Hike #1642; Whispering Pines

Hike 1642: 1/12/25 Whispering Pines to Whispering Pines (Kelsonville) with Jack Lowry, Sarah Jones, Jerry Scanlan, Dan M., Jenny Tull, Robin Deitz, Kirk Rohn, Professor John DiFiore, Stephen DiFiore, Matthew Davis, Mike Selender, Diane Reider, and Everen

Our next hike would be another interesting Pine Barrens trip slapped together at the request of my long time friend Jack Lowry, to end at his place at Kelsonville, or Whispering Pines.

Jack was planning another party at his place, and asked if I could have something that would be around his area to coincide.

When he and Sarah had first moved down there, I went over all of the maps and came up with half a dozen things that I thought might be good hikes for the area, so of course, I had several options we could use to end there.

For this one, I started looking over the maps and considering what I'd already done out of that area in the past.

The first one, we started in Whiting and headed south on the old Jersey Central line, then headed east through Brendan Byrne State Forest out to his house.

The second one, we started over in Pemberton to the west, followed some rail beds, and then other trails and sand roads to the east, again ending at the Kelsonville area.

This time, I figured it would be cool to approach from the south. I'd done a lot in that area already, but there was of course a lot I had never done before too. I looked over the maps, and the toughest part was figuring out where the hike was going to start and making it about fifteen miles.

I was originally looking at spots down in Wharton State Forest, and considering other sand roads as part of the route, but when I thought I had it planned, I used Google street view to see if these roads were accessible. Many of them are actually not. I had to make shifts to the plan based on that. 

Initially, I had drafted the hike with the name "Happy Jack's Piney Stomp" or something silly like that.

As I pulled the route together and figured on one that would work, the starting point would be a satellite property to Wharton State Forest known as the Whispering Pines, which has a loop trail through it, as well as an old causeway sand road heading south to north across it.

Additionally, the little development Jack's house is in, is officially part of the Presidential Lakes community, but it is also separate. Kelsonville Road is in there, and I assumed that would be the name of the community, and maybe it is or was. But also, the community is noted as being called Whispering Pines. As such, the hike would take us from Whispering Pines to Whispering Pines. I had no choice but to name this one the "Whispering Pines Hike".

The meeting point would of course be Jack and Sarah's house. I screwed up from the start with this one, picking the wrong time to leave, and then futher screwed it up by taking a couple of wrong turns on the way down there. We were way late starting out, and I was worried we would do badly on the hike and definitely not get done before dark, but it actually worked out very well.

Once we were all there, I didn't waste any time to try to get everyone into the cars and headed to the start. The driving route was not totally direct, but it was rather straightforward with few turns. 

The Whispering Pines trailhead parking is located at the intersection of Chatsworth Road and Patty Bowker Road.

One of the problems that came along with having such a late start was that the parking lot was just about full when we got there.

There was one parking spot shy of what we needed in order to fit all of the cars in, so I put my van in an odd spot further back and along the edge of the roadway where people could pull out.

I started getting the stroller and all of the stuff I needed ready, and while I was doing this, someone came back to their car and pulled out. I was able to get the van into a parking space at the last minute.

This location was somewhere I had never been at all. I might have driven through somewhere close at one time, but otherwise, it was completely unfamiliar to me.

That made this interesting, because we would cross and retrace previous steps at various points on this hike, but so much of it would be totally new to me.

We started our walk on what was official trail at Whispering Pines, but only for a short bit.

My plan was not to do any of the official trails at this location. We could do that on a future hike. My plan was to use the long abandoned road to the north, over the wetlands approaching the Friendship Creek. The old road was known as Irick's Causeway.

Nothing in any of the state material said anything about the history of this road or the area, which is not surprising.

Even now, I know little about the history of the road or for whom it was named.

The trail followed the road a bit, then came out and crossed it a little further up. It was a beautiful old road and very easy to walk with the stroller. There was a little snow accumulation on it, but nothing too hard to get through at all.

When we got to Friendship Creek, I was a little panicked to think that there might no longer be a bridge going across it. I knew some of the group would have a huge problem with wading a deep Pine Barrens stream.

Fortunately, we were pleasantly surprised of an extant, though somewhat washed out, bridge over the creek.

There were big concrete barricades, and water coming up from the right side. There is clearly a good amount of beaver activity through the area.

Some wood was placed at some of the washout spots, but it wasn't bad. I was able to take the stroller down and push it across the creek without any problem. I let Ev out of the stroller from the start, and he ran for a bit, then got in. When we got to the bridge, he chose to get out again and look around.

We waited on the other side for everyone to catch up. There were metal "road closed" signs on the bridge, and this was apparently the boundary between the state forest land and the Friendship Creek Preserve of the New Jersey Audubon.

I suspect the flood damage to the bridge is probably why the road was closed, because there are no other problems on it.

