Columbia Trail East

Columbia Trail East (7/31/2010)

This is the northeastern section of hike #5 ("Columbia Trail") from the book 24 Great Rail-Trails of New Jersey. The Columbia trail is a 16.2-mile trail following an abandoned railroad bed between High Bridge and Flanders, New Jersey. We did a section at the other end (the southwestern part) on July 25 of last year when we formed a loop with a trail through the Ken Lockwood Gorge. Today we started at a parking lot for Schooley's Mountain (on Fairview Avenue) but instead of heading north into that park, we headed south via the Gillette Trail making a left on the Columbia trail which we took NE all the way to its end. The path can be seen at the bottom half of this map. After returning to the car, we visited the ruins of the Union Church on Fairview, alongside the Washington Township Historical Museum.

There is a local legend associated with a one-mile stretch of the section we hiked today. Legend has it a railroad man lost his arm in a railroad accident many years ago. Though his arm was replaced by a hook, he would return to the scene of the accident for years (between North Four Bridges Road and Naughright Road), searching for his arm in the darkness of night, with a lantern. In the decades following his death, residents continued seeing a light orb moving along the same stretch of tracks.

Total distance hiked was 5.7 miles in less than 3 hours.

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