New trail needed

mitrich

New Member
I am a hiker, but I highly respect the work done by mtbNJ in Sourland Mountain Preserve and Washington Valley Park. You men and women are the best.

But, the Yellow at Washington Valley has a problem for hikers. When we hike up the new main trail from Gilbride, we come to the road and the main trail continues up that road to the Hawk Watch and finally the parking lot. I know that the road is no problem for bikers, but there is little that is more uncomfortable than hiking on a road in stiff hiking boots.

I have been to Sgt Phil Richards about getting a new trail from where the main trail hits the road, across the road and back into the woods over to the inner trail. He told me that they have no people and little money for accomplishing this.

I am hoping that mtbNJ could help us out with this. If you need money to support this effort I would be happy to donate up to $300 to get this done.
 

Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
Thanks for the nod - I'll let @Kirt, the JORBA rep (see www.jorba.org) for the park, explain projects, and donations,etc

when i look at the heat map for hiking, i see that both the trail along the water, and the one that climbs to the 4-way intersection are both highly used.
Would going away from the water, and walking up the small stream make the hike more comfortable? Going right at the 4-way on yellow and using the connector to the road would cut down the max grade - as the climb uses a switchback approach, and hits the road very high up the climb.
I also see a hiking shortcut to eliminate the top switchback.

Heat map
https://www.strava.com/heatmap#15.19/-74.55786/40.58806/hot/run

Let me know if it is difficult to orient on this map, i'll put in some arrows and labels.
 

qclabrat

Well-Known Member
@mitrich, is your proposed trail before or after the falls? Just past the falls towards the watch, it gets really steep. Even before it's fairly steep, which is why I agree with @fidodie in hitting the inner loop from the four-way makes sense.
 

rick81721

Lothar
There's a C trail on your left before you get to the paved road that takes you to the top. Try that instead
 

thegock

Well-Known Member
@rick81721 The C trail is Granola, which is well above the steepest part of the unpaved fire road, but does connect to the four way above Kram's

. @fidodie has the best interim solution.
 
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Off The Road Again

Well-Known Member
As a JORBA member, I appreciate your interest in trying to improve the trails, and your generous offer to donate funds. Most of my experience with JORBA with trail builds/ trail maintenance its been volunteer service, no money involved, maybe a donut or bagel, that's all cool. I work on the trails because I ride them. The area you may be talking about on Yellow is the new High Tech rock section to the fire road? I've asked @Kirt if they could build a switchback to the high side of Yellow, and the answer is the same - there's enough trails to get you to the top. Though, partway up the fire road, you can duck into a single track on the left that leads you to tail end of Granola. Thank you for your support!
 

Kirt

JORBA: Chimney Rock, Team MTBNJ.COM
JORBA.ORG
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Just for the record. While I'm a part of MTBNJ and we get most of the volunteers via this site, the work is done by JORBA. Memberships & donations are always appreciated. http://www.jorba.org/donate

Most bikers hate that road climb as well. It was briefly discuss after we finished the trail along the river but we had plenty of other projects, so I never pursued it further. It's a huge project and would take some time but it would be a great alternate to the road for both hikers and bikers. So, if you can get approval from the park, I will get it built for no cost to the park commission. Private message me if you'd like to discuss further.
 

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