Oreland Branch

Oreland Branch, Wharton & Northern Railroad, Farny State Park (9/1/2012)

Today we returned to the Farny State Park area to explore the abandoned Oreland Branch of the Wharton & Northern Railroad. I managed to patch together a circuit hike that covered the 2.7-mile stretch of railroad bed (one of the prettiest we've hiked) along with woods roads, a surprise connecting unmaintained trail, and a small residential walk in between.

We parked at the Upper Hibernia Road parking for Beaver Pond and followed the newly-blazed Wildcat Ridge trail north along the RR bed just across the road from the parking area. The RR bed zigzagged north, crossing the road twice and then headed west before ending at Green Pond Road 2.7 miles away. We then backtracked east a bit to an unmaintained trail heading south (which is not on NYNJTC Map #125). This took us south to a woods road (which is on the map, and eventually to a powerline cut which we then took west to Green Pond Road. We headed south on the wide shoulder of the road for no more than 2-3 minutes, turning left onto Darlington Road into an exclusive residential area of McMansions. At the eastern tip of the road, we re-entered the woods following another woods road which led us back to our car. We didn't see another soul the entire hike!

As an aside, the biggest thrill for us was actually before the hike. Driving south on Upper Hibernia Road, we were treated to the sight of a very large black bear crossing the road very near our car. We stopped to watch him after he crossed. He stopped to watch us watching him, before lumbering into someone's yard!

Total distance hiked today was about 5.4 miles in just under 3 hours.

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