That new boardwalk section of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail is beyond spectacular

Let’s just say that this new boardwalk is one of the best parts of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail — and that’s saying a lot because this trail already had so wonderful spots.

It also let me finally biked the entire 20-mile Lawrence Hopewell Trail loop because I was able to stay completely off Princeton Pike and its heavy traffic. Yes, even I, who has biked some crazy roads, prefer calmer roads. And yes, you still have to bike on the road for a bit of the LHT while the final sections are built.

The boardwalk finishes the Maidenhead Meadows section. I prefer to bike the LHT clockwise mostly because I’d rather go downhill on Carter Road than uphill. So you enter Maidenhead Meadows Park from the northern end and it’s pretty wide open. The surface is rocker than crushed stone. This is one of several spots along the Lawrence Hopewell Trail where you don’t want skinny, skinny tires (mine are 28 mm, and I’d say that’s the minimum).

Then you reach the woods and the canopy closes in on you, the surface becomes smoother (or maybe muddier after a rain?). Eventually you’re on a stretch of porous asphalt that takes you onto this elevated wooden boardwalk that just stretches on and on and on. It’s nearly a half-mile long, and it’s got these curves. You’re over wetlands, then over Shipetaukin Creek and soon after you’re at the end of this magnificent stretch. (We did lift our bikes over the barriers at the end points … shh. But those should be gone by this holiday weekend.)

Yes, wetlands can mean more mosquitos (not today!). But even so, this boardwalk is going to be a huge draw.

The rest of the ride

TL;DR: The Lawrence Hopewell Trail is one of New Jersey’s premier trails for walking, running and biking.

We began at Village Park in Lawrenceville — easy to reach, plenty of parking and it’s on the trail. Soon we were at the Pole Farm, once the transmission hub for transatlantic telephone calls. Red-winged blackbirds cavorted in the nearby fields and then in a marshy area as we neared Rosedale Lake.

And was that an eagle’s head peeking above the nest off in the distance on the path along Old Mill Road? We should have brought binoculars!

Eventually we reached the section through Mount Rose, another one of my favorites. Fields, woods, the long-abandoned distillery building that ends up in so many photos. A curvy path that adds to the interest.

This photo is of the distillery and a group LHT walk.

The path sadly ends at Carter Road and another to-be-built section. So you have to use a road with a tiny shoulder. Not everyone’s thing. My trick is to follow the path off to the right that leads to the parking lot; it lops off about a quarter-mile of road riding. Then it’s just over a half-mile to the left turn onto Cleveland Road and quieter riding.

Don’t get too complacent. The path goes down and then steeply up as it uses a closed-to-cars bridge over the Stony Brook. I would not have wanted to be a stick-shift driver on that back in the day!

We weave through the ETS campus, a neighborhood, the Carson Road Woods, then past a Bristol Myers Squibb campus. Then it’s sidepaths down Province Line Road to another neighborhood … and then Maidenhead Meadows Park and the boardwalk.

After the boardwalk there’s a bit of a detour while Ryan Homes finishes building the Pike Town neighborhood and a reconfigured section of the trail. So instead of going past Brealey House, turn right at the end of the boardwalk and then left onto a dirt path that takes you to the new neighborhood and back to pavement. It’s a little squirrely, but Ryan Homes is wrapping up the last building so I’m betting it will wrap up its trail segment this summer too.

Follow the signs to BMS headquarters, another section I love for its swoops. Cross Lewisville Road onto The Lawrenceville School and that reconfigured section (just wish a portion behind the ballfields was paved).

The trail now crosses Route 206/Main Street a few blocks south than where it used to, so you no longer go by the Gingered Peach. Never fear — it’s only a quarter mile off the trail. The bakery is closed on Sundays but Melba, the ice cream shop diagonally behind it, is open on Sundays (Thursdays to Sundays, actually).

I couldn’t decide on my flavor so we ordered a flight. Someone (not me!) wondered who was going to eat all that ice cream … but of course two us were able to eat it all!

Flavors rotate, and I hope Black Sesame is back the next time I am there. My tip is to be adventurous: the Mr. Tumnus one, with goat milk, was delish! The Narnia reference, however, went right over my head because I was never able to get into “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” books as a kid. Feel free to explain it in the comments section.

After all that ice cream, however, we decided to pass on grabbing a beer from the tiny brewery on the other side of the neighborhood next to Village Park. You can read about a separate bike ride to that brewery here.

One last thing: it’s easy to reach the Lawrence Hopewell Trail from the D&R Canal towpath/East Coast Greenway. Look for the connector between the canal and Brearley House.

More LHT adventures:

I biked to 2 of New Jersey’s best bakeries using the Lawrence Hopewell Trail

I used the Lawrence Hopewell Trail to bike to Hopewell Valley Vineyards

Plus an earlier LHT ride: A friend called the Lawrence Hopewell Trail ‘magnificent.’ He’s right.