Hike #1641; Pascack Valley

Hike 1641:  1/5/25 Pascack Valley with Mike Selender, Justin Gurbisz, Kirk Rohn, Jenny Tull, Robin Deitz, Diane Reider, and Everen

This next hike would be another very interesting one, this time returning to our Hackensack River watershed series with one of the more substantial tributaries, the Pascack Brook.

We'd had a whole lot of fun on this series so far, and the most recent substantial thing we'd done in the watershed had been the Musquapsink Brook, which flows into the Pascack. It is very similar to the Pascack, only it weaves around more and flows from the north at a point farther west than the Pascack.

The Pascack is one of the larger tributaries, and longer, as it starts way up in Spring Valley NY.

The stream's meaning 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. 

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 those issues.

I knew this would be one of those hikes that focused heavily on road walking, and I posted it when I did because I wanted to try to do it when there was the potential for snow on the ground. Having a lot of road walking makes the distance still doable.

Every one of these hikes is a learning experience, and going in, I never know what to expect. In particular, these areas along these streams are some of the most overlooked when it comes to walking and learning. They're like islands of suburbia, where no one would ever bother walking because there are hiking meccas all around them in every direction.

Places like this are particularly rewarding to me.

It was a bit tougher trying to figure out how to do this one. Where to park at either end required looking over the area again and again. I didn't want to go too far, and I wanted to connect to what we'd previously done.

There were more lands around Oradell Reservoir I'd not walked yet, and so I wanted to have that be one end. I looked first at traveling up the Pascack Brook and finishing in the Spring Valley area, but just before I posted it, I changed my mind and shifted the directions.

Surely, there would be places I could park in the towns along the way, but I didn't know what to expect of Spring Valley. I wanted to be sure to have something a little more neutral and on the outside. Plus, there were other little parks that don't connect with anything else I'd done, which I'd like to see, and it was an opportunity to include them into this body of work.

It was going to be too far to try to have the Emerson area near Oradell Reservoir included in this hike. I would have to add those trails to one of the upcoming future hikes. I chose Pascack Brook County Park, which is north of Emerson, as the meeting point, on the south side of the park in one of the more obscure lots off of Emerson Road.

We shuttled in a couple of cars north over the NY state line to Manny Welder Park in Monsey NY, which is just a little bit to the west of where the western fork of the Pascack Brook comes to an end.

I found a spot somewhat closer to the road and started getting all of our stuff in order. As usual, I had a bunch of stuff I had to get ready for Ev, and the stroller had to have all of his stuff in it.

I let Ev out, and he made his way immediately to a giant frozen puddle in the grass and started stomping through it.

When we had everything together, we made our way to the east, through the open grassy fields. It was really cold out, and I had Ev bundled up pretty well for it. He chose to run for the first bit of it, through the wide grassy field, but by the time we got to the paved trail on the north side, he was ready to sit in the stroller and get warmer.

The paved trail forked in two directions, and we took the north one, which went through a small swath of woods. This area was pretty well built out, so I'm glad we went for that option from the start. 

We followed the paved path to a point where the southern one came back to the one we had taken, and we continued to the east.

Side paths from this led to cul de sacs and streets to the north of us and we emerged on Rt 306.

I had never been through any of this area, but Mike grew up though here, and he was able to tell me so much from this point on.

We turned slightly left on 306, and then right on Crestview Terrace to the east. From that, there was a pedestrian path between homes on the right that led into Edison Court. We turned left there, and headed out onto Blueberry Hill Road.

We continued on the road to Dr. Frank Road and turned left. My plan had been to pass through the property of Kakiat Elementary School ahead, but instead, there was another pedestrian path to the right.

Mike explained that these pathways were between all of the communities so that the Orthodox Jews of the area could get to synagogue. They walk a lot and use bicycles, and several bicycles were parked nearly blocking the path.

We reached North Rigaud Road, turned left, and then right on Merrick Drive. I was surprised to see as many buses driving around as we did, especially on a Sunday.

I noted that these buses all had Hebrew markings on them, and realized that they probably go to school Sunday since Saturday is the sabbath for them.

We reached Union Road, turned right, and then turned left on West Eckerson Road.

This brought us down to a swath of grass where we cut out to the Meadow Lanes Apartments, where Eckerson Road becomes a larger main road.

