Hike #1021; Delaware Water Gap to Wind Gap

Hike #1021; Delaware Water Gap to Wind Gap

3/19/17 Delaware Water Gap to Wind Gap with Kralc Leahcim (Lerch), Serious Sean Dougherty, Timothy Kovich, Angelo Ezzo III, Karen Ezzo, Michele Valerio, Rob Gearheardt, and Melissa ?.

This next hike would be the fourteenth in the series on the 911 National Memorial Trail, this time between the Delaware Water Gap and Wind Gap PA.
Of all of them in this series, this was admittedly the one I looked forward to the least, because I knew there was so much road walking involved, and I was afraid people would lose interest in the series. However, after planning it out, I took a few liberties to improve the route, and discussed with planners what their long term plans were. It turned out much of what I had in mind was actually their plan as well, and we’d make a better time of it. Further, it ended up being the Sunday we’d have the most snow accumulation of the entire year, and so walking the back roads was actually rather desirable to trudging on trails before they were packed down.

Historic postcard image of Delaware Water Gap from our starting point

We met in the morning at the Appalachian Trail parking lot in Wind Gap PA, to then shuttle to our start point in Delaware Water Gap. When I arrived, the lot was rather unplowed, with barely enough room to fit cars. We managed to squeeze in somehow.
Mike Piersa arrived here also to talk about history with us. He knows his stuff regarding all of the history of the area, and he brought up the former Saylorsburg Branch of the Lehigh and new England Railroad. This is both a long term plan for the trail, and my plan for the latter portion of the day. He told us of an old mine that supposedly exists off the rail bed, which I didn’t know about. We’d have to look for it on our way through.
We shuttled to the start, and I made a wrong turn, which ended up bringing us to the New Jersey side. No matter, we instead started the hike there, which gave us the views from the Appalachian Trail on the Interstate 80 bridge.

Kittatinny House foundation

To the left, we could see Resort Point Overlook, where the Kittatinny House used to stand.
The amazing Kittatinny House has it’s history dating back to the late 1820s with Antoine Dutot, who built the first structure. At the time, the town of Delaware Water Gap was known as Dutotsville. The hotel was sold and expanded upon, and in either the 1880s or 1890s, the original building was razed in favor of an even larger structure.

Historic postcard image of Kittatinny House

Amazingly, the Caldeno Creek (named as an amalgam of the names of the men who discovered it) flowed right through the kitchen of the hotel, and then spilled gracefully over the rock ledges as a picturesque waterfall. We all paused at the falls for some photos. The Kittatinny House came to it’s end when it burned to the ground in 1931. Similar fates befell many of the great old hotels of the Water Gap.

Historic postcard image of Del Water Gap

I mentioned to everyone how I had read a National Geographic book about backpacking the Appalachian Trail in the past, and that it stated the Route 80 bridge in the Delaware Water Gap was the “scariest” place on the entire AT!
We made our way from the Kittatinny Point Information Station site; when I was little there was a nice museum and a nice building. It got flood damaged and was replaced by some crummy structure.

Flood of '55

There’s been quite a history of floods on the Delaware, and especially in this area just below where the Brodhead Creek joins. An entire scout camp was taken out on the Brodhead, and houses were floating right down the Delaware.

Historic postcard image of Water Gap Station

We made our way to the PA side of the bridge, and the old Water Gap station is just below, now long closed and in somewhat poor condition. We stayed on the Appalachian Trail route, to the left into town, which is where it actually crosses the 911 Trail route, a road walk section at this point.

Castle Inn historic postcard

We passed by the historic Castle Inn, built in 1906. There is still tile in the sidewalk that reads “Castle Inn” on it as well. This was from a period in time when the Delaware Water Gap was the vacation capital of the world. It’s even mentioned in the play ‘Funny Girl’, though it sounds like a joke today.

Castle Inn today

At this point, we were to turn along the Appalachian Trail route up the Mountain Road, where it goes into the woods, and we would go straight. However, there would be no opportunities for food until we got to the Saylorsburg area, so I posed the question to the group if they wanted to go and get some sort of breakfast down the hill, which would add some distance. Everyone was into food, so we went down hill from here.

Historic postcard image of Delaware Water Gap

The consensus was pretty strong that we wanted “Hot Dog and Pie”. There is a place I have been going for years that sells a slice of pie and a hot dog for dirt cheap, and we try to stop just about every time we’re in town. This was no different. We followed the road down hill, turned right after crossing Cherry Creek, and entered the place.

