NJ.com: High Bridge ribbon cutting on new multi-use trail

[Erik Fecher]

http://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/index.ssf/2012/08/high_...

http://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/index.ssf/2011/10/high_...

The trail was constructed on Open Space property on Nassau Road in High Bridge with cooperation of JORBA (New Jersey Off-Road Bicycle Association). It will be an approximately 4-mile long trail for mountain biking, hiking, and outdoor activities.

Its great to see more towns embracing the building of public use trails. I live in the Long Valley area and until recently there was really only Schooley's Mountain Park and the central portion of Point Mountain to use for shorter hiking. We only really got the Patriots Path a few years ago, the Columbia Trail hadn't been made open and official for real use although the right-of-way existed from way back when it was train tracks (now a gas pipeline runs underneath so it was also an existing maintenance pathway), and although I literally live down the street from Teetertown, I never knew hiking trails existed in the park until last year. It used to be you had to just be happy what was available to walk around in at the local parks by me and now trails like Patriots Path connect many of the parks, and many more open space holdings are opening up trails. Even to the north of me parks like Stephens and Allamuchy have gotten better, more clearly establishing and blazing official trails through the park and publishing better maps for them. I'm sure lots of hard work goes into acquiring the land, getting the towns to sign off on proposals to build the trails and allowing volunteers to maintain them and all the work to deal with obstacles like cutting close to private property. It's just great that more outdoor opportunities exist and keep popping up. I enjoy many short hikes during the week after work to unwind, get some fresh air and exercise and explore new places. To me it's much better for cardio and general calorie burning than spending too much on a gym membership and running on some treadmill. There's the scenery and challenges through the elevation changes that make it interesting.

Hopefully in the times ahead more places will open up like these, even if they are relatively small networks of patchy open space.

[njHiking.com]

Hi Erik - Thanks for posting this; I've shared the link also on our FB and Twitter pages. It does seem like new trails are popping up in Jersey more frequently which is great. And I agree that weekly workouts are way more enjoyable outdoors than in gyms on the treadmill, so even new short trails are an asset.

Dawn