Just ahead, the one branch of the Pascack Brook passes beneath the road and makes its way into a pond at the bottom of the New York Country Club.

We moved to the far east side of the development, where we turned right, south, onto the last entrance to the apartments. We passed through this lot to the south side, where I had intended to come out and continue through the next bit of apartments. 

Suddenly, the area shifted from being mostly Hasidic Jewish population to Haitian. 

The community was first settled by Scottish immigrants, and so early names for the area were both Scotland and simply "Pascack" for the major Hackensack River tributary that passes through.

It was decided that the village would be renamed Spring Valley for the very large Spring Pond and headwaters located within the community.

Around the time of World War II, the area became a very popular vacation spot for Jewish families from New York City. Today, Spring Valley is known for its prominent Hasidic and Reformed Orthodox Jewish population, but also for the Haitian community that has settled here in more recent years.

When we got to the south side of this parking lot, I was surprised to find it completely fenced off. We could have gotten through on the south side of it behind a dumpster where there was a hole through, but it would have been a pain taking Ev out of the stroller and trying to get through.

Also, a guy in a truck pulled up to us to ask us what we were doing. I explained that we were hiking and he was cool about it.

What I also realized at this moment was that we were walking likely on the historic right of way of the New Jersey and New York Railroad. 

The railroad was established in 1866 as the Hackensack and New York Extension Railroad, and became the New Jersey and New York Railroad in 1878. It reached Haverstraw in 1887, and it was leased to the Erie in 1896. Through this Hackensack Watershed series, we've been weaving back and forth across this line quite a lot. Also, I had hiked all of it from Mt Ivy north to its terminus on the Hudson River previously.

The line ran both freight and passenger service, but passenger ended in 1939, and even the freight service to Haverstraw ended in 1940.

We'd been parallel with it through the areas between the streams, but I'd still not hiked along all of it. I was surprised that I'd forgotten about this being here at all.

I will have to plan on hiking along that maybe starting next Winter at the start of the colder season.

When we couldn't get further to the south, we headed west, through the south side of the parking area. I figured we would find a cut through, since there were pedestrian connections just about everywhere else.

We found no connection. At the west end of the lot, there were more fences, and we had to go to the north. Here, there were also no cut throughs available. We eventually got to a slope where I could push the stroller up to Ibeck Court. We turned left, and it was a cul de sac, so we turned back around again.

We had to go all the way back to West Eckerson to head up the hill, so we lost some distance here.

We reached Union Road and turned left, heading gradually downhill a bit. Mike warned me to be careful pushing the stroller through the area. One of the cultural hiccups is that the young Orthodox boys spend a great deal of time studying, they don't drive much, and when they do, they're always in a hurry. I realized that pretty quickly and kept the stroller away from traffic more than usual.

Another cultural difference that leads to a lot of scrutiny is the amount of litter around. The homes are really very nicely kept, but there is always trash on the ground. Mike was able to explain that this is the result of their religion not allowing them to do any work on the sabbath. As with most things in life, there is a loophole of being able to leave things out on the street since they can't go to stores or anything. As such, the stuff is left for the next day, by which time animals get to it, it blows around, and whatever other problems might come up. 

While walking, I didn't even notice when we reached the point where the New York and New Jersey Railroad once crossed. 

There are still tracks on the south side of the road, but the north side there is not. A large concrete wall blocks the tracks from the road, and a new house was built directly on the track bed on the north side, so I wouldn't have noticed.

We continued south on the road, and reached Maple Ave where we turned left. To the left of us was a grassy area and then a small park. Mike told us that this was where some of the springs were for the Spring Valley Water Company, where locals got their water in the past. I think it is still in use, but the company merged with the Hackensack Water Company to form the Union company, and now it is part of Suez North.

We continued east a couple more blocks to the entrance to Spring Valley Park. We continued to the east side of the park on the paved trail, which is right beside the western branch of the Pascack Brook.

The eastern branch travels a bit several more blocks to the east, but passes through no parks, and looked to be overall a boring road walk where we could barely even see it. The western fork was obviously the more rewarding way to go.

We passed through this park area, and there were plenty of Mallard ducks swimming through the water to the left. There were also some Hooded Mergansers swimming by.

A very nice foot bridge crossed over the brook, but that wasn't the way we needed to go. 