Historic postcard image of Delaware Water Gap

We took a good amount of time on our break, and had some delicious junk food. There were a lot of other patrons around too, even though we were out there early.

Hot Dog and Pie!

After we finished eating, we had to walk back up hill on the main drag to get to the Appalachian Trail route again. The official 911 Trail route heads to the west on Cherry Valley Road, but that route is rather heavily traveled and has tons of houses on it. This was the first spot I took some liberties with the route, and after discussing it with the planner from Pennsylvania, he seemed to agree that this would be the better route for walking. On a bicycle, perhaps the Cherry Valley Road route would be fine.
We reached the Appalachian Trail route and turned right up hill further heading to the west.

Historic postcard image of Del Water Gap

The Appalachian Trail turned off to the left, into a parking lot for the National Recreation Area, but we continued straight. I know from previous hikes with the group and before that with my grandfather that Mountain Road used to go through, and that it becomes the dead end Wolf Hollow Drive.

Water Gap Country Club

We continued walking the road through light residential area, and then two guys were standing in the road along the way.
We were asked what we were doing, and I explained that we were hiking. They were friendly and asked more questions. When I told them that this was the 911 Memorial Trail series, the one man lit up, and had a few things to tell me.
By some strange chance, this man had a direct connection to 911. He asked if I had been to the museum in NYC, and he said “There’s a metal beam up there...it’s got a Union sticker on it...I put it there...”.
He went on to describe a helmet and other items on display there. “That’s my helmet” he said. He told us some stories about how he was one of the workers looking for bodies afterward, and he found a perfectly preserved body of a girl still trapped in a subway car. He said he’d seen all sorts of horrible things during that job. Today, he is a sort of Constable for the town of Delaware Water Gap. He introduced himself as Manuel, but rather than the normal pronunciation, he said “Man-yool”.

Historic postcard image of Cherry Creek

This was a really interesting chance meeting to have had. We said goodbye and made our way further down Mountain Road until we got to the Water Gap Country Club. There is a lot of land to be reverted to the new Cherry Valley National Wildlife Refuge, and one of the golf courses will be part of it, but now I understand this one was not part of it. The lower one, Cherry Valley Golf Course, is to become part of the National Wildlife Refuge.

Historic postcard of Cherry Creek through the golf course

When we reached the golf course, we continued straight ahead, on the abandoned old road. I’d hiked this on one of the hikes in Spring of 2004, but hadn’t been back to this section since. With all of the snow on the ground, it was quite a chore to trudge through this section. Still, we managed to pull it off.

Abandoned Mountain Road continuation

We had some pretty nice views to our right into the Cherry Valley. The official route of the trail is just down hill and across the creek, but this way did give us some zero traffic route for a while, which I think was worth it, even though it was cold.
I sweated pretty good fighting through the snow. It was warming up, so it got quite tough for a bit. When we got to the other side, Lerch decided he wanted to lose some layers. I said hello to the guy at the first house after we emerged from the golf course section, and he was thankfully rather friendly. I passed and then waited just a short distance further up for everyone to catch up.

Water Gap Country Club

When Lerch got out, rather than get changed in the woods or wait any time further, he just stopped and got changed behind the guy’s car, barely out of sight! It was rather funny; the guy must have been wondering what was going on.

Changing after the golf course

From this point, we walked slightly down hill on Wolftown Road to Totts Gap Road. We turned left here.
The road took us up hill a bit more, gradually, and further away from the Cherry Valley a bit. It was still far less busy, which made it worth it. We got to a level section atop a secondary ridge and continued to an intersection where we were passed by National Park Service police. We stopped for a break where Totts Gap Road goes down hill before steeply climbing the mountain. We hung out here for a bit, and the police came back by again as their returned route. They certainly must have wondered what we were doing walking out that way.

Historic postcard

We continued along the same road, which sort of changes names here to Poplar Valley Road. It had been pretty steep up hill on a sort of ridge, with Mountain Run in a valley between the main Kittatinny Ridge and where we were.

Village of Poplar Valley

There weren’t a lot of homes on the road, and some farm land. We passed an old collapsed barn on the left side, and then a very strange house that had only one window facing the road, but a huge deck facing into the valley and woods.
Next, we passed through a tiny community with a small church. This was apparently the little settlement of Poplar Valley. We continued from here, gradually down hill for a little to a crossing of Mountain Run. It was a picturesque little valley, and we turned right and soon crossed over the busy Rt 191. We turned left on it briefly, then right on Poplar Valley Road West.

