ON the Beaten Path

   Last Wednesday I took a drive near the Delaware Water Gap to ride a loop that would cover parts of the Paulinskill Valley and Sussex Branch Trails in North Jersey. These rural trails connect many small communities along their respective routes, and I certainly was never far from some evidence of civilization, but the manner in which these paths beautifully weave along secluded waterways and through thick forests really make you feel that you are out in the middle of nowhere!

   The Paulinskill Valley Trail is on an abandoned branch of the New York, Susquehanna & Western, a route of particular interesting to me, as every month I operate on my friend Steve’s model railroad layout, which features the NYS&W, or “Susie-Q”, as it is nicknamed. I say “operate” because we use copies of old timetables and switchlists to deliver imaginary passengers and freight to stations and factories to locations around his layout. Yes, it might sound a bit geeky to some of you, but the experience is more about interacting with friends who share a common interest, and it’s far more appealing than just watching trains go around in circles.

   The hobby also allows some of us put our artistic abilities to use, as we create scenery and structures that look as close to the real thing as possible. To show my appreciation for letting me join his group, I built this Pompton Lakes station for Steve’s railroad:

   The Sussex Branch Trail was a section of the Delaware Lackawanna & Western, which is one of my personal favorite railroads, and in the past I have modeled portions of it on my home layout (second photo above). Although on this trip I would be riding just part of the Sussex Branch during the return segment of my loop, I rode its entire 18-mile length a few years ago, from Waterloo to Branchville. I remember that trip well for two reasons: 1. Along the route is a string of small lakes covered with pond lilies, and I was riding in the early spring when their flowers were in bloom, making much of the ride smell incredible. 2. On the return leg my rear derailleur blew apart, leaving me to ride single-speed for a few miles.

   The NYS&W and DL&W were big players in the transport of anthracite coal from the mountains of Pennsylvania to ports around New York City, but these specific branches hauled agricultural goods, milk and iron ore from the area and had regular passenger service. You can read more about the railroad history of these trails by clicking on the logos above.

   I started my journey by parking under the enormous Paulinskill Viaduct (photo below), named after the creek it crosses, and headed east. There are conflicting stories as to the origin of the word Paulinskill – that is, at least the first part of the word, because kill is Dutch for stream or river. I’m very familiar with this etymology, since I live in the valley formed by the Schuylkill River, which would really be a pleonasm – the use of more words than are necessary to make a meaning clear, as in “tuna fish” or “safe haven”. Deriving from the Dutch word schuylen (now spelled schuilen) for “hidden”, it seems folks in our area are incorrectly saying, “Hidden River River”.

   Anyhow, one will immediately notice that these two trails are not the type of manicured paths maintained regularly by a parks service. Many sections of both trails (actually, almost all of the Sussex) were just a singletrack of packed dirt. These areas were my favorite parts of the ride, as the surface was hard, flat and fast! There were some locations featuring two lanes of track which had the look of a lightly-used service road, and there were some wider spots with crushed stone that obviously see some type of maintenance, but not all good.

   There was about a mile or so of the trail near Stillwater over which someone had spread a thick layer of fine cinder. As this is a shared-use trail, I’m assuming the culprits may have been an equestrian organization, because it definitely wasn’t a surface conducive to cycling. The depth of the material made riding sluggish and as the cinder has settled, the path has become terribly bumpy. I can imagine that an extended ride over this type of “paving” would have caused major fatigue in my arms, but luckily the abuse came to an end! I was happy to discover that my return route avoided this section completely.

   I briefly considered using a more road-worthy tire on my ‘cross bike, as about 15 miles of the nearly 50 total were going to be on pavement, but I’m glad I decided to go with the more knobby rubber. Because this was a low area near a stream with plenty of tree cover keeping the sun from drying out the surface, there were some mushy parts of the trail that were more easily navigated with a wider tread.

   As this is a less-traveled path than some of the trails in my home area, there were plenty of small branches that hadn’t been cleared. These weren’t anything impassable, but just a few weeks ago while riding the Raritan Canal Towpath, a branch I had ridden over kicked up and took a chunk out of my right shin. The fresh pink scar reminded me to be on the lookout - not that I was going to be a “shin model” or anything, with all evidence of slashes and lazy stickwork the neighborhood kids have inflicted on my legs during neighborhood street hockey games, but does anyone really want to bleed?

   The ride was very pleasant with the thick tree cover keeping the sun off of my back, and there were a few railroad remnants along the way to catch my eye. I crossed several girder bridges and a large through-truss span that were NYS&W leftovers, as well as a couple mile markers and even an old signal mast just west of Stillwater.

   Determined just to “enjoy the ride” when I’m on my trail bike, I hadn’t installed a computer on it. The one disadvantage to this is that I couldn’t get a good grasp on how far I had to go to the connection with the Sussex Branch Trail. As I rode past a trailhead, I saw a gentleman unloading his bike and quickly asked he knew if I was nearing the intersection of the two trails, and he replied that he was just checking a map on his phone. He confirmed that I had just a short distance to go and pointed out Warbasse Junction Road, with which I was familiar, since it runs parallel to the Sussex Branch Trail. I loved that he referred to it as “Wasabi, something-or-other” Road!

   Sure enough, I shortly reached the junction of the two trails, nicely marked by wooden signs (photo above), and made the righthand turn to head south on the Sussex Trail. This was another fast section of hard-packed singletrack, eventually reaching the streets just outside of Newton. I quickly covered the four miles to my connection at Stickles Pond Road to take on the non-trail portion of my planned route.
   I have mentioned in the past how hard it is to navigate in some areas of New Jersey, as main highways are infrequently indicated on corner signs - most often, it's just the secondary streets. In this section of the state, some intersections were marked only with signs pointing out the direction of local towns. That can’t be particularly helpful to someone who has never heard of Frelinghuysen, Johnsonburg or Allamuchy!

   I had carefully mapped out my street route, following Dark Moon, Ramsey and Kerrs Corner Roads, in order to avoid a couple major hills, and knowing those street names was important to follow that plan. Things went pretty well except for one stop to speak with a passing driver to make sure I had turned onto the intended (but unmarked) road.

   The short, steep ridge that I had to get over in order to get back to the car was a shock to the system after so much flat riding, but once that was conquered, and after a mad downhill dash on the other side to rejoin the trail near Blairstown, it was back to cruising speed on a level path to finish the trip. I will definitely want to do this one again!