I visited again yesterday, and the small log identifying the trail to Washington's Rock is now in the ground and vertical instead of lying in its side.

Apparently, the boy scouts used to own the 200 plus acres of the overlook, but they ran into financial problems and sold the land to a company that planned to operate a quarry there. This got tied up in the courts and eventually banned, so the next plan was to build condos. This didn't ever get underway and the state acquired the land under its Green Acres Program. It will be operated as a branch of Washington's Crossing State Park.

I occasionally ride up and over Goat Hill Road on my way to Lambertville on my weekend rides. I've often wondered just which hill is Goat Hill. I did some hunting on the web and finally concluded that Goat Hill is the hill about a mile south of the hill called Goat Hill Overlook. I also found a more complete article about the new park which gave directions to get there.

Election day turned out to be a beautiful fall day with a forecast high around 60F. The university is in fall break, so I decided to take the day off and try and find the overlook.

The directions said turn off Goat Hill Road to George Washington Road and go left at the fork. Actually the fork is where George Washington Road turns to the right and becomes a dirt road. To the left is another dirt road which now has state park signs on newly built gates (which weren't there the last time I tried George Washington Road!).

Shortly after entering the park there's a parking lot. The road continues past a locked gate (which keeps the cars out). People can walk around the gate (or push their bikes around the gate). I rode as far as I could get traction on the leaves covering the dirt and gravel. Then I continued pushing the bike to the top where there's a clearing with a spectacular view of Lambertville, NJ and New Hope, PA.

The rest of the story is in the pictures below.

	Here I am at the overlook. That's the Delaware River behind me with the town of New Hope, PA under the sign.		The truss bridge in center of the picture connects Lambertville, NJ on the near side to New Hope, PA on the far side. The bridge about a mile farther upstream carries Route 202 over the river.
	A closer view of Lambertville. I believe the brownish building with the arch-like windows is the Inn at Lambertville Station. The Lambertville Station itself is part of the property and was a railroad station on the line that was put in on the Delaware and Raritan feeder canal tow path. The station is now a restaurant and pub where I often stop for lunch on my Sunday rides. (The railroad no longer exists; the tow path has been restored and is now a multi-use path.)		A closer view of New Hope. Lambertville was a stage coach stop on the route between New York and Philadelphia in the revolutionary war days. Ferries traversed the river. In fact, Lambertville still has a street named Coryell's Ferry.
	More of the town of Lambertville.		A wider view of the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware. The overlook is about 400 feet above the river and a bit more than a mile downstream from the bridge.
	This is similar to the photo that was in the paper with one significant exception: the photo in the paper had an attractive woman standing next to the tree on the left!		A different foreground tree in the clearing at the overlook.
	A wider view of the clearing at the top of the hill. That's my bike resting against the tree. There's nobody else around. Actually, I met a couple starting down just as I got to the top, another couple at the top, a family of five on my way down and a man in his car on the way to the parking lot at the bottom. I talked to all of them and it turns out they had all seen the same article in the paper and wanted to check out the overlook!		Somewhere at the top of this hill is "Washington's Rock" where General Washington surveyed the Delaware River for British boats. So I started looking for it. I'm pretty sure it's not these, since you can't really see the river for the trees here.
	More rocks. These probably aren't Washington's either! In fact a lot of these rock piles must have been created when the road and clearing at the overlook were made. Many rocks show backhoe scars!		Yet another rock that's almost certainly not Washington's. You can just barely see the river through the trees. Of course it's been more than 200 years since Washington was up here, but if there's a forest between the rock and the river now, there probably was then, too.
	I wandered around the top for a while but never did find a likely candidate for Washinton's Rock, so I started back down. Here's a shot of the "road" fairly close to the top. There's coarse gravel under all those leaves. I could get almost no traction and had to walk the bike most of the way up. I rode most of the way down except for a short steep section. The road turns to the left before the tree in the middle of the picture. Just after it turns is a path heading towards the river. It's marked by a short (about 18 inches long) artificial log (a piece of a telephone pole?) laying on its side. I decided to see where the path led.		It led to this rock which gives a good view over the river. I don't know if this is Washington's Rock or not, but it's the best candidate I found! I walked out on the rock. I'm really glad I use clips and straps, so I ride in my sneakers!
	The end of the rock showing the stub of a metal pipe that had been driven into the rock. There were three such stubs. I conjecture that a handrail had been put down the middle of the rock and later removed.		The view across the river showing the Pennsylvania side of the wing dam and factories on the far side. The factories have been converted to condos. I'm not sure, but I think the spillways on the far side probably provided for water power to run the factories. There are some falling leaves caught in the photo.
	Upriver from the factories. There is a middle opening in the wing dam. seen to the right. There has been a lot of recent rain, the river is high and it's flowing over the dam.		Still further upstream. The bridge connecting Lambertville and New Hope is just barely visible through the trees.
	A mosaic constructed from the previous three photos. Also available is the full resolution mosaic. It's 6292 by 2207 and about 2.7 Mbytes, so don't click unless you have a high bandwidth connection!		The view downstream from the rock. Not as clear as the view upstream, but one can see what's going on on the river when the trees don't have leaves!