Minisink Park

anrothar

anrothar

entirely thrilled
this park is owned by the Morris County Park Comission, and is slated for future development. it is on the north corner of berkshire valley road and minisink rd in jefferson township.

there is a preexisting network of trails and old dirt roads in the park, and in the wma and private property adjoining it. inlcuding a little, buried by leaves singletrack that looks like it's got huge potential. there is one basic loop, with a bunch of arterial trails that go to roads or backyards. several good climbs, lots of fun descents, some wrecked cars and the remains of an old slipform stone house. several of the trails have a water retension problem, as would any unmaintained trails. there are two quite nice overlooks.

it looks as though the trails used to see heavy fourwheeler use, but that it has died down significantly. there were only tracks from one fourwheeler there, and quite heavy leaf cover.

this park has ALOT of potential, and is pretty much a blank slate right now. it is ok to ride the trails in the park. some effective lobbying could see this turn into an excellent, fully multi-use park.

hey jason, or one of the supermoderators, how about setting up a subforum in the north jersey trails section and putting this in it?
 
I'm curious what the "rules" are with doing work on the trails there. I'm intrigued that jdog and his friends seem to have the green light to do anything they want with 6 mile run. It would be nice to have that much free reign in a raw park like this.
 
i'm wondering if we should concentrate our efforts here? how big/rideable is this place? topography?
 
it's not as big as mahlon. it consists of a lower area, with a swamp and a couple of rivers, and a mountain area. there are several waterfals, several interesting rock features. the potential is nearly unlimited. we might also have the option of working directly with morris county parks comission as an individual entity, and skipping over the beaurocratic middleman of morris trail partnership. my apologies if anyone from there is reading this, but that's essentially all they are right now as concerns western morris county. and they haven't replied to my email offering to take the reigns in their name at mahlon yet.
 
I hear a lot of ball dropping stories about this Morris Trails Partnership. What's up with that?
 
normZurawski said:
I hear a lot of ball dropping stories about this Morris Trails Partnership. What's up with that?
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KY makes a lot of things slippier, including the preverbal balls
 
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i don't blame MTP entirely. if i lived on that side of the county, i wouldn't get out here much either. hell, i've never been to lewis morris. and more importantly than MTP, i'm waiting on adopt-a-trail to get back to me. the adopt-a-trail is more of an immediate solution to legitimate maintenance than mtp is, considering all that is involved with getting an official trail maintenance chapter with somewhat loose reigns going in the park. Steve, how about another meeting over beer to discuss and review the adopt-a-trail literature? perhaps monday at Brads house? i hear his wife is going to bake us muffins...
 
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anrothar said:
i definitely think that should be heythorps official new signature.
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done.

sounds like a plan. i was hoping for some special brownies or moldy tortillas myself. i'll bring the materials to the meeting, and we should discuss how to approach your contacts in the parks department for minisink
 
Anrothar, can you put a waypoint into GE to show us where you are talking about?

edit: nevermind, here it is.
 
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yep, that's it. you can park in the wma parking area and ride in. best entrances are either from a four wheeler path on berkshire valley rd just before the corner of minisink or by riding about 100 meters up minisink and going around the chain/gate. there are a few trails in the wma on the parking lot side, and tons of trails in the wma on the other side of minisink rd. and by tons, i mean you could ride to mine hill or allamuchy from there without more than a couple hundred meters of road.
 
anrothar said:
yep, that's it. you can park in the wma parking area and ride in. best entrances are either from a four wheeler path on berkshire valley rd just before the corner of minisink or by riding about 100 meters up minisink and going around the chain/gate. there are a few trails in the wma on the parking lot side, and tons of trails in the wma on the other side of minisink rd. and by tons, i mean you could ride to mine hill or allamuchy from there without more than a couple hundred meters of road.
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hmmm...
there may be A LOT more potential here than we're seeing if that statement is true.
 
anrothar said:
yep, that's it. you can park in the wma parking area and ride in. best entrances are either from a four wheeler path on berkshire valley rd just before the corner of minisink or by riding about 100 meters up minisink and going around the chain/gate. there are a few trails in the wma on the parking lot side, and tons of trails in the wma on the other side of minisink rd. and by tons, i mean you could ride to mine hill or allamuchy from there without more than a couple hundred meters of road.
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Could you do this now? That's a crazy network of trails if so.

I think you've got a mission to setup a 100 mile race in NJ.
 
Sweet, I just looked on GE and this is about 15 min away from my place. If it does have the green light I'll be checking out soon. If you ever set up any TM days let me know.
 
Go for it guys! If you get more involved that's great... I just want you to be patient and pace yourself. I'd rather you do this correctly and be on board for years rather than doing a hole shot out of the gate, getting frustrated and fizzling out, or just throwing up your hands and going under the radar.

Here is my understanding of what is going on with your crew:

Believe that Steve M has the AAT forms as of a week ago.

Just some general comments. MTP is strapped thin, they cover all MC parks so your involvement helps MTP and MCP, not too mention the parks. If you guys are able to get AAT project going in MD then that is a very good thing. Once you're established, you can continue on your own via AAT, or you can join in with MTP in some fashion. I know Greg Murray will give you some autonomy once he knows that you are known entity and committed to maintaining the park.

As of right now my understanding is (from Steve Filipone) that Sean is taking the lead and that Brad, Steve F, Steve M. are all on board as the core "crew".

If you guys have some other plan here, let's talk and see how you all want to proceed. I want you guys to succeed. I'm here for questions and guidance. I may not have all the answers but I know where to get them and I have half a lick of common sense. OK, 1/4 😉

As far as Minisink is concerned, the same basic rules apply here as Mahlon, but you may want to contact either Greg or Janet to see if they even want people maintaining trails. The current entry on the website: http://www.morrisparks.net/parks/minisinkmain.htm has a very vague reference to its use. My interpretation: they don't have a handle yet on what they want to do with the park. Do they want to improve the park? If so, and you guys were a "known entity" and were maintaining M/D you are much more likely to be given access there.

As far as WMA areas are concerned, you are outside the county's jurisdiction and into State of New Jersey Fish and Game. The rules for this can be found under the forum for Wildcat on JORBA.org.

http://www.jorba.org/index.php?page=20

But the good news is that biking is legal but you should not be back there during hunting seaon because you're likely to cuase conflict and your chances of being injured by a hunter a bit higher than non-hunting season.

If you contact Norm, wildcat (at) jorba.org he can probably clarify and suggest how to proceed with the WMA land.


I hope that this is all useful information. If not, let's figure it out. mergler (at) jorba.org

Cheers.
 
thats pretty much exactly where everything stands. and that's a very good point about pacing ourselves, and proving our dedication. while the sneaky little trail weasel in me wants to run right over to minisink and start laying out singletrack, imagine our dissapointment if we did that and they decided to turn it into an equestrian park.

it hadn't even crossed my mind that we would need to establish our intentions physically(through trail work via aat) before we really got any autonomy. makes perfect sense though. i was getting a little antsy, but that does kind of quell my neres. or maybe thats the beer that did that.
 
Waterfalls...

anrothar said:
it's not as big as mahlon. it consists of a lower area, with a swamp and a couple of rivers, and a mountain area. there are several waterfals, several interesting rock features. the potential is nearly unlimited.
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Waterfalls? Yeahhh?

(I've been off the computer for a few. Sorry bout the lack of response Sean.)
 
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