We continued along the trail, and reached a spot where there was a sort of island or something and a connection between a pond in the park. There was a piece of board to hop over to the other side of the channel. We chose to keep to the trail to the east, and to the edge of the sort of crescent shaped pond.

To the right, there was a flag pole stand made of concrete, which was deteriorating pretty badly. To the left, there was a dock out onto the water with a guy fishing on it. A lovely church located on East State Street was in view on the slope beyond the pond.

Built in 1865 as the Reformed Church of Spring Valley, it was expanded upon in 1910 and 1923. It became the United Church of Spring Valley in 1980.

It is still a well-used house of worship today, and offers many other community programs as well. We walked around the west side of the pond on the paved trail, which emerged into a parking lot, and we went uphill past the lovely church.

We turned right on Centre Street from Church Street, and soon reached Lawrence Street, just north of the active railroad tracks and the old Spring Valley station building.

This line was the original 1841 alignment of the New York, Lake Erie, and Western Railroad, which became the Great Erie Railroad system. 

The original 1841 station stop was a shanty at a simple farm crossing, which the railroad named "Pascac" for the Brook that runs through. 

The later name Spring Valley, as previously stated, were for the headwater springs, but the name was suggested by local farmer Isaac Springstead. One wonders if it was really about the springs, or because the guy wanted his last name associated with the town!

A more formal station of wood was developed, and was more needed when the Hackensack and New York Extension Railroad was developed. That line used the same route for the short distance from Nanuet to Spring Valley in the 1870s.

The current station at the site was built in 1924.

Today, the railroad serves as NJ Transit's Pascack Valley Line as far as Spring Valley NY on the old New Jersey and New York line. The original Erie main is abandoned east of Nanuet into NJ, and west to Mahwah. This is yet another one I need to get out and walk.

This stretch was very interesting to pass through, but the one downside of all of this was no restrooms. I don't typically have a big problem like this, but I had to pee probably worse than ever in my life at this point. Nowhere in the park was there anywhere to hide to take care of this.

I would normally have had a lot more time to look around at the station. This was coming to emergency level.

We crossed the tracks where there was another smaller structure beside them on the other side. I figured this might have been a rail related office or freight building at one time.

We headed out Main Street from the station to the south. We heard the whistle of a train going by, which I thought would be cool for Ev to seen, never mind my wanting to see it myself, but this had to wait.

We passed a Walgreens and crossed over Central Avenue, Rt 59, and headed to the Spring Valley Marketplace, which looked like a long strip mall on the hill on the other side.

It turned out to be that this was formerly a regular shopping mall.

This odd retail area was previously like other popular shopping malls with anchor stores and lots of smaller ones, as well as apparently a movie theater!

Constructed in 1989, it thrived through the 1990s height of shopping malls.

Today, it is both a piece of nostalgia, as well as unique feeling of a co-op that feels comfortably out of place from the norm. Inside were some darker color schemes and a couple of stores, but the marketplace was this interesting mix up. The long hallway of the mall extended beyond, but I saw no restrooms. The only one was in the marketplace itself. 

I walked over to use the restroom, but there was an incredible line. Had I waited, there would have been a puddle beneath me. Something else needed to happen.

At the end of the plaza was a Popeye's Louisiana Chicken. I don't recall ever eating at one of these chains, so here was an opportunity to go in, have some food, and relieve ourselves.

I don't know how I could go my entire life never eating at Popeyes, but I guess I have. 

I found it to be quite delicious. The chicken was soft and excellent. 

Ev fell asleep just before getting to the train station, and he woke up after we'd been in the place for a while. I was glad we stopped, because this gave him the opportunity to run around that didn't present itself well on this hike. Not only was it really cold, there were too many back roads that made it less safe.

I pretty much engulfed the first order I'd gotten when we stopped, and after Ev woke up, I figured he would want to have some himself, so I ordered more.

I certainly didn't mind eating more, but Ev refused to eat anything when offered. So I ended up being pretty stuffed after this stop.

We made our way from the corner of the mall site to the east, and then down Central Ave. The idea was to go downhill on Pipetown Road. 

We walked that far, but there was absolutely no shoulder at all. I didn't want to push Ev down that road, so we backtracked a bit, got back on Rt 59, and crossed the Pascack Brook there.

