Hike #1165; Beltzville/Wild Creek to Parryville
10/8/18 Wild Creek/Beltzville State Park to Perryville PA with Justin Gurbisz, Timothy Kovich, and Pete G. Wilcox
This would be my first hike after returning from vacation...sort of. I actually was still on vacation Sunday and Monday but returned during the wee hours of the morning Saturday night and just wasn’t finished walking yet. With Monday as a government holiday, I had some more energy to burn off before going back to work.
Huh?
I tried to figure out a route that would be good for this one that could be posted on short notice. I always have a few thins on the backburner that I want to see, but just haven’t gotten around to posting. Typically, when I find a day like this I say “let me plan a crappy hike that I want to do but the big group won’t want to”, but then I can’t find such a hike.
Considering what to do, I realized I have not done Beltzville State Park since August of 2012. At that time, we had started at Wild Creek on the east side, and hiked west.
Inlet in State Game Lands 414
That trip was planned then was to follow the north edge of the reservoir through State Game Lands #414 along the north shore, then through the park, and out along the Pohopoco Creek back to the area of Perryville. It ended up being a lot of fields, and difficult at times, but still fun. I said after that hike that I had a similar one we would do that would follow the south side, which has more developed trails. I just never got around to doing it, and I keep waiting for when we have a bigger group, but then I never get around to it.
State Game Lands 414
I decided this time to just post it. If people could come, good. If not, that’s okay too. There’s just too much to do in a lifetime to keep putting things on hold.
My planned end point was along the Lehigh Canal in Perryville, at a weird spot at a lock. The trail ends abruptly at that point because it goes under Rt 248. The main D&L Trail continues on the other side of the Lehigh following the former Lehigh Valley Railroad bed, so this is a lesser used spot.
State Game Lands 414
Justin and Tim showed up, and from there we jumped in my van and shuttled to the east side of Beltzville Lake. I at first parked at Wild Creek, but then I realized I wanted to do a bit of the Christman Trail, which was a bit down the road, so I pulled back out and headed back to another parking lot a bit to the east. I ended up over shooting it though, which added over a mile to the start of the hike. From where we started walking, we had a good woods road that went down hill and past a scenic cove, but then just fields.
Connector to Christman Trail from SGL 414
I was trying to make sense of it all looking at the aerial images on my phone, and after a bit I realized we did not park at the Christman trail head. We had gone too far. We ended up just walking the perimeters of the fields a bit, and then cut straight across the fields. This was not where I wanted to be, because hunting season had just started. Plus, it was really wet and we would be soaked at the very start. Still, we cut across the fields until we got to a good clearer spot, and then headed back to the north to another game lands lot.
Green trail
The lot was just off of Pohopoco Drive, and the grass was mowed on the access trail from the road into the game lands here. Also, a connecting trail was mowed from this game lands lot to the Christman Trail, which was what I wanted to be on.
Christman Trail is yellow blazed, and so we followed that to the right on old woods roads. Soon, we came to where the green trail, a foot path, broke off to the right and followed more closely to a tributary stream. This was a really pretty section.
Small stream
The trail followed the brook down stream for a bit, which weaved around, and then steeply climbed back up out of the stream valley back toward the Christman Trail.
Green trail
We turned left to continue on Christman Trail, which was a bit narrower in this section than where we had turned off of it. It took a nice route up above the bluffs along Beltzville Lake, which were pretty nice.
Beltzville was another Army Corps of Engineers projects for flood control on the Pohopoco Creek, a tributar to the Lehigh River.
Like some of the other lakes we had explored like this, there were homes that had to be vacated, and a little village known as Big Creek Valley.
Small cascade on the green trail
The area of Beltzville also has it’s controversies, like any of these lakes. The lands were ordered vacated by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1966. One hundred families lived in the settlement of Big Creek Valley, along the Pohopoco Creek.
Wild Creek
The houses were to be demolished. Some were given roughly only one thousand dollars per acre they had, and if they wanted to salvage anything from their homes, they had to use the money they got for the land to do so. Some people did just that.
There was a church from Wild Creek that was spared, built in 1841, and the covered bridge that spanned the creek was moved up hill into the state park land, but not easily. The Army Corps of Engineers planned to move the bridge by floating it down when the water came up.
Wild Creek
The water reportedly came up too soon. A flood came and blocked the gates of the recently finished dam with debris, and flooded the area back to the bridge, as well as the houses that still stood. It could be possible that some of the town was left standing when the reservoir was filled based on what I’ve read.
