Lockdown Chronicles: Round Valley Reservoir, More or Less

Round Valley Reservoir

6 June 2020

Group rides are on again. On our Friday evening Insane Bike Posse Therapy Session Zoom call, most of us decided, "Yeah, no." I'm in no hurry to lead again. Tom is pretty sure he isn't going to lead a club ride at all this season. Jim will be dipping his toe in the water on Sunday.

Instead, Tom shared his Round Valley Reservoir loop route with us. We met at Woodfield Park in Hillsborough. We started early so that we'd be home and showered by the time the day's humidity became unbearable. The route was shorter than usual as well, which, given the weather, was fine by all of us. By all of us, I mean all of us, the full Posse complement: Tom, Jack H, Bob, Jim, Ricky, Pete, and me. We're no longer afraid to be seen together, and we all wear masks in the parking lot.

We went west through Neshanic Station.

We continued on Woodfern and Three Bridges. I have a hazy memory of being able to see the river from Three Bridges Road. Not anymore. It's still pretty though.

Rockafellows Mill has a stretch of gravel and dirt near the bridge because the road floods too much to bother with paving. We'd had a lot of rain, but the road was smoother than either Tom or I had remembered.

We approached the reservoir from the southwest side, which meant climbing Stanton-Lebanon Road.

"Is this the road with Papa Bear?" Pete asked.

"Yep," I said, "But not yet." There are a fistful of rollers to get over first. The fun doesn't start until after we pass the other end of Stanton Mountain Road.

Ricky asked the same question. "Not yet. Look for the berm on your right, with the sign on top that looks like a park bench." I knew that probably wouldn't make any sense until he got there.

Somewhere on those rollers, Jim had stopped to get a picture. I pulled over to see what he was looking at. "Well, that's a," I said, pausing, "thing."

"It is indeed a thing," he agreed. Because we don't know what to call a barn next to stone ruins and behind a pile of large logs.

Just past Stanton Mountain Road, hand-written in spray paint on the blacktop, is "JM,' for the Jersey Man triathlon.

The first hill is labeled with a row of stenciled bears and hand-painted "Papa Bear." Next is "Mama Bear," a slightly smaller hill. "Baby Bear" gets almost to the top, after which is a little bump, with the icky name, "Prebaby Bear." I guess "Fetus Bear" is too technical.

I caught a few glimpses of reservoir through the trees at the top. We turned into the boat launch area to take a rest.

There was a lot going on down in the water. People were fishing, sailing, paddleboarding, and throwing a toy for a swimming dog to fetch.

Off to the side was a splash of color.

I zoomed in to investigate:

Despite all the rain we've had, the water level was still below the end of the boat ramp.

Closer to us, a red-winged blackbird called from the rushes:

The plan was to take the road around the reservoir, as usual. When I saw the signs about the road closure, I vaguely remembered reading about this some months ago. What I noticed before the fence were the two piles, hundreds of feet high, one of dirt and one of asphalt. Meanwhile, a guard popped out of the trailer and turned us back.

We turned down the Round Valley Access Road instead, spent a few minutes on Route 22, then turned onto Main Street in Lebanon Borough. It's been years since I'd been on this road. It was good to see that the Lebanon Luncheonette was still open.

We took our chances turning uphill on Cherry. Fortunately, the road was open to Old Mountain, where we'd wanted to be anyway. So we missed riding along the side of the reservoir, where there is water on one side and a surreal, mowed-grass drop on the other.

From here out there would be no more big climbs, only rollers that would get more and more annoying as the distance wore on.

There is, apparently, an unspoken rule that when one passes the Thor Solberg airport, one must go in to look at the planes. When we arrived, a small one was taxiing down the runway, close enough for us to see that the pilot was wearing a mask and the copilot might not have been.

Another small plane took off:

Ricky and Jack H took the break at a bench:

We were monitored at all times by a dog in the office:

We had a tailwind for the rest of the trip back. That helped with the annoying rollers. "Thank you for starting so early," I told Tom. It was hot and sticky when we put our bikes away.