fine after dark, and there's plenty of room and available supplies for the group.
In this case, I chose the Palisades Center Mall as the meeting and end point. I figured it was a big lot, and we could walk the mall when we got back up there. There would be some road walking to reach the site near the end.
Initially, I wanted the hike to start a little further south of Emerson, so that I could get some then and now photos of the old train stations, but starting down there would be much more mileage than I wanted or needed to do.
After meeting near the main entrance to the Palisades Center Mall off of Interstate 87/287, we shuttled south to the Emerson area. I wasn't entirely sure where we were going to park for this, either on street or something, but I found a good park right by the first section of trails I wanted to go on.
This was the Centennial Park with the community garden in it across from the Emerson High School.
We unloaded the car and got Ev's stroller in order to begin the hike. It was pretty cold this time, so he would need to be bundled up, but it ended up being a bit colder than anticipated. The wind made it a bit worse.
Once we were all together, we headed directly across Main Street and into the lot for the Emerson High School. There was a small tributary to the Hackensack River that flowed next to the park and into the front lawn of the school area, which was quite pretty with the snow.
We walked past the tennis courts, then cut to the left onto the snow covered grassy field, then entered the Emerson Enchanted Forest.
This was a little wooded area we had walked before with chochkas and such all hanging from trees, sort of like an art park, but mostly just trincets and such.
We followed the trail around a corner, back close to Main Street, and then to the right, north along the small tributary. The trail has a path that goes up on a steep slope above the stream. Like so many of the area tributaries, this had been dug out deeply to keep the area from being flooded or swampy.
The last couple of times I walked through this, I pushed Ev's stroller closer to the edge on the wide path, but there was a bit of a side path to the right this time, a little farther from the edge, that I felt more comfortable pushing him along.
We emerged from the trail at the little parking area along Oradell Reservoir. The entire area is fenced in, although there are breaks in the fences and it would be very easy to walk over to the edge.
There was originally a mill pond where the reservoir is today, which was dredged and first utilized as a public water supply in 1901. It was enlarged with a rock and crib dam in 1911, and work began on the current dam in 1921. It was completed 102 years ago in 1923.
On the first trip I did around this part of the Hackensack River, we walked the east and west sides, and came out from behind that fence. Some of this appears to be open to public, but it's kind of sketchy how they went about it. I didn't know if there was an official connection, but we would soon find it.
We turned left from the lot, and away from the waterfront a bit, and then reached the signs for the Emerson Woods preserve.
We had hiked this once in the past, but didn't meander too far into the property. We stayed closer to Main Street which is just to the west, parallel in a northward trajectory.
Soon, there is a trail to the right, which we used part of on the previous trip. It goes into the woods, then crosses over some really rough bridges over small tributaries, made from simple fallen logs. It was easier for me to just push the stroller down and up across the mucky things.
We soon reached a utility clearing, where previously we had turned to the left and headed back out toward Main Street. This time, we would continue across on the trail, which then entered a pretty evergreen forest.
We weaved around a lot on this trail. It was blazed a little randomly with some messy paint. I don't remember the color. I think maybe blue. The trail didn't really go direct anywhere, and went onto little knolls and such.
We continued on this until it eventually turned hard to the right, and then headed directly out to the service road that goes closer to the edge of the reservoir, parallel with a chain link fence.
I had been here the first time I'd hiked the Oradell Reservoir. I wasn't sure if this path would connect with this, but because it did, I knew that this path would take me north along the reservoir and emerge behind and just to the west of the Allegro Senior Living of Harrington Park.
We had gone into the woods at that location the last time, and there is a traffic light where we could cross in that area to continue north. I decided we would take this more direct route since it would work.
We emerged from the woods, and headed over to the jughandle off of Old Hook Road, near the intersection with Bogert's Mill Road, where the entrance road to the senion center breaks off.
While we were walking over that way, there was a police car sitting on the edge. There was a crosswalk, but we were obviously walking out of an oddball place from the woods that probably no one ever does. The officer didn't stop to ask what we were doing though.
We crossed and continued on Bogert's Mill Road, which soon crossed over the wide Pascack Brook, where it flows to the east into the Oradell Reservoir. The Hackensack River enters it just a bit to the north.