The covered bridge had to be redone, and was put on display in the state park, which is quite nice. The buildings that had been flooded over I can find no information on. Maybe they’re still there.
Wild Creek bridge
The dam was completed and reservoir began to function in 1970. The state park opened in 1972.
We continued along the Christman Trail until we got to the side trail down to the Wild Creek to the right. We took this across a nice foot bridge, and the creek did indeed look wild. It was higher volume than I’d seen it in the past. We got to the other side of the bridge and turned to the left, up stream along the creek.
Wild Creek
It wasn’t terribly hot out, but I still wanted to go for a swim. I went swimming at this spot the previous time I was up there, and it was really nice. With the higher volume of water, I didn’t think it would be that difficult.
I made my way over to the rocks at the base of the lower cascade. It was kind of tough to get down. The rocks were slippery. I climbed down a rock and was being really careful with my steps. I hopped over rocks to the right and came into sight of the main falls ahead, which looked fantastic.
Wild Creek Falls
Everything was really slippery, so I walked in the water to some degree. I got to a narrow spot and flung myself between two rocks to get to the main pool of water below the main falls, and then was able to wade for a bit. Before getting to the main falls, I was able to swim in the depth.
No one else wanted to come in. I thought to climb up the thing like I had done when there was less water, and I probably could have done it, but I decided not to this time. I actually wasn’t being totally stupid about it or I would have.
Wild Creek Falls
As I was making my way back out of the falls area, back to the area with the two rocks, it went from being very deep to very shallow fast. The current was strong to the lower cascade.
Right when I cut it
I pulled myself to the left as not to get to the heavily running water, and went to pull myself up when the current crashed me into the rocks under the water. I knew right away with how badly it hurt that I got a deep cut. I figured it would only be a puncture thing or something. Shin injuries always hurt; often times the pain is worse than what it actually is.
As soon as I was out of the water and examined it, I knew it was bad. The cut was very deep. I could see white below it when I bent my foot, a familiar look to me. I had movement of my leg, but for the first couple of bends I could see the white moving differently. This was what I’d seen when I cut my leg down to the bone on the skid steel loader at Taylor Rental back in May of 2005. The one difference was this one bled a lot more. The hole almost immediately filled in with blood. I cleaned it out and headed back up over the rocks, which was rough because it hurt so terribly bad.
Along Cove Ridge Trail
The rocks I had climbed down to get back out were so much worse to get back up. Still, I managed to do it, and moving around actually felt better than standing still. I limped up the trail and tried to figure out where we needed to go to continue.
We followed the Waterfall Trail a bit down stream along the Wild Creek, which flows out of Wild Creek Reservoir, and Penn Forest Reservoir above that. Most of these reservoirs have those deadly algae in them, and I wasn’t thinking about that at the time of the accident.
The cut
We followed the trail into a narrow gully with a small tributary in it. Basically the gully and the trail were one. A little bit into it, a trail went up hill to the right from it. This was the Cove Ridge Trail, white blazed. We went up hill on it, and it followed a nice hillside that looked rather steeply down through the evergreens to Beltzville Lake.
My leg kept bleeding more, but I figured this was good. I’d let it clean itself out more and start to clot and close. I figured that would be important with such a deep thing.
I wasn’t planning on drinking much of anything on this one, and I hadn’t drank anything much yet, but I figured I needed it with how badly it hurt. I had sone Weyerbacher Tiny Belgian Style Imperial Stout, and so I drank one of those more quickly than I normally would. It worked like a charm.
I had a nice chat with Justin while we meandered through the woods, at first on the slope, and then as the trail turned back kind of inland to the north. We continued to a power line, and then followed it’s clearing to the right to get out to Penn Forest Road, former main road through the valley.
Tic Tac Toe!
On the south side of the reservoir, this road is now the Preachers Camp Road. I’m not sure why it has that name, but I only can assume there was a religious camp on the other side at one time.
We turned left on the Penn Forest Road, and came out into a small development area. My original plan was to continue walking the informal paths along the edge of the reservoir, but I didn’t want to risk getting my cut full of junk and have a bigger problem. Plus it would be too hard to walk it in my condition. I WAS trying to be smart!
Field view
There were quite a few houses at the northern part of Penn Forest Road. There were dumpsters at the entrance to a community on the right, and they must have just had bulk pickup, because there was all sorts of interesting stuff in there. I added a beer bottle to it.
Justin and I played a game of tic tac toe with one of those stupid kid’s plastic toy ones.