Kirk went to use a restroom someplace, and so when we walked to the east, we used parking areas, and then descended behind a Culinary Depot place to get down to South Pascack Road, which otherwise passes beneath the highway through an underpass.

We turned right on the road at the bottom, and then reached the crossing on the western fork of Pascack Brook, where there were ruins of a dam or a bridge within sight.

It might have been an earlier alignment of Pascack Road, I'm not sure. Mike remembers when there was a large pond just to the west of this location, which I think has since been drained. 

We headed down the road to the south from here a bit. The two branches of the Pascack Brook come together parallel with the road in this section.

Soon, we reached the intersection with the Old Nyack Turnpike. The Nyack Turnpike was built between 1825 and 1830, and it remained a toll road between Nyack on the Hudson River and the Ramapo Mountains near Suffern until 1893. It was the predecessor to Rt 59 and current Rts 87 and 287.

I don't think the first street we came to was actually the turnpike. I think it was a realignment. We passed beneath 87/287, and then the Old Turnpike Road broke off to the left and crossed the Pascack Brook. I think that was the alignment, but that the connection to where we were had been obliterated.

The road ahead had a limited shoulder, but I carefully pushed along. It wasn't as busy as where we had ben earlier, it just didn't have sidewalk.

The Pascack Brook was not far off at this point, to our left. It was nice to see its rocky course weaving around naturally rather than the scoured route we seen further south in NJ, although I know up this way it was altered quite a lot as well.

After a bit, we had to turn right on Scotland Hill Road, and then left to continue on S Pascack Road.

As we walked down this road, I noted an abandoned old driveway going off to the right, down and uphill. When I looked at this on aerial images, it turned out there is a large abandoned house up there. I sent it to Justin, but I couldn't get away with going up there myself, not with Ev.

The road continued along parallel with the Pascack Brook, and soon we came upon the first of the old Dutch homesteads we'd come across.

This one was the Abraham Daniel Haring House, built in 1783. The house was built by Dowe H. Talman, brother in law of Daniel Haring, for his son, A. D. Haring.

The home remained in the same family for six generations until William Demarest, direct descendant to A D Haring, a bachelor, died on the front porch at age 100, in 1993.

The building has a north addition, dormer windows, and other modifications, but the original sandstone construction is still obvious.

We continued down the road to the south, and there was an old estate entrance with stone entrance walls to the left, which would have crossed over the brook at one time.

We came to signs of alterations to the brook when we reached near the intersection of Lillian Drive. There were large rocks placed in the stream to keep it from eroding close to a nearby house. There was a sort of natural rock slide in the stream nearby, which was nice to see.

We continued to the south a little further, and a driveway down to a house on the other side crossed a modern concrete bridge, but it had old stone lead ins to whatever predecessor to that bridge had stood there.

The next point of interest I had planned was to be Childrens Park in Ramapo Township. It looked on Alltrails like there was a way to walk in from a small road over the brook just on the north side of it.

Unfortunately, there were lots of no trespassing signs on this road, which turned out to be a driveway, although the trail in this park follows a road that used to continue on the other side of the brook from this driveway.

I could see that just up ahead, there were no houses on the left side for a time, so I thought maybe we could go over and cut into the park by rock hopping across.

We walked into the woods when it looked like it might be good, but then we decided against it because it would be complicated doing so with the stroller.

Kirk was still behind us at this point, from his stop back in Spring Valley, and we had been moving along.

Pretty soon, we came to the entrance to Children's Park along S. Pascack Road. We paused for a few moments at the entrance, where there is a foot bridge that crosses over the brook into the main section of the park.

Although it was cold, I went down and stood in the creek for a few minutes. I think it really does help my joints, especially with chronic Lyme.

I heard Justin go "Oh my GOD" when I stepped in. He did go under the bridge, but on the rocks, to have a closer look around.

The creek was pretty in this area. Directly on the other side, there was a picturesque pond with walking path going all the way around it. Just upstream from this bridge was a house right along the brook. I wondered if maybe it had been a mill at one time, because it did look to be a bit older.

Kirk was in touch with us, and he was getting closer. The point where we had missed turning in due to private property had a loop trail on it, so while the others walked direct into the park, I decided I was going to push Ev around that loop with the stroller anyway, just to see if there was anything we'd missed.

The trail made its way parallel with the brook for a bit, and to a point where the old road route continued to the private land. Our trail turned right and weaved to the east a bit.

