Somerset High Point

Black River, Pleasant Hill Road

6 June 2015

Jack H picked me up at 7:30 a.m. so that we could stop at Cocoluxe before Tom's Somerset High Point ride that would start around the corner.  I promised my Jack that I'd arrive in DC with chocolate things. Traffic was light; we arrived with plenty of time to choose slowly and drive uphill to the parking lot.

Tom and Jim were surpirsed to see me pop out of Jack H's van.  "I like to keep a spare Jack around," I said by way of explanation.

Once the seven of us were more or less ready to leave, Tom said, "I just want to warn you that there's a good probablilty that we'll get rained on."

"Of course," I said.  "It's that or a dirt road."

There were seven of us, a large draw for a faraway start: me, Tom, Jack H, Jim, Barry, Pete, and Ed G.

We left a few minutes before the official 9:00 start time.  That I even mention this means I'm foreshadowing.

The only way north out of Peapack is up, which is never a fun way to start a ride.  If Tom is leading, though, I expect this sort of thing.  The first few miles were familiar, as we headed west into Hunterdon County.  

There were some places where I passed up stopping for pictures.  We were either descending at a formidable speed or ascending at embarrassingly low ones.  To have stopped at eiher would have held up the ride.

We were all prepared to curse Tom out at some point in the ride.  When I saw that we were turning onto Hollow Brook, I called out, "Bastard!"  I had to retract that, though, because we turned off before the never-ending ascent.  Instead, we made our way north of Oldwick onto Hill and Dale Road, Rockaway Road, and then Guinea Hollow.

The roads were damp, the air cool and humid.  Under the trees it was dark. 

view of the sky from the top of Beavers Road

When we turned onto Beavers Road, I hollered "Bastard!" again, but, once more, Tom was magnanimous and led us up Frog Hollow before the worst of Beavers began.  Not that Frog Hollow is easy; it isn't.  But it's not nearly as bad as the asphalt wall that is the western side of Beavers.

I told Tom that there was a charity ride on the Columbia Trail to day, and that Sean and Dale would be on it. We spent some time trying to figure out where we were in relation to it.  Given our route and its path, we'd have to cross it, or be very near it, at some point.  We decided to figure it out at the rest stop.

Between Peapack and our rest stop at the Quick Chek in Chester at 25 miles, we'd accumulated 2500 feet of ascent.

The moth on the window didn't care that Jim and I spent a solid three minutes trying to get a good picture. There was a lot of glare and reflection.

Throughout the morning, comparisons were being made to Tom's "El Capitan" ride from a few years back. That was the one that gave us 5000 feet of climbing in 50 miles and gave rise to the group-written song that one can find on my blog by searching for the words, "Fuck you, Tom".  I pulled up the page on my phone and read the lyrics to the four riders -- Barry, Ed, Pete, and Jack H -- who had not been there for the original suffering. They were appropriately amused.

We never did get around to figuring out where the Columbia trail was.  When we descened from Coleman Road in Long Valley and turned onto Bartley Road, I said, "Tom, I think we've been here before."  It took me a minute to remember why:  the northern end of the Columbia Trail is on Bartley Road.  I kept my eyes peeled for the trailhead. We turned away before that, though, onto a road that had a school and marshalls and kids on bikes.  "There's a lot of stuff going on today," we mused, having seen half a dozen yard sales already.

For the return trip, Tom backed off a bit on the abuse.  With 25 miles to go, we'd only have to climb another 2000 feet.  The high point of Somerset County would be towards the end of all that.

First, though, we spent some time in a valley on Pleasant Hill Road.  When we got separated and stopped to regroup, I took the opportunity to take pictures of what I could only assume was some part of the Raritan River.  I explained to Pete how every body of water in Hunterdon County has a good chance of being in the Raritan watershed, and how this notion has metastasized to include every body of water in the world except the Delaware River.

Turns out I was half right; I was looking at the Black River.

This is a gaging station.  Gaging, as in gauge, not gag.  This is where the USGS records water levels.  I did my fieldwork in the Pinelands next to one of these.

As was the Monmouth County high point, the Somerset County high point was on a private road.  We didn't get shouted off of this one, though:

With fewer than ten miles to go, much of it descending, we were more relaxed and I stopped more often for pictures.

This hovel is on Claremont Road:

Seriously?

Oxford Univerity called.  They want their building back.

This rather hairy descent came a few miles later:

And then there was the deer in the creek.  Jim and I doubled back for it while the rest of the group went on.  We were

Farther along on Willow Avenue:

Jim was stopped ahead.  I didn't know why until I caught up to him.

Cows.

The picture of this pile of bovinity makes up for all the others we passed today that I did not stop for.

We got back to the parking lot several minutes behind the rest of the group, some of whom had gone down the road to Cocoluxe.

As we put our bikes away and cleaned off, I began an attempt to persuade Jack to join us in Bike Virginia. "Marc can't go," I said.  "He's willing to give you his registration for $20.  That's some kind of transfer fee.  I alreay have a room that sleeps three.  So does Tom."

I think I hooked him.

Tom went off to change.  One by one, riders began to reappear.

"Hi, guys!"

"Marc!"

"I got here at 8:58.  Everyone was gone.  So I did last year's route."  He wasn't the least bit annoyed.

Marc is unflappable.

I got home with more time to spare than I had last week.  There was even time enough to change my reservation to an earlier train.  Sean and Dale gave me a ride to Trenton station.

"How was your ride?" I asked.  "Did you see the gorge?"

"We didn't get that far."

"Did you start at High Bridge?"

"Chester," Sean said.  "At a high school."

"Wait.  We saw that!  There were people on the road."

"They had to detour us around construction. Some housing development."

"Yeah," I said.  "There's a giant fence.  We went around it."

Now I'm on a mildly crowded train, somewhere south of Baltimore, blogging through a poky wifi connection. [UPDATE/EDIT:  Tom and Jim have posted their narratives.] Meanwhile, I should read the final pages of the wheelbuilding book in the 25 minutes I have left.