The reservoir backs up a bit of distance on the brook making it much wider. There were some pretty nice views from the bridge, but with the snow, it was a little narrow walking.
A major tributary of the Hackensack River, "Pascack" may be of the native Achkinheshcky language, meaning "where the river splits the land".
Pascack Brook and it's tributary, Musquapsink Brook, bisects the lands of Northern Bergen County, parallel with the Hackensack River, which does the same just a little farther to the east.
Nineteenth century maps refer to this as "The Great Pascack River", and Musquapsink Brook as the "Little Pascack River".
There is evidence of great alterations done on the streams in some of the most densely populated part of New Jersey. The lower parts of these streams had wide floodplains, and their courses appear to have been deeply dredged to mitigate some of the wetland issues.
We continued up Bogert's Mill Road, which was a bit narrow until we got to the more residential bit, and then it was easy walking.
We reached the intersection with Harriot Avenue, and just to the right, the road crossed the Hackensack River. We turned left, parallel with the flood plain, and usually we had a sidewalk to follow along this.
We continued for a couple of blocks past dead end streets, and then made a right on Coopers Lane.
Valley Brook Golf Course was out beyond the trees to the left of us, but there was no access.
Coopers Lane was a small residential road which took us to the north a bit. It turned right at an intersection with Scott Drive, and then crossed a little tributary that flows into the Hackensack. This one was also dredged quite a lot like the others, and followed a straighter course than it naturally would have.
The road turned ninety degrees from east to north, and we followed it out ot the intersection with Westwood Avenue. Here, we turned right, then left, to continue north on Westwood.
After another residential area, we came to the next crossing of the Hackensack River, at a location known as "Stone Point".
This was the former site of a grist mill erected in 1725. As early as 1704, this site was known as "Steen", "Stony", or "Stone Point".
In 1857, Nicholas and Claudius Collignon established a chair factory here, specializing in folding chairs.
Some old masonry is still remaining on the north edge of the river, a reminder of its industrious past. Maybe some of it is later, but the way it's sort of leaning means it is quite old.
Some of the locals say this bridge is referred to as Leslie's Bridge, as the Leslie Family farmed the area way back.
Apparently, the original bridge over the river here was just to the west of the current bridge, and some stone may remain in place from it. I am not sure though, as I did not investigate this.
Just on the other side of the bridge is an old stone building. It does not look at all like the other historic masonry buildings in the area. While it does have fine cut stone on the corners, the rest of it looks to have been built with fieldstone more common in the early 1900s.
I'm not sure about the history of the property there, but it looks to be well kept, and with a business running behind it. I think it was a landscaper or something.
Before we got to the river crossing, we had passed a house under some construction with a porta john out front, so Kirk made use of that while Diane, Ev, and I continued ahead to the other side.
After the bridge and stone house, we turned right into Stone Point Park, which has a loop trail around it skirting the wood line and flood plain along a tributary.
While Kirk was taking care of business, I gave Ev a diaper change and we headed around the perimeter of this park. It was a pleasant, paved trail, which weaved around and came back out to Westwood Ave again, across from the intersection with Forest Ave, which was where we needed to cross to.
We waited for Kirk a few moments there, and the little loop provided him most of the time he needed to catch up.
We crossed and headed uphill on Forest Ave, then turned right uphill on Walter Street.
At the next intersection we turned left on Birchwood Road. We followed this to the intersection with Willow Drive, and continued straight on that just a bit.
On the left, there was a sort of clear utility right of way or something that broke away from the road. I found this on Alltrails as a trail that led all the way through to Bonnabel Nature Park all the way up on Old Tappan Road. This would be the start of some of the best of this hike.
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| Early 1900s Hotel Lachmund |
I wasn't expecting to find anything quite this nice out there, but it was great. We let Dan catch up, still a little slow but he's been improving and speeding up since he started dieting and joining us more often, and I want to encourage him to keep improving.
The trail went into the woods on the clearing, and then turned to the right. It meandered through the woods, somewhat parallel with the Sycamore Court, Willow Court, and Iris Drive homes. It went up and down a bit, in close proximity, but they must not mind much because it's all very well-traveled from what I could tell.