When I reached the spot where we had passed into the woods looking for a place to cross, I could see Kirk walking on Pascack Road through the trees. I made some annoying high pitched sounds and he saw us there.

Kirk made his way into the woods to the edge of the creek, climbed down, and was able to cross over on the rocks where we opted against it before. The two of us continued on along the trail to the east, and then back to the south again, which meandered through the woods before emerging at the pond once more.

There was some sort of large, round concrete tank or something right off the trail to the right, and I'm not sure what it was.

While we were doing this loop, the others were taking a break waiting for us in the park, somewhere that the wind wasn't bothering them as much.

I was told that a lady walking her dog there started talking to them and wondered where we were going. Apparently, she spoke to the wrong person, because no one was really in the mood to talk! She asked them if anyone had any questions, and that she knew everything there was to know about this park!

If only I had talked to her first! I had probably a half of dozen questions would have asked her off the bat!

We turned right around the pond, back to where we crossed the bridge, and then followed along the west side of the pond, heading south parallel with the Pascack Brook. We then headed out to the main entrance road to the park, and reached Grotke Road, where we turned right.

As we walked, we passed by another historic sandstone construction building, reportedly built in 1750, with a few typical modifications to it, but exposed sandstone still in place.

The 1875 Walker & Jewett Atlas of Rockland Count shows at that time it was Duryea residence.

Grotke Road paralleled the brook closely, and then crossed it before the intersection with South Pascack Road again, where we turned left.

This area is known as Chestnut Ridge. It used to be a separate area altogether, but I understand it broke off of another municipality or something.

We passed the beautiful Spring Vale Farm on the right, and then came upon an historic marker on the left, denoting the site of the Haring homestead.

However, there was nothing there other than large fences that obscured anything going on, and piles of rubble. I feared that the historic home was probably torn down, and those fears were correct. In fact, it looked like it happened very recently.

The original Dutch sandstone home was built in 1780. The property was also the site of early saw and grist mill on the Pascack Brook, which utilized a small waterfall for its slack water dam.

The home was expanded on to three stories, and opened as a restaurant in 1906. It served as many different restaurants over the years before closing in 2017.

It was decided that the building had little remaining of its 1780 character, and the 19th and early 20th century additions were not worth preserving.

A 2017 Lohud article by Robert Blum states that historic components would be salvaged, and that the property would be kept in natural state rather than developed. Dam and creek were to be maintained.

Amazingly, demolition of the site came with support of the local historical society. It makes me wonder if it was bought somehow. 

Either way, it is sad to let go of infrastructure that could still be used, because the "greenest" building truly is the one that exists.

I of course do not subscribe to the notion that a building is exempt from being historic because additions were made 100 years ago that did not compliment the architecture from 200 plus years ago.

We headed south a bit further, and soon came to the Pascack intersection, which had an old house on the southeast corner.

The 1875 Walker & Jewett Atlas of Rockland County shows the home here was that of G. A. Hill.

We turned left on Pascack Road, and then right quickly on Gottlieb Drive. We then turned left onto Paul Court, and continued a bit to the east. This was a large residential development, with no access down toward the creek, but maps do show this as Pascack Brook Town Park.

We turned left again on Gottlieb, which changed names to Buchanan Street at a ninety degree bend. There, we could see downhill into the area that is supposedly park land, but there were no trails leading down into it unfortunately.

We continued on Buchanan south to Old Pascack Road, where we turned left only briefly, and then left again onto the original Old Pascack Road, which had been realigned something like twenty years ago to eliminate a sharper, narrow bend.

We walked the road to where it used to come back out to the modern road again. Ahead, there was work going on at the crossing of the Pascack brook below us to the east, on West Washington Ave.

I spotted a new pedestrian trail going in just upstream from the new bridge that was being constructed. We didn't bother walking down to any of this because I didn't want to lose too much time. We turned right, crossed over the street, and continued across to continue south on Old Pascack Road.

It was only a very short distance until we crossed the state line into New Jersey, and the name changed to Woodland Road. There was a bit of a view of the creek to the left of the road up ahead.

We continued along Woodland Road to the south for a little while, and then turned to the left onto Eagle Ridge Road, which went much closer to the Pascack Brook through a much newer development.