To illustrate how out of it I was, Justin actually won. Games like this usually come out a draw, but I was clearly not thinking properly.
A flower bed!
We followed Penn Forest Road out to Pohopoco Drive and turned right. The road takes it’s name for the creek that runs through the reservoir. Pohopoco is reportedly a Native American word that means “stream between two mountains”. It was known as both this, and as “Big Creek” from the old name. Some of the old time residents are still pissed that the reservoir wasn’t named “Big Creek” because it was the settlement that got destroyed for it.
Trachsville Hill Rd
We followed Pohopoco Drive to the right past more houses, crossed a small tributary, and then turned right on Trachsville Hill Road with a few more houses along the way.
Justin pointed out one that had a flower bed in front of it, in an actual bed, which was humorous.
The road went steeply down hill and eventually crossed the upper end of the lake, where the slack water just sort of starts. There was a parking area and access point off to the left, and Preacher’s Camp Trail turned off to the right.
Inlet to Beltzville Lake
We stepped over the galvanized guide rail and headed down hill on the trail. A wooden routed sign welcomed us to it. It looked to be really a nice footpath.
Beltzville Lake
The trail was yellow blazed, went down and crossed a small tributary, and then continued along the reservoir to the west.
The trail started off mostly along the shore, but then ascended a bit to a shelf. We passed through some evergreens, returned to the shore, went back up to the shelf. There were a lot of Rhododendrons and little springs flowing over that made it very nice. When we got back to the shore at one point, I noticed a spider making a web to the right. It was an access point, but not the middle of the trail.
Web making
Justin and I started watching her spin the web, which was mesmerizing. Tim was a bit behind because Justin and I were going so fast, so this gave him the chance to not only catch up, but to go ahead a little bit. Justin and I could have watched the spider for hours it seemed.
Spider at work
Usually we think of spiders spinning around in full circles, all the way around the web until they get to the very center, but this one was going back and forth across the lower third of the web first. After going back and forth multiple times, the spider made a full revolution of the inside of the web, then went back to going back and forth at the bottom. We watched her make two full revolutions around the thing, but otherwise worked a lot from the bottom. I tried to get my camera to get some good macro photos of it.
Web building
After watching the spider for a while, we moved on along the trail.
Things got more interesting in the part ahead, because the slope to the lake got so steep. The trail took on a side hill that was far steeper and cut in than I’d have expected to find. Some of the grades were so steep that a simple fall could send one tumbling far down to the reservoir. It was actually really a cool area, and passed through some thick sloping Rhododendron trees that made it feel a bit safer.
Rhododendron slopes
We continued walking as things got more gently graded, and we picked up a woods road along the way that I couldn’t tell where it came from, near a spring crossing.
Start of the trail
The trail became an old road, and we followed it until we reached the abandoned former road that went through the reservoir at the Preachers Camp site. This was the road that becomes Penn Forest Road on the other side of the reservoir. It still had pavement on it and all.
We continued to the left, and there were a lot of contractors trucks parked near the end of the old road. It seemed that this was either their lunch break or a staging area of sorts. I don’t know what they were working on down there.
Along Preachers Camp Trail
We took a brief break, and then continued on toward the boat launch area. We went down a set of steps to the right, and then cut through the woods to the left on a connecting trail. The trail had some wooden boardwalks along the edge of it, but the trail went around them to the right and was overgrown.
We headed along the trail past a house I think it was, and then it came to a parking area for Trinity Gorge Trail. I had been in touch with Pete, and he was going to meet us in this area. I originally was going to have him meet us at the next lot, but he was getting close to this one.
Rhododendrons
We hung out at the parking area until he showed up, and then we all headed onto the trail together. I think this one was named something to do with the Preacher’s Camp too. It’s the only reason I can think of that the “trinity” name would be used.
The trail passed through some really nice woods, and around a cove into the reservoir.
We went around the cove up hill, and crossed some nice little foot bridges. One of them had a large tree partially fallen over it. The trail split at the end of a cove to some old roads.
Tree on a bridge.
At that point, we could walk out to a nice spot along the reservoir. When I found a good spot to take a dip, I went for another swim and then washed my cut out again some more.
The blood was still coming out of it pretty strong, and while it started with a normal looking blood, it was now oozing out with a more opaque looking cardinal red. I’d not had this happen before, so I was getting a bit more concerned. It was still hurting pretty badly, and we had a long way to go yet.
