Kittatinny Weekend Part One: Old Mine Road

1 October 2014

It is way too early to be waking up.  5:30 a.m. is almost acceptable in August.  But in late September it's still dark.  I have an hour to get the rest of my stuff together before Tom gets here.  I'm packing breakfast because I'm not hungry, and because if I eat now I'll be hungry again by the time we get to the Delaware Water Gap.  I'll eat in the car.

We unload at Jack H's house.  He has a spacious van that swallows all three of our bikes and gear with room to spare.  I point out the painted oxen on Route 31 as we drive through the Hopewell Valley. Once we're past Spruce Run Reservoir, I'm in unknown territory.

We take 31 all the way to the end.  Now I can say I've been on the entire length of this road.  We turn west on Route 46, and I finally get to see Hot Dog Johnny's.

It's a different world up here.  Route 46 is the main drag across Warren County.  Where we are, there are no strip malls.  There are farms, family-run diners, dilapidated everythings.
As we near the Delaware Water Gap, Tom and I talk about my fantasy of eventually having biked the length of the Delaware through New Jersey.  I've been from Washington Crossing to Belvidere.  After that it's a blank.  Route 46 merges into Route 80 south of the gap.  Unless we cross into Pennsylvania, following the river won't be possible.  Tom puts an end to that idea.  "The road on that side sucks," he says.  But today we are going to ride on Old Mine Road, which begins at Route 80 and follows the river all the way to New York State.

Our plan is to meet Snakehead Ed and Winter Larry at the Water Gap visitor's center at 9:00.  We're early by something approaching half an hour.  This gives us time to get out and walk around.

The first thing I do is look towards the tree where I'd left my limpin' stick back in June. Then I see the river, shrouded in fog.

After maybe ten minutes, we get back into the van and wait.  We wonder if Snakehead and Winter Larry missed the exit, or wound up somewhere else in the park.  I'm about to call Ed when they pull in. Tom gives them directions, and they follow our van up Old Mine Road.  It's shady, narrow, and winding. Once in a while we can see the river through the trees.  We reach a crossroads at an old house in Milbrook, where our ride will begin.

On anyone else's ride I'd say it's a bad sign when one has to start out in one's granny gear.  But this is a Tom ride, so, well, you know.  Already I can feel that my caffeine to breakfast ratio is all wrong.  Too much of the first and not enough of the second.  This is going to make for a jittery ride.

We reach a clearing and Tom stops.  "That's a view of the water gap," he says.

Uh-huh.

"We'll see it on the way back, when the fog clears," he assures us.

Now we're descending on pavement that's more pothole than blacktop.  Even the orange paint pothole outlines, clear signs that once upon a time there were plans to repave, have themselves chipped away. We're riding our brakes trying to find a line.  Plain Jim would have something to say about this.

One of Ed's water bottles hops its cage and bounces off the road.  We wait for him at the bottom, next to what used to be the Milbrook General Store.  He returns without the bottle.

We turn off of Old Mine Road onto a road that, if one check's the route on Google Maps, has two names: Walpack Flatbrook, and National Park Service Road 615.  From here we can see the Kittatinny Ridge.  Tom says we'll be on the ridge later.

We pass a few lakes and ponds.

Sometimes there are farm fields.

Our rest stop is early, in Montague, at 20 miles, but it's the only place we can stop. It's called Flatt's, and it's the only flat place we've been all day. Ed buys Gatorade and fills the bottle with water when he's finished.  He slides it into the empty cage.

Cheryl's not here, so Tom volunteers to eat my muffin stump.  I text her the picture.

Wish you were here.

We skirt the edge of High Point State Park, too far from the monument to see it, and turn west then south to reach Old Mine Road again.  Tom detours us off of it so that we can cross the river at Dingman's Ferry, where the toll is collected by a man holding a bucket in the middle of the road. We cross for free.

Then it's back up the hill to Old Mine Road again.

Winter Larry downs a Power Bar without stopping.  A few minutes later he says, "That Power Bar did nothing."

"You probably burned it off before it got to your stomach," I muse.  I've been hungry since the start of the ride.  Although I had plenty of calories, and even some protein, at the rest stop, I feel as if I'd eaten nothing at all.  I'm running on caffeine.  "It's  a Powerless Bar," I suggest.

We descend on blacktop that is less than well-paved.  Ed's Gatorade bottle bounces out of its cage.  This time he catches it before it rolls into oblivion.  We coin a new term for a rough road:  "This is a real bottle-bouncer."

We gather where Old Mine Road meets Walpack-Flatbrook Road.  

We stop again where we'd stopped earlier today.  This time we can Pennsylvania across the Water Gap.

"One more hill," Tom says.  We have a mile and a half to go.  This, too, is standard for a Tom ride. I shift into the granny and prepare for the worst:  an incline riddled with potholes, pavement so chewed up that it's no longer the grade that's the challenge.  Hungry and jittery, it's a wonder I can maneuver Miss Piggy over this terrain without falling over.

I am spent. I eat half a tub of cottage cheese and still feel hungry.  Between cleaning off and driving to the hotel, a Days Inn at Budd Lake, it's another hour.  I eat another protein bar, shower, stumble around, and call Jack, who has arrived in Brussels.

Somehow it's almost 5:30. Everyone is hungry and none of us is feeling too particular.  We wind up in an Anywhere, USA big-box shopping center at a big-box chain Italian restaurant.  After dinner I ask if we can drive around Budd Lake.  It's the headwaters for the South Branch of the Raritan River.  This just goes to show that no matter how far north I travel in New Jersey, I still wind up near the Raritan.  The sun is setting; it's too dark for pictures.

Before we go back to the hotel, we stop for ice cream. Then we hang out in Ed and Larry's room, planning bike routes, talking about nuclear weapons and the Cold War (Ed has a section of his brain dedicated to this), and talking to Cheryl using Face Time on my iPhone.  At 10:00 we call it quits.  The plan for tomorrow is to meet in the lobby for breakfast and be on the road towards Allamuchy by 8:30 a.m.