Once on the other side, we continued to the north a bit, and saw several signs for the Friendship Preserve. There were also "no trespassing" signs, some of them shrunken by forest fires from which we could see some remnants in charred wood around. 

We passed an intersection on the left, a dead-end road that apparently has a few houses down it in the Delanco Camp area, and then crossed another tributary of the Friendship Creek, where to the left it is dammed as the Delanco Camp Lake, and to the right is another lake with a nice wooden footbridge across it in the distance, with a pavilion in the very center.

Google maps shows this leading to sort of a foundation of a house, but in a little while we would walk by the driveway to it, and it looked pretty obviously used on a regular basis.

We continued ahead, and soon reached Powell Place Road. I looked back, and saw the road had "no trespassing" signs. I had no idea we would come out of something like that, and so I didn't want to sit still. We turned right and just continued along slowly enough that everyone could catch up.

Irick's Causeway used to continue straight across at the intersection, but the northernmost section was cut off in private land as well.

We passed a farm on the right, and the property was surrounded by nice big white fences. They were set back from the road a bit, so they provided a bit of roadside grass to walk on.

1937 Library of Congress

Soon, we came to the intersection with Sooy Place Road and South Park Road. This was once a rather important location, though it looks like nothing today.

The location on the oldest maps is simply known as "Pines", and it was the location of Pines Tavern or Sooy Place Tavern. Sooy Place (pronounced soo-ee), in Burlington County was a stop for travelers to Speedwell Forge, once owned by Andrew Elverson.

It was possibly built in 1770, and purchased by Nicholas Sooy in 1810. Uncertain when Andrew Elverson was involved. 

The old inn burned down in 1949, but was partially rebuilt. One of the original sections apparently survived, and it remained at the site reportedly until the 1970s.

The name Sooy Place is first applied to the area in the USGS maps in 1888.

1950s after partial rebuild

Here is an excellent article on it: https://tabernaclehistoricalsociety.org/.../sooy-place.../

All that is left to note the historic location of this tavern is a blue sign that tells the history of it.

We turned right to continue on S. Park Road to the southeast for a bit. 

This road took us as a paved route through some light residential area, and then became unpaved through a very pleasant back woods area.

As we continued, there were some open field areas behind a line of trees to our left, and hunters wearing orange were all out in it.

We could hear the gun shots, and this was a bit of an unnerving area because there were pieces of dead bird in the road. We feared they might have been firing toward the road, since hardly anyone uses it.

We hurried through this area, and made our way to the next intersection to the east. Moore's Meadow Road went to the right, and to the left was Johnson Place Road.

This entire area was shown on Google Street view, and shown as open, so I figured we would be fine getting through making the left turn to the north. At the end of Johnson Place Road, on Sooy Place Road, the Michael Huber Prairie Warbler Preserve goes straight through.

I could not see that there was a gate on this road when I was using the street views.

We walked up to the site, and it was a bit of a panic. What were we to do? It was marked no trespassing, but was shown as a through road, and it might put us way out of the way if we were to turn back.

The group voted to try to push on through this. They felt that everyone was out hunting to the west, and that we could probably walk through the short 1.5 mile distance to get to the Huber Prairie Warbler Preserve.

I looked ahead, where S Park Road used to continue through, if there was any way we could follow that to get through. It looked like there might be a parallel clearing through the woods, but it was rough.

This was a mistake. I should have just come up with a way backtracking from the start, because not twenty feet down this road, a truck came down. I couldn't believe it. We got nowhere.

I was caught, the only thing was to be honest. I talked to the guy who came up, and he was very cool about it. He said that he was being cool about it because we were pretty obviously not the same type of people he usually has to run out of there. 

Thankfully, I was able to show him on my phone the street views that I had used, where we could clearly see no gate over the road. He told me the gate had been there for years. I told him I believed him, but I just wanted him to know and to see that this was why we were here, and why we ended up in this place trying to get through.

I was thankful the guy was as nice as he was about it. I had hoped that maybe for this situation, he might let us pass through for the 1.5 miles, but there was no luck there. He was concerned about liability with the club members firing out there. He also said he had problems with people setting fires and such out there, and I understand that's a big issue, especially in the pines.

We turned around and had to walk all the way back to Sooy Place the way we had come. I pulled my phone out and desperately started concocting a new route that would get us back without going over the mileage much.

It was a good thing I spent such a huge amount of time putting these routes together and studying the different places to visit, because it gave me insight on how to fix this hike from here.

Within a few minutes, I had a new route to connect north to my original planned route that would get us back to Jack and Sarah's in under 16 miles.

We walked all the way back to Sooy Place through the woods on the unpaved road, which was quite pretty. We watched closely when we went by where the hunters were, and greeted one as we were walking on the road heading back.