Leg
We continued on the trail until it split. Trinity Gorge Trail has an upper and lower route, and I figured I would come back with a larger group to do more of the area, and we’ll do Preachers Camp again, but cover the lower Trinity Gorge Trail, so this time we would do the upper.
The trail got wider and was like a mowed woods road through most of it. Occasionally, we had a bit of a view to the right. There was a weird round shaped house Pete pointed out to us, but I don’t remember what he said the history of it was.
Beltzville Lake
The road kept getting larger as we moved along. It became a two track dirt road. The walking was easy, and it took us along cultivated fields out to the end of Evergreen Drive.
Along Trinity Gorge Trail
There were people fishing down there, so going for another swim was out of the question. It was foggy over the reservoir, which gave us a really cool view from the area.
My original plan was to continue following the shore heading to the west. However, my leg was in bad shape, and it was a long way to the next road and parking area. It's surprising they never developed a trail through this section, just to connect to that next lot. My feeling was that maybe they did, and something forced them to cloe it. Not having a trail out to that point just doesn't seem to make any sense.
Farms
We walked to the left and followed Evergreen Drive rather steeply away from the reservoir. Part of me figured we can walk up to the roads, then head back down to the reservoir when we got to Airport Road, then get down the dam, but then I realized it would be way out of the way and we would be walking in a lot more dark than we would be already. It would have to be road walking.
We turned right onto Hazlewood Road, then right on Olive Street in a light little development. We made a left on Rosa Lane, then a right on Raymond Street, which took us through some nice farm lands out to Route 209, Interchange Road.
Trinity Gorge Trail
We turned right and followed the highway to the west. This section seemed to go on forever.
We continued on, and Justin was talking about turning on Elm Street, which would take us back down to Parryville faster. When I looked, it seemed like a really good road route. I couldn't wait to get to it and off the highway.
We made that left on Elm street, which took us down hill gradually and across Bull Run. It then went up hill for what seemed like an eternity.
We got to the top of the hill and it leveled off. It was much nicer continuing from there. My original plan was to head down into Parryville by way of Harrity Road, but we had already done many more miles than we were planning on, and this direct way would be better. The roads were narrow, so it was pleasant enough anyway.
Huh?
We soon crossed over Cherry Hill Road and continued on the other side on North Fireline Road. This was a much more narrow road, which headed gradually down hill into a little gorge. It was a really nice route. There were some building ruins to the right, and then there was a place that looked like it might have been a night club, with a full pavilion thing on top, but the property was really run down. The area gave us the feeling that this was an area society forgot.
Old home in Parryville
East Fireline Road came in from the right, and we continued walking gradually down hill into the community of Parryville. There were some very nice old stone buildings in this area.
I’m not sure of the early history of the area, but after the Lehigh Canal arrived, the town probably grew a lot. Locks 12 and 14 were located in the area, and when boats had to stop to lock through businesses thrived. There were apparently once more locks in the area, but when the canal was refurbished, some were eliminated in favor of larger locks.
Carbon Iron and steel
This area grew much thanks to the Carbon Iron Company, which started about 1855 as the Poho Poco Iron Company. There were three furnaces where, at their peak, three hundred tons of iron was made per week.
Carbon iron and the bridge
A covered bridge once spanned the Lehigh River at the location, which made it a more important place for both industry and transportation.
We continued along the roads, and turned left at some handsome stone buildings to Centre Street, and followed it out across the Pohopoco Creek. Just after, the Riverwalck Saloon was on the left. We simply walked into the parking area and then into the outdoor pavilion type of roofed seating area for some dinner. Food was pretty good.
Tim walked back over the highway and brought his car over so he could pick the rest of us up.
Riverwalck Saloon
Because of my injury, I would refrain from doing a night hike during the week. It was pretty bad, but I went to work Monday and posted signs on Warren Highlands properties all day. Tuesday was the Regional Outing at work, and so I went to High Point State Park, hiked a bit of the Shawangunk Ridge Trail, where one of the employees showed some state line markers I’d never seen, and I also climbed the High Point Monument and was the first of everyone to reach the top. All of this probably didn’t help it much.
The next day, it was so sore I could barely walk. I let it rest a little bit and went to The Dr. Is In in Clinton, and they wrapped it up and put me on antibiotics. It got badly infected. My foot and up to my knee was swelling pretty badly. It wouldn’t start improving until about a week later, and gave me a bit of a scare up till then. It would get better though, because there’s too much good stuff to do, and my next Saturday hike was to be a great one.
HAM