The road turned hard left and continued to the south. At the intersection with Hope Street, we turned left. The next intersection came fast, Dogwood Lane, and we turned right briefly, only to turn left again on Bramble Way.

We reached Bayberry Drive, turned left, and then immediately right on Memorial Drive, which skirted the lands of Montvale Township, near the Senior Community Center.

We passed the community center, then turned immediately left into Huff Park, or Montvale Park on some maps. There was a pleasant little pond on the right side, which I understand is known as Huff's Pond, and it has been suggested it comes from Huff's Ice Cream in town.

We walked east along the pond for just a short distance, and reached the edge of the Pascack Brook.

Here, I was rather surprised to find a good trail marked with orange blazes, following the edge of the brook. It continued upstream, but probably doesn't go very far because of so much private land, but we did miss the north end of it, probably by the senior center.

We turned right on the trail, which at first was nice and wide for stroller walking. The creek had stone piles in it that I've seen in the past as part of stream restoration projects.

We went along the pond on our right and across the outflow, and then the trail turned downhill a bit and went right along the edge of the brook. Walking got a little tougher here, but no big deal.

I had to get a little help at the narrowest portion of this, but then it was easy. It became a paved trail for a short distance where it ascended from the brook and out to West Grand Street in front of the Montvale Fire Department.

The brook went under Grand Ave, and we turned to the right heading west.

There was a nice old house on the right as I recall, but I guess I didn't photograph it and I'm not sure the history of it. We then turned left on Mill Street heading south.

It was narrow for only a short bit, and soon we turned left onto a trail that followed the west side of Silver Lake, which the Pascack Brook flows into.

Previously, this was a mill pond for the Van Riper Manufacturing Company starting at 1870, which among other things made spools for silk. The mill burned down in 1876.

This was a very pretty and relaxing area, but it was pretty cold. The wind off of the pond was a bit worse here than previously. Still, it was nice to have a section of trail with only short road walk to this point. Everything from the Montvale area for a couple of miles would be a pleasure to walk.

We took a quick break at a little bench area, and I chose the spot for our group shot. We then continued south along the edge of the pond.

When we got to the end of the pond, near the spillway dam, there was an old mill wheel on display in the grass.

We went around a building next to the dam, and I was surprised and happy to see there was a trail continuing around the other side. It was a sort of elevated walkway into the area where the brook flowed from the dam. We descended on this for a bit, which afforded us good views of the spillway dam, and then came to a footbridge over the brook.

We entered Rotary Park, and there was a large greenish building with support sections coming off of the walls. We decided to use this spot to take a pee, because we'd long been away from any good options for this. I also decided it was a good spot to prepare another drink.

Behind the building was a large greenish water tank that likely serves local needs.

As we were walking the paved path from this area, a police car came by us. It was a good thing we finished taking care of business before he showed up or we might have had some trouble!

We began heading into Park Ridge and the trail continued skirting Memorial Field. In this area, there was one of those little library things, but very impressively done as a scout project.

This one was done like a large kiosk, but it had separate cubbies all around it. Books for the younger children could go within their reach, while the upper ones were higher reading and probably some of those teen smut books.

We were right beside the Pascack Brook and emerged along Jack Healy Drive. We followed this out to Park Avenue, and then continued directly beside the brook along walkway and parking lots.

A paved trail continued at the end of the lot around a tennis court building, and then skirted a football field. There was soon a footbridge across the brook on the right, but we continued straight on the paved trail.

We passed around the ball field and over a little foot bridge between two fields, and then skirted the side of Sulak Field. We passed another footbridge over the brook to our right and the trail led us under bleachers. We walked all the way to the south side of the fields, but then there were chain link fences barring us from going any further on the brook. There was a vehicle bridge to a maintenance area associated with the Park Ridge high school, but we could not cross that. To our east, there was a very steep slope and then homes before reaching Broadway, and then the railroad was in the way beyond that, so that direction was out of the question.

We had to backtrack just a bit, and then cross the brook on the previous footbridge we'd seen. On the other side, a delineated pedestrian route was painted onto the pavement heading west.

We followed this, and then followed Sulak Lane west, and turned left into the entrance to Lehmann Apartments. 

This was a bit of a gamble for me. I saw there were walkways when I planned this hike, going around these apartments, and a cemetery beyond, but I did not know if there would be a good connection between the two. Fortunately, it worked out favorably in this case. 