I noticed along the road further toward the west side, there seemed to be a grade cut down on either side of the road. I know of no railroads having been here, and wondered if it was a road or some other type of drainage. It was obviously somethat that had come through there. 

Matt was looking up the hunting club as we went. He was trying to figure out a way of getting a day pass to get through, but fortunately we didn't need it.

We passed by the former site of Sooy Place Hotel, or Pines Hotel, and continued ahead on Sooy Place Road. From here, we were no longer backtracking on what we had already done for the day.

I got way ahead of the rest of the group with the stroller, and turned right on Avenue Road when we got to it. I pulled ahead just a bit, until there was a good spot to head to the side and take a pee, and then waited for the rest of the group to catch up.

Avenue Road was pleasant enough, with development mostly only on the left side of it.

Avenue Road turned slightly to the right after passing the intersection with Avenue D, and soon we reached the intersection with Burrs Mills Road.

Ahead on the left, the Burrs Mills Brook passes beneath the road. Across, there was an entrance to an ATV trail into the New Jersey Conservation Foundation property along this part of the brook

The 442 acre tract was preserved in 2018 and features the pristine tributary of the Rancocas Creek in what used to be the cranberry bogs of the Birches Cranberry Company.

The property had passed down through three succeeding generations of the Haines, Wright, and Thompson families since the Civil War, and ceased cranberry production in 2004.

To the east in this property, there are a lot of sand roads, some of which connect over to the lake of Ward Sand and Materials, and which do not provide a good route to the east.

However, the north side of the Burrs Mills Brook had an obvious ATV used road passing along it that connected all the way to the east. 

I had figured we could follow the South Fireline Road as we headed east, because I didn't want to get involved with having to deal with any landowner issues with the stroller, but when I saw that this had been preserved only a few years back, I was ready to take this alternate route.

This development made this route possibly better than the original one I'd had in mind!

When everyone was caught up, we made our way into the woods on a prominent ATV path. It headed a bit to the south of where our trajectory was, but it was the best way to get over to the main impoundments of water to the north.

The path took us to an intersection with more paths, an we turned left, to the north, which soon took us over the dam of the first former cranberry bog impoundment on the Burrs Mills Brook.

The brook is a tributary of the Rancocas Creek, which is something of a series I'm looking at doing more on in the near future. Our previous hike in the pines followed some of that.

I let Ev out of the stroller to run for a bit, which he was happy to do on the narrower pathway.

We made our way past the spillway at the pond, which was quite pretty, and took a little break on the other side while I looked over some more of the maps.

I wanted to be sure that the way we were going was going to get us through alright. I couldn't be totally sure, but it looked like it would, so we went for it.

The path went to the east along the north side of the pond and wetlands of the Burrs Mills Brook, and we did see signs for the public land. 

We continued along this pleasant path for a while, and I could see where it continued on the edge of the pond. It looked like it would all be public land. However, as we moved on, I saw a few no trespassing signs. It wasn't immediately clear that it was the property that we were on, but then there was one on the path. I suppose I could interpret it that it was off to the side of the path, so we continued on anyway.

It remained a pleasant route, toward the end of a second area of pond, and there was a deep trench to the left of us, sometimes with water in it. I was concerned that we might end up on a long causeway and that there would be no way out without backtracking.

Fortunately, there was an ATV path that went down and then came back up the other side where it was dry. We then continued on the path as it meandered back and forth through the woods some more. We also came across more of the public land signs, which made me feel much better. It seemed like this path sort of followed the boundary.

It was at times hard to push the stroller through the sand, but I got by alright.

We continued on along this path, which got a bit wider and less rutted, and then came to an area of woods with lots of junk strewn around. A side trail to the left led to the north, while the one we were following went straight to another road access.

This way straight led a bit closer to a house, and I didn't want to risk any more trouble, so we took the left turn to the north. 

We passed between a couple of piles of tires, and then made our way out to the South Fire Lane. North and South Fire Lanes are parallel sand roads to the main Rt 70, which stay a substantial distance in the woods from the main road, enough to make for a nice hike.

My plan was to come out to the South Fire Lane eventually, after Four Mile Circle, but we came out to it earlier due to my amended route.

There were some no trespassing signs where we had come from, but none coming from the public land we were on back to the fire lane. We won't be going back there, so it shouldn't be much a problem anyway.

We continued to the right, past two houses, and the lane straight ahead looked really bad. Even ATVs had not been using it. We had to turn left on the cut over to Rt 70. We turned right on this main road for a bit, and reached the intersection with Tranquility Ct on the north side. We crossed, reached the North Fire Lane, which was a paved road at this point, and turned right.

It was pleasant for a little bit, but then the drivable road turned to the right back out to Rt 70. We tried following an ATV path straight on the fire lane, but it got badly overgrown, so we opted to go back out to Rt 70 again to continue east.

