Columbia Trail

South Branch Raritan River, Ken Lockwood Gorge

1 March 2020

Tom had to be up that way for some family stuff, so he invited a few of us to ride the Columbia Trail with him on Saturday. With air temperatures below freezing and a stiff west wind, Ricky, Tom, and I started from High Bridge.

Tom wasn't on the ride I led up here in the fall of 2018. He hadn't seen the Ken Lockwood Gorge from down on River Road. I showed him how to get from the trail to the river.

There were a lot of dogs on the trail. One golden retriever named Murphy tried to eat Grover right off my handlebars when I was stopped for a picture. I promised the pooch a Muppet of his own next time.

We followed River Road under the Columbia Trail bridge.

On our left was the river and on our right a rock face dripping the occasional icicle. I noticed this one because the three of us got off our bikes to lift a fallen tree trunk out of the path.

When River Road met Hoffman's Crossing Road, we turned uphill to rejoin the trail.

Near the Middle Valley Road intersection we passed the car graveyard.

After crossing Schooley's Mountain Road, the trail became less well-maintained. We rode next to the river and crossed a few bridges over feeder streams. We could see the mountain to our left, but there wasn't any spectacular scenery. The sun had gone behind heavy clouds. The air felt colder.

We went all the way to the trail's end at Bartley Road out of duty, then turned around. I'd forgotten to pack food, and I was hungry. I suggested we stop at the Coffee Potter on Schooley's Mountain Road. Tom and Ricky were in favor of that.

There was a good selection of empty calories and coffee. Outside a snow squall was blowing sideways.

There was a herd of cows I'd missed on the way up.

Tom felt a cramp coming on, so we stopped at the Califon train station building, now a historical society with a museum open for two hours every other Sunday. Nice work if you can get it.

To the west, the sky was a steely gray that, were this six months from now, would portend a thorough soaking.

Now we were riding under intermittent snow flurries. We stayed on the trail when we got to Hoffman's Crossing. I kept an eye out for gnome homes. I only spotted two before deciding to get a picture of the third.

Ahead of me, Tom was stopped in front of something that wasn't anything like gnomes.

"It's a dinosaur pile-up," he said. "That's a name of a band."

Farther along, where the trail was high above the river and I could see River Road through the trees, I stopped to look at a wall of icicles.

Near the bridge over the gorge I stopped again.

After the bridge, Ricky found more gnome homes.

This one, close to High Bridge, was a true work of art.

Nearby, on the back of a truck, stood a large, carved gnome.

To his left, a carved owl sat in a tree.

Then there was this: Hagrid reading over Harry Potter's shoulder on one side of a tree trunk, and a gnome home that looked like a gnome itself on the other.

Nearby, a tiny home had fallen to the ground.

Two more were nestled among a tree's roots.

We'd passed all of these on our way out and hadn't noticed a single one. This is some true Weird New Jersey. You should go up and see it.