ABOUT THE PARK:
Dry Run Creek Trail - D&R Greenway Land Trust
Rockhopper Trail - D&R Canal State Park
DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 40.342078, -74.904860
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| Parking at the southern end of the Dry Run Creek Trail off of Woodens Lane. |
TRAIL MAP:
Dry Run Creek Trail - NJ Trails
Rockhopper Trail - NJ Trails
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| My track with trails colored in showing trails not on other maps. |
HIKE DISTANCE: 11 miles
THE HIKE:
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| The Dry Run Creek Trail heads north from the parking lot. |
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| After thunderstorms again the Friday before, there were lots of wet and muddy spots alternating with dry stretches along this entire hike. |
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| I had to rock hop over the creek for balloon #43. |
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| The end of the Dry Run Creek Trail at the norther parking lot off of Route 518. |
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| The Rockhopper Trail starts directly across the street between the trees. |
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| A female Eastern Towhee was communicating back and forth with ... |
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| ... her male counterpart from different trees. I think they were scouting out nesting real estate. |
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| Turning left on the yellow trail that is not shown on the map. The yellow and red trails are mountain bike trails. |
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| This trail is clear and very well-defined. It passes by several old mining pits. |
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| Where the markers become consistent rectangles (up to this point the blazes were various paint swatches) the trail splits into a loop; we went left. |
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| Left goes to Route 518, right continues the loop. |
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| It is really wet in places here. Our feet and paws were already soaked so it didn't much matter at this point. |
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| The reservoir was barely visible to the left. |
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| After crossing the creek the loop is complete and then it's retracing back to blue. |
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| A left on blue to continue on. |
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| The roots of this tree have a hold on that boulder! |
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| I had expected a trail called "Rockhopper" to be rockier but other than a small portion, it's pretty much smooth. |
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| I couldn't see it going this way but the red loop comes in from the right - that is where we would be coming out after hiking the red loop. For now, staying on blue. |
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| The trail follows portions of old Rock Road where General Washington marched on his way from Lambertville to the battle of Monmouth in 1778. |
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| Turning right in a power cut. |
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| After leaving the power cut to the left and crossing a bridge ... |
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| ... the trail continues on the gravel road into Lambertville but we made this our turn around point. |
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| Back in the power cut, an American Kestrel. |
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| Instead of turning right in the power cut and following blue back, we went straight through the power cut on to orange which connects back to blue. |
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| But it is really wet and muddy pretty much the whole way. |
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| Coming back out on blue. |
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| There is no marker visible but I could tell from the Gaia app that left is the red trail so here we turned left. |
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| Markers begin a little way in. They are sometimes pink instead of red. |
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| A very old bench. |
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| It is obvious that the red trail is not used as much as the yellow trail. Although it was passable, it is on the verge of becoming overgrown in spots. |
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| There are a couple of blow downs blocking the way where there were none on any of the other trails. |
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| Hungry squirrels. |
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| I thought I had remembered seeing that pile of wood on the logs from Dan and Laura Balogh's hike on 4/8/2016 and it just so happens I got a picture in almost the same spot. That wood, now weathered instead of new, has not moved in 3 years! |
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| After the trail follows the creek for a while ... |
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| ... it runs into blue at the creek crossing; left on blue over the creek. |
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| Back through the old quarry pits. |
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| White-throated Sparrow |
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| Back across Route 518 ... |
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| ... and back on the Dry Run Creek Trail. |
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| The first piebald deer I have ever seen. |
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| Coming back up on the parking lot. |