I had hoped to cut into the woods to the right, back to the South Fire Lane earlier, but all of the land was posted no trespassing by a hunting club. We were eventually able to cut in to the south after the end of these signs, and passed the intersection with Mile Road, which is a through road to the south into the Michael Huber Prairie Warbler Preserve. We started seeing signs for that and connected with the official trails there.

I pointed out to everyone where I had originally intended to join the route we were on, and happily announced that we were now back on our planned trajectory.

I found it interesting that on this stretch, there were more no trespassing signs. However, in this area, we could see where the public land signs were obviously torn off, with the stables and nails that had secured them still in place at their former corners, with remnants of these signs, and new yellow no trespassing signs put on top. When I checked over NJ Geo Web, it looks like this is all in fact public land, but that these landowners had tried to claim it for their own to keep public from visiting.

We continued past the intersection with the Slab Crossing Road, another sand road, on the Southside Fire Lane, and soon after that, there was another ATV path that cut off to the right.

I could see it on the aerial images that it cut through the woods and led to Billy Boy's Four Mile Tavern, my proposed late lunch stop. It was perfect. We turned right here and followed another nice trail through woods.

This trail had lots of "whoops" on it, those bumps created by ATVs after months of going over the same spots. I pushed the stroller quickly up them, and then down like a rollercoaster which was fun for Ev. On each whoop, I shouted in a high voice "BILLY BOYS!". Ev would holler back at me "NOT SAY BILLY BOYS!", but then I'd do it again every time we went over another bump.

The trail came out directly behind the tavern on the south side. It was great. We came out of the woods and directly to the place! 

We headed inside and seated back by the pool table, which Ev was very interested in. We all sat, and Ev was quite peaceful sitting on a stool chair in the back, watching closely as the people were playing pool. He was so interested in it that he didn't cause really any kind of a nuisance this time! Usually he's excitable and climbing all over me!

I ordered a burger I think, so that Ev could eat some of it. He didn't want to eat a lot because he was so excited about all of the sounds and such at this place.

When everyone was done eating, I decided we would get our group shot right outside at the Billy Boy's sign before moving on.

I had considered going nearby to visit the Lebanon Fire Tower, but at this point it was getting a little late, and our distance was going to put us just barely above 15 miles. I didn't want to push it too far more, since it was pushing dark, not only for our rerouting, but because I showed up late.

We headed directly across the street, and the South Side Fire Line access road was immediately across. We walked it slightly north, parallel with Four Mile Circle, and then turned right parallel with Rt 70 on the main fire line road heading generally northeast.

It was pleasant and easy walking for a good while, and we crossed the intersection with Four Mile Road, as well as over the pink blazed Batona Trail, which travels across the Pine Barrens over fifty miles, cleared by the Back To Nature Club of Philadelphia.

We eventually came to a sort of dead end on the South Fire Line, at Dakota Trail, where we had to turn left and back out to Rt 70. This side step I was prepared for, because we were coming up on Presidential Lakes, and we could not walk across them without coming back out to Rt 70.

We crossed over the bridge, which splendid views of Presidential Lakes to the left, and the dam and Lebanon Lake to the right, which I understand was also once part of the cranberry industry.

The lakes are fed by another tributary of the Rancocas Creek, known as the Cooper Branch.

The sun was setting beautifully as we crossed, and on the other side, there was a trail into woods to the left, which cut a corner over into the estates onto Washington Blvd.

At this intersection, the north fire line is just an ATV path, but it is given the name Whispering Pines Blvd at this point. We turned right and followed it along the backs of homes, along fences and such, parallel with Virginia Drive.

All of the streets within this development are named for US states, including some of them that were technically never finished. We had hiked through the north side of this development on a previous hike, so this time we would be on the south.

The road headed into a more undeveloped area after a church on the left in the development, and we had a nice, quiet walk as the sun was setting behind us for our home stretch. The only sound was the parallel Rt 70 to the south.

As we started approaching Jack's development, Whispering Pines Blvd was cut off and gated by a place that looked like they had a small animal farm. Fortunately, the ATV path cut into the woods to the right, parallel with the closed road and with Rt 70.

We made our way through these woods, and the trail soon connected with a road that is a secondary access to the development from the way we had driven in earlier.

We were soon out to Kelsonville Road and the end of the hike. It was just about dark by this time, but only just barely. I was at the very front of the group with Steve, and the others soon poured in.

Ev hung out with everyone in Jack's yard while I got a ride back to get the van from the starting point. There wasn't really a gathering at the end, and we were so far from home that I was happy to get moving anyway. It was just a very nice hike, seeing places I'd never been before, and exercising resourcefulness enough to deal with adversity as it comes. This day proved that such incidents can produce better results, if we can just remain positive.

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.