Ted Stiles Preserve at Baldpate Mountain - Friends of Hopewell Valley Open Space
Fiddler's Creek Preserve - Friends of Hopewell Valley Open Space
DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 40.31860, -74.86632
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| Brickyard Road parking at the northern edge of Washington Crossing State Park. I parked here so I could get the road walk portion out of the way early without any traffic. There is only room for about 4 cars. This hike passes through three other parking lot options. |
TRAIL MAPS:
Ted Stiles Preserve at Baldpate Mountain - Friends of Hopewell Valley Open Space
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| Updated map from the Mercer County Park Commission Facebook page showing the orange trail reroute. |
Fiddler's Creek Preserve - New Jersey Trails Association
HIKE DISTANCE: 7.4 miles
THE HIKE:
It was a miserably hot and humid day, even at 7 AM. This was not the complete hike that I planned on doing. I'll have to save that for another time. Minimizing elevation gain and cutting the hike short was the way to go on this day.
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| Walking back out from the parking lot to the road ... |
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| ... across Church Road to Fiddler's Creek Road. |
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| After about 1 mile coming up on Fiddler's Creek and ... |
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| ... the entrance drive to Fiddler's Creek Preserve parking lot on the left. There is no sign. |
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| Straight through the parking lot to the gate ... |
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| ... then left on red. |
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| After exiting through the gate, a right turn then ... |
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| ... an immediate left on an overgrown footpath which is red but there are no blazes or markers. |
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| The trail alternates between overgrown and clear but there is always a footpath to follow. |
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| Continuing along Fiddler's Creek. |
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| The trail turns sharply right and climbs up above the creek. |
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| Red ends at blue where we turned left and continued on blue through the gate. |
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| Eastern Towhee |
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| Staying with blue all the way to ... |
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| ... Fiddler's Creek Road where we crossed, veered slightly left ... |
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| ... then right into Ted Stiles Preserve at Baldpate Mountain. |
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| Right to the mowed path that parallels the paved road ... |
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| ... and goes through a parking lot. |
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| The trail is now blazed blue and was the steepest ascent of the hike, sometimes climbing up boulders. |
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| At the top we worked our way over to views to the left. |
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| Scarlet Tanager |
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| We looped around over to the white trail which follows the ridge. This was not the original plan but it was an easier hike in the heat and humidity. |
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| We turned right on orange where I had read the trail had been rerouted on to a new trail. |
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| Apparently Brodie cannot read because he insisted that was the way. |
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| The reroute goes over chunky rocks that are pretty annoying to walk on. Maybe that is why nobody goes this way, evidenced by the many ancient spiderwebs I walked through. |
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| Just after this mass of blow down is a T-intersection where we turned left. |
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| This leads to another parking lot where we turned right ... |
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| ... then right onto a mowed path through the full sun in the very hot power cut. |
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| Finally the trail went into the slightly cooler woods. |
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| Following along Fiddler's Creek ... |
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| ... and crossing on a rock hop. |
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| Back across Church Road ... |
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| ... to the parking lot where an iced coffee in the cooler and air conditioning awaited. |
Birds not seen but heard with the Merlin Bird Sound ID app:
- Red-bellied Woodpecker
- House Wren
- White-eyed Vireo
- Eastern Phoebe
- Blue Jay
- Veery
- Eastern Towhee
- American Goldfinch
- Indigo Bunting
- Northern Cardinal
- Hooded Warbler
- White-breasted Nuthatch
- American Robin
- Northern Flicker
- Black-and-white Warbler
- American Redstart
- Red-eyed Vireo
- Acadian Flycatcher
- Carolina Chickadee
- Carolina Wren
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