There was a small tributary that flowed in, and I was rather surprised to see a little plank bridge spanning it. It was easy to get across with the front wheel of the stroller balanced on it.
Once we got to the other side, there were more trails. Shown on Alltrails, there was a loop that went around to the west, closer to the river, and then joined up with the more direct route.
Although it was going to be farther, I assumed I would likely not be getting back out to this area any time in the very near future, and we should do this extra half mile or so right away.
We turned slightly downhill on the route, and it weaved back closer to the river. Soon, it joined with the other couple of trails, and we remained on the one closest to the river.
There were periods of light rain, and so I had to get the stroller cover out for Ev. It would have been really cold if he had gotten wet. A lot of the time, I was able to have the cover lifted for him though.
Some of the route we were following appeared pretty obviously to be an old road route. I assume this was one of the old roads that served the Bogert's Mill further downstream a bit, because I'd heard a road once connected them.
The trail followed a height of land above the floodplain, but at times, the river came very close, and it was incredibly scenic being just above the Hackensack River in this area that felt like the middle of nowhere, even though we were really in the middle of suburbia.
When another little tributay flowed into the floodplain, the trail dipped down and had an odd little bridge situated in the middle of the deeper water. I was able to carry the stroller across, and Ev got out to walk across.
It was so slippery, it was hard to get the stroller up the slope on the other side. Ev tried to walk up it and he fell on the ice. It was nothing really dangerous, but he was quite upset by the fact that he really couldn't walk properly in this area at all. He was very happy to just get back in the stroller.
At one point, we could see across the river to the Upper Grove Fields behind the River Vale Public Library.
The area started to look more like a park as we continued ahead. There were benches, and the pathways started to diverge again into a couple of small loop trails. We were now entering the main area of the Bonnabel Nature Park.
As we passed through, and out to Old Tappan Road, this really didn't look like much other than a nice park grove area along the road. There wasn't really any evidence of anything significant ever having been there, but further research revealed to me that I could not have been more wrong.
The area where we emered was once a major center of commerce, and the location of the Hotel Lachmund.
This location was previously the main Center of Commerce for the community of River Vale. In addition to the hotel, there was a post office and General Store as well as a few residences. A couple of the homes of the early Haring family settlers remain just across the Hackensack River.
The hotel was constructed about 1870 by John Lachmund Sr, along the banks of the river.
When the borough of Old Tappan was first created in 1894, the old hotel became the center of municipal business, including mayor and council meetings, clerks office, and voting.
A century earlier, the settlement was called "Overkill", or "Over The Kill", so named for the original Bridge over the Hackensack River here. "Kill" is a Dutch word meaning "creek".
Most passing through this location are aware of the extensive history at the site, and it would be very confusing since the former site of the aforementioned buildings would today fall under the municipality of Old Tappan, and River Vale is only on the other side of the river.
There was once giant tree, I think a Sycamore, where we came out to Old Tappan Road. It's probably the only thing remaining that might have been present when all of these buildings existed.
We turned left on Old Tappan Road, and crossed over the bridge over the Hackensack River just ahead.
We had crossed on the south side of the road, but could see there was a little park on the north side, which wasn't even mentioned on Google Maps. I figured we would have to check this out.
However, there was no shoulder, so we had to cross over Rivervale Road on the west side to walk north a bit more.
On the left, we came to an interesting old concrete dam that had been purged in the middle.
This was adjacent to the Edgewood Country Club, and it used to hold a pond between the golf course and building facilities.
We crossed back over Rivervale Road near the intersection of Red Oak Road to check out the park, which was another surprise that ended up being very interesting.
It was called Baylor Massacre Park, which had a trail going into a circular area to the right.
The park was the burial site, associated with the "Baylor Massacre" during the Revolutionary War in River Vale. The original name of the settlement was "Overkill", as a bridge went over the creek, referring to the adjacent Hackensack River.
On September 28th, 1778, Lieutenant Colonel George Baylor's third regiment of Continental Dragoons (a class of mounted infantry) took quarters for the night at several nearby farms of the Harings, Blauvelts, and Bogerts.
