The next Hike Chester Hike will be on the Patriots’ Path in Chester and Long Valley on Sunday November 17, 2013. The hike leaders will be Teun Ott, Brian Coan, and Bruce Clark, all avid local hikers.

We will meet at 9:30am at the endpoint of the hike, the parking area of the Cooper Mill in Chester, NJ.

Directions to Cooper Mill,  the meeting spot: Go to where Rte 206 and Main Street in Chester cross. There is a traffic light. Drive about 1.2 miles west on West Main (old Rte 24 west, CR 513 south). Cooper Mill is on your left. The sign says Cooper Mill Black River County Park

We will leave most cars there and drive with as few cars as possible to the starting point of the hike, the parking lot of Palmer Park in Washington Township (on Bartley Road).

We will then hike back to the Cooper Mill. The hike consists of 3 stretches:

Stretch 1: Palmer Park – Tanners Brook Road (Patriots Path, White Blazes). This stretch of trail is maintained by Brian Coan and Teun Ott;

Stretch 2: Tanners Brook Road – Furnace Road. (Patriots Path, White Blazes). This stretch of trail is maintained by Bruce Clark.

Stretch 3: Furnace Road – Cooper Mill. This stretch first follows the White Blazed Patriots Path, then makes a right turn and follows the Blue Blazed Patriots Path.

Teun Ott has hiked these three stretches in slightly less than 2 hours. With a group it will probably be about 2.5 hours.

If you come to the parking lot on Palmer Park instead of the official meeting (end) point there is a risk there will not be enough cars at the endpoint. If that is the case you will have to hike back.

After the hike some of us may decide to go to a local Pizza Place.

Some background information:

The “Patriot’s Path” is a trail system in Morris County. See www.morrisparks.net/aspparks/patpathmain.asp and
www.morrisparks.net/aspparks/patpathtr.asp  . The Patriots Path system in Morris County is blazed with blazes of many colors: white, red, blue, etc. The “white trails” are sometimes called the backbone of the Patriots Path.

There also is the “Liberty Water Gap Trail”, “Liberty Gap Trail” for short. See www.libertygap.org/  .  The Liberty Gap Trail is a hiking trail from Liberty Park next to the Statue of Liberty to the Delaware Water Gap. East of Newark, NJ it uses the East Coast Greenway. In Union County and Essex County it further uses the Lenape Trail. In Morris County it uses the backbone of the Patriots Path (white blazes). Further NW it uses the Highland Trail, the Sussex Branch Trail, and the Paulinskill Valley Trail.  (Look them up in Google.) Currently it ends in Columbia on the Delaware River, 4 miles short of the Delaware Water Gap.

Other useful URLs are   http://chestertrails.org/ , http://www.chestertownship.org/recreation.html    and   http://www.chesterborough.org  .

If necessary, more information can be obtained from:

Teun Ott     teun@teunisott.com ,
Brian Coan   bcoan@appcomsci.com  ,
Bruce Clark  bruce.randolph.clark@gmail.com  .