We followed these sidewalks behind the apartments, and when we got to the rear of it, we cut onto the grass toward the cemetery, which was well within sight.

There was a bit of a ditch, probably a seasonal wash, between the edge of the lawn and the cemetery, and we could see what an access to the cemetery in the past was probably. 

The edge of the apartment lawn had some really heavy dead leaves to get through, so the group helped me get the stroller over that, but once we were up into the mossy wooded back of the old Pascack Cemetery.

The property was purchased by the Pascack Reformed Church in 1855 from the Wortendyke Family. At that time, the Wortendyke family cemetery and an African American cemetery already occupied the site. The oldest inscription dates to 1780, but unmarked earlier ones could date back to tenant farmers such as the Terhune family in the 1730s.

A hollow to the east of this cemetery was a known native American burial ground, and are the oldest interments located here.

We came out to Pascack Road and turned left to continue heading southward.

Pretty soon, we passed through the area that had been the historic Frederick Wortendyke Farm at the southern border to Park Ridge.

Frederick Wortendyke purchased the farm in 1735, and leased to tenant farmers including the Terhune family, who lived in small homes here. Frederick Wortendyke built the Dutch colonial sandstone home seen to the west side of the road in 1750, now a private residence. The Wortendyke barn, on the east side, was built in 1770, and is now a farm museum.

Unfortunately, the museum was not open at this time, and even if it was, the sun was going down and it was getting late. 

We continued on to the south, and soon passed another handsome, Dutch colonial sandstone home on the left.

This was the historic Peter P. Post House on the Pascack Road near Woodcliff Lake NJ, built in 1794.

Post was a third generation miller from Pompton who settled here in 1789 before building this Dutch colonial. It was later owned by the Demarest family, who built Country and Federal style additions in the late 1800s.

The road was narrow at times, and we sometimes had to switch sides depending on what was better for pedestrians.

When we reached Mill Road, we turned left, which was a much lighter trafficked area.

Soon, we turned ninety degrees to the right, parallel with the Woodcliff Lake. We were able to see it a bit from the ball fields earlier, but it was much more plain sight now.

The lake was created in 1903 by damming the Pascack Brook.

The name of the settlement had been Woodcliff since the 1890s, but changed to Woodcliff Lake in 1910.

We turned left on Woodcliff Avenue, which passed through the middle of the lake on a long causeway. The sun was beginning to go down, and it was quite pretty.

The three flags along the lake shore were still at half mast in honor of former President Jimmy Carter who had passed in December.

The group had discussed the timing, and by this time we had already done about fifteen miles, or at least I had with the extra loop I did back at Childrens Park.

We were going to be way after dark if we continued with my original planned route. I had hoped there was a trail along the east side of Woodcliff Lake, because Google Maps shows something going in further to the south, but there was nothing when we arrived. Mike went to take a closer look.

We all decided it would be best to jump on a train from the Woodcliff Lake Station south to Westwood where we could continue east another mile or so back to where we were parked.

I was happy as long as I got my distance in consecutively. We got tickets quickly, and were right on time to catch this train. 

We boarded, which required some help with the stroller, and the conductor let me stand with Ev in it, a bit out of the way and near some seats. 

We continued south through Hillsdale, and soon got off at Westwood, where we had been on a previous hike.

From there, we headed east on Westwood Ave, and then turned right on Harrington Ave where the Fire Department Memorial and bell is, and soon crossed over the Musquapsink Brook on the road.

Soon, we came to the Berkeley School, and we were able to skirt the road in fields. Directly across was Westvale Park, where we had walked on a previous hike.

We followed the north to east side of this, where there is a connecting trail that goes over to Pascack Brook County Park.

It was getting dark, but we were still good. It was really pleasant walking this last section through the woods, with the brook to our left.

It was later than I was planning to be done but not bad. 

We made our way out into the open field area at the end, followed along the pond in the park, and then cut directly across the mowed lawn to the slope, up to the parking lot where we had parked.

The only part of the Pascack Brook we missed in this was the few things from Woodcliff to Westwood. There are maybe three parking areas and a school that would have gotten us a bit closer, but I could always return to that for a future hike that would probably be worth it.

At this point, we were getting really close to having walked almost all of the Hackensack River watershed.