Washington funded the Dragoons as a way of getting some of the more affluent members of the community to get their sons enlisted in the American cause. It was a bit more prestigious, but they saw less combat and such.
While Baylor's Dragoons slept, local Tories betrayed their presence to British forces, who surrounded then during the night.
Commanding British General Charles "No Flint" Grey had earned his nickname at the Paoli Massacre in southeast Pennsylvania a year prior, where he ordered his men to remove the fence from the guns to avoid misfire and discovery. That British assault with only bayonets, one of the bloodiest skirmishes of the Revolutionary war, left 150 American soldiers dead.
It was ironic that we had just hiked past the site of the Paoli Massacre a couple of weeks prior, and so I'd already just finished reading about this guy!
On this occasion, Grey's men again assaulted with bayonets, stabbing and killing eleven of Baylor's Dragoons, and four died later. 33 injured were taken prisoner.
Six of the men murdered were placed in vats from the adjacent tannery and interred at this site, marked only with an old mill wheel. Grave sites were proven through excavation in 1967 and the soldiers were re-interred here.
Most of the group stood in the circle in the middle of th park reading some of the signs that were there.
Those were pretty interesting as well, because they covered so much of what was going on, from the specifics of the night, who the Light Dragoons were, and even commentary on media propaganda of the time, showing the differences on what was reported by the American cause versus the British.
I walked the paved trail around to the right in a counterclockwise fashion, along the river, and then back to the burial site. There is a very nice mill wheel there, as well as a plaque now.
I made my way back around to the others, and we all headed back out Red Oak Drive to Rivervale Road. We crossed, and followed the walkway north on the west side of the road.
Above us on the left was the historic Colonel Cornelius Haring House, a lovely old Dutch stone structure.
Just a little bit to the north of this house, and sitting at a different angle, with the front not facing the road, was the Haring-Blauvelt-Demarest House in River Vale NJ, built in the mid 1700s.
During the American Revolution, this was home of Cornelius A. Haring. The Light Dragoons reportedly utilized six out buildings from these farms in the Overkill neighborhood, while Colonel Baylor and Major Clough sheltered here.
Initially, I had planned on walking on some of the development roads to the east of Rivervale Road, but I was quite enjoying seeing all of the historic homes we were passing. I didn't know much of any of the history on these at the time, but reading into it all later was very enjoyable.
The one thing we missed by not going to the end of Haring Farm Ct to the right, was the Haring Family Cemetery. Maybe one day I'll get back and have a look at that, but with the snow on the ground and it being out of the way a bit, I decided it was not a good idea to add anything extra at this time.
On the left, we passed another old, faded sign about the Baylor Massacre in front of a likely nineteenth century house.
The home with the mansard roof was likely not present during this attack, unless a portion of the foundation or lower level survives. The Bogert homestead would have been in this area back then.
Poplar Road intersected on the right, and I had followed this in the past as part of my NJ Perimeter hike series along Lake Tappan, which was just to the east of us at this point.
We followed Rivervale Road north parallel with Rivervale Country Club, and some of the lake could be seen in the distance along this.
In this area, on the left side of the road, was the William Holdrum Jr house, built about 1784.
The house was built as an addition to the 1765 Johannes Mabie House, which was acquired by William Holdrum Sr.
Holdrum Jr built an addition to the west about 1800, and the home remained in the family until 1842, after which passed through many different owners and tenants.
The original 1765 Mabie home section was torn down in 1865, and more improvements followed such as porch and dormer windows.
When we dipped down to the low area where a tributary flowed into the River Vale Country Club, there was a whole lot of water sitting on the road and flowing out of drains.
Cars going by in this area, where we had no good walkway, were splashing a ton of water. I had to hurry past when none were coming as not to get blasted too badly. I did end up having to walk in some rather deep water. Somehow, Diane avoided it right behind me.
We turned right when we got to the intersection with James Lane, which got us out closer to the Old Tappan Lake. We could see the water rather well through the trees, but it was all fenced off like most places.
Lake Tappan is a 1,255 acre reservoir created by the damming of the Hackensack River in 1967.
The body of water sits between River Vale and Old Tappan in Bergen County New Jersey and Orangeburg in Rockland County New York.
