This next hike will be the very best of the Delaware Water Gap's Pennsylvania side, both the known and unknown stuff!For this hike, we will be meeting at Minsi Lake, the end point, which is a Northampton County Park.
Here are the GPS coordinates:
Latt: 40°54'47.16"N
Long: 75° 9'54.38"W
To get there, there are many different ways, depending on where you're coming from. The best I can tell you is to put in East Shore Drive, Bangor PA in a GPS, and double check your map. The best way is most likely from Rt 512 in East Bangor, take Johnsonville Road north, turn left on Ridge Road and immediately right on Minsi Lake Drive. East Shore Drive will be on the right. Follow East Shore Drive for 0.4 mile, and the parking area will be down an entrance road to the left.
We'll shuttle as few cars as possible north to the beginning point, which is actually Minisink Hills.
From here, we will walk down an abandoned road to Broadhead Creek and pick up the abandoned NYS&W Railroad bed, which follows a great route south along the creek to a dead end street. We'll then follow a brief and pleasant road walk to Rivers Edge Park. We'll follow the Broadhead Creek to it's confluence and the Delaware to a road across Rt 80, then walk through the village of Delaware Water Gap. We'll make our way to the Appalachian Trail, but won't follow it far initially. We'll first skirt Lake Lenape, then make the climb to Table Rock, an interesting rock outcropping trail. This will take us down to Mt. Minsi Fire Road, where we'll double back to rejoin the AT, maybe passing the rock shelter.
Next, we continue on the AT up Mt. Minsi, one of the finest views from the AT in PA. We'll then take the easy hike along the ridge to Totts Gap, where a side trip will take us to the Totts Gap Cave, once an ingersoll rand dynamite test cave. We'll continue to a few more overlooks, most significantly being the Lunch Rocks and Nelson Vista. We'll continue to Kirkridge Shelter, then descend from the Kittatinny Ridge on a side trail known as The Great Walk.
This trail leads to the Collumcile Megalith Park. We'll explore the site a bit, then continue along a back road to Minsi Lake. We'll follow the trail along the north side of the lake which terminates at the lot where we met.
The route I scaled off comes up at 14 miles, but I figure it should round up to exactly 15 because of possible side trips and unexpected turns, etc.
This should be a great hike with constantly changing, great scenery. Hope you can make it!
For more info, contact M'ke at sneezehorse@hotmail.com or call or txt 908 343 8374