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| Historic view of Rockland State Hospital |
Unfortunately, there is almost no recreational access along its shores, even for walking. I was hoping we might find something walking this stretch of road. A left on Handwerg Drive led us along the reservoir heading north.
We continued along, and were having some good conversations, and then I lost track of where we were.
We reached a dead end, and I hoped we could get out to Orangeburgh Road, but there was no way. We would have to backtrack and turn west, uphill on Shelby Lane to Baldwin Drive to reach Orangeburgh Road.
We eventually got there, and soon there was no shoulder. We had to head downhill on this road to the edge of Old Tappan Lake. From there, we had a good shoulder again, and there was a pretty stream flowing in from the right. The road name changed to Blue Hill Road at this point.
We continued north on the road, parallel with the reservoir, to the intersection with Veterans Memorial Drive where we turned right.
Ev was getting fussy and cold. Even with the cover over the stroller, I didn't have him covered over his feet well enough, so I had to stop and get him warmed up and covered a bit.
The road went over the north end of Old Tappan Lake, and I understand there used to be an air strip beneath where it is in this area, as well as a few more holes of the Blue Hill Golf Course that sits on the north side of the road.
Diane and Kirk were both cold too and seemed like they wanted to call it quits. We didn't have a whole lot more to do as much as I wanted, and I found Tua Cocina, a small Mexican restaurant not too far away. I figured if we could get there, we would be alright, and we would have a rather good walk across the former Rockland State Hospital grounds.
The middle of the bridge we crossed had a sort of spillway in it, which separates the lower part of the Old Tappan Lake with the upper part. I'd always thought they were just the same level.
We got across the reservoir and turned to the left on Old Orangeburg Road, which is a straighter route than the larger new one, but much more pleasant with almost no traffic. Ev was already feeling better by the time we got on this.
We continued past some soccer and other ball fields, and then cut to the left, off of the road, into the edges of more fields heading to the north. We then took a path through a swath of trees and into parking lots and Bobby Sands Way, an access, to the former Rockland State Hospital grounds.
The main building is gone, but I understand many of the others are still there. We walked to the north onto 3rd Avenue and passed the old power plant building associated with it.
The hospital was built in 1926 and opened to patients in 1931. At its height in 1959, this institution had over 9,000 residents and 2000 employees on the sprawling 615-acre campus.
The name was changed to Rockland Psychiatric Center in 1974, and the de-institutionalization that was common at the time caused closures and scaling back on the facilities.
The current Rockland Psychiatric Center building emulates a design of the older institutions with more modern amenities and inpatient treatment with over 400 beds.
The New Rockland Psychiatric Center was visible on the hillside to the east of us as we walked north, away from the main part of the campus to Convent Road.
The others got far behind me. Dan was way far behind. I wanted to get Ev in where it was warm, and so I hurried ahead to the right, and then wen into Tua Cocina for a good and well needed lunch and break.
Ev and I sat at a table and Kirk and Diane soon arrived while I went over maps. I texted Dan to meet us there, and it didn't take him too terribly long to catch up.
We all had a really great spicy Mexican lunch and all felt much better for it.
We were getting close at already just over 13 miles. I wanted to get in just a bit more, so I decided to Uber Diane and Kirk out of there, and they could come back to get Ev and I just a little bit of distance down the road to the east in Orangeburg.
Diane and Kirk got picked up, and Ev and I walked to the east into the town of Orangeburg, which was overall nice and we were well warmed up.
Down in the town area was the Convent of St Dominic, home of the Dominican Sisters of Blauvelt NY.
The Sisters were established in Blauvelt/Orangeburg area by 1878, and the first part of the large convent building first appears on USGS maps in 1937. It was a pretty impressive, huge building.
We turned right, down Western Highway South, and then turned left on Mountain View Ave to the Joseph B. Clarke Rail Trail. This is a bit of the trail I had never followed, part of the old Erie line. I want to hike it eventually, and there are plans to make the whole thing a trail. I had been on the trail to the south, but this was rather new.
I thought to maybe follow it down to the south a bit more, but Kirk and Diane were going to be back quickly, so we just waited there for them to end our very interesting hike.
The socks I had worn on this hike were absolutely destroyed when I got home.