Mountain Run

The section ahead was pleasant and just sort of flew by. We had some nice farm views over the course of the next few miles. The Kittatinny Ridge to the south of us sort of switches names, at one of the doubling gaps known as the Big Offset and the Little Offset. It’s there that it switches on maps from Kittatinny Mountain to Blue Mountain.
To the south of us, we could see at one point beyond the valley and beyond the extension of the Godfrey Ridge where what appeared to be Camelback Mountain was in view, home to Big Pocono State Park. The snow gives a bit more definition to the view.

Big Pocono in view

Even though the snow was on the ground, it was rather unseasonably warm, so Serious Sean brought out his guitar. We walked along and talked about music, sang a few songs, and had an overall nice time.

Pond along Cherry Creek

Poplar Valley Road ended in Poplar Valley at a road called Kemmertown Road, where we turned left on what became Lower Cherry Valley Road. The official 911 Trail at this point is still to the north at Cherry Valley Road, which goes through a more densely populated area. This road would provide more views to the valley to the south as I saw it.
The only part of this I may want to re-do is the Cherry Valley Road section to the east when the former Cherry Valley Golf Course reverts to the National Wildlife Refuge so we can hike the former golf cart paths and such, because that should be interesting enough.

View on Lower Cherry Valley Road to Blue Mountain

We continued on the road past a lovely little pond and the intersection with Fetherman Road. There were nice views into the valley to the north and to the Blue Mountain to the south.

Scene along Lower Cherry Valley Road

The road started to wind a bit more as we headed west. We descended a bit more to get closer to the Cherry Creek itself, one of the factors that made this southern route a bit more attractive than the northern route. When the sweeping farm vistas ended, we were along the pleasant sounds of the creek directly to the right of us for a good while. We passed the Cherry Valley Trout Hatchery, which didn’t seem to have public access. We continued along the creek a bit further, and crossed back and forth over it in a narrow little valley area. After that, it flowed out of Witmer’s Pond.

Lower Cherry Valley Road

We also passed by an old abandoned house in this stretch. It was a beautiful stone structure, probably from the early 1800s. Beyond, there was an old house to the left that seemed to have signs that it was once some sort of motel. Other out buildings looked long abandoned as we made our way toward the underpass for Rt 33.
This led us to our next point of interest: the Sorrenti Cherry Valley Winery. The hike hadn’t been too particularly boring yet, just a nice and overall relaxing route, and a relaxing lunch and wine tasting would only add to it at this point.

Abandoned house

The winery had a mail box that was a wine barrel, which was the first thing to give away that we were there.
We walked into the parking lot, and there was a tasting room to the left, with a restaurant/pizza parlor straight back in an old frame house. I had called in earlier in the week to make sure we could be accommodated, and it was fine, and we called in about an hour before our arrival to be sure they were ready for us. We went into the pizza place and ordered our lunch ahead of time, then went and did the wine tasting in the other building, which worked out very well.

The tasting room

The barn building was roomy with a long bar table for the tasting. I’d read reviews about the place that the tasting was good but that the lunch took forever, or people were disinterested. We had no such feeling of disinterest from anyone, and the wine was pretty good. I got myself a bottle of some Cranberry stuff I think it was at the end. Tim and I finished our amount of wines were were able to get through our tasting, and they let us try several others for free. We just had an all around nice time. When we were done, we went over to the pizza place, and didn’t have to wait very long for our food to come out.

The pizza place

The pizza was really tasty, not like a lot of the weird places further out into PA. We sat and sipped wine and I think we had some sort of appetizer or something too. I don’t quite remember.
The people who worked there were rather interested that we were hiking through, and one of the guys who worked there talked to us about where to get on the trail from there. The Wallkill National Wildlife Refuge really only has one property that is totally open and has trails, and it used to belong to the Sorrenti family. In fact, the trail is accessible from their parking lot, and skirts their fence to the east side to get to the body of the land!
Michele cut out at this point a bit early, while the rest of us continued on .

Wallkill NWR map

I had no idea the property there was as extensive as it is. I figured there might be some informal paths that went through it, and I made plans to use some of it immediately parallel with Rt 33 in order to get to the old Saylorsburg Branch of the Lehigh and New England Railroad.
We got back into the woods a bit and trails split into a few different directions. I could see one went well off to the west, but that would be way out of the way for where we were going. There is actually enough there to merit coming back and wandering some more. I’m going to have to plan another hike and wine tasting, clearly.
This time, we kept to the main trail which took us up parallel with the power line. The initial area below the power line looked as though it had been quarried out at some time, and then probably was a rogue ATV area for years later. We followed the trail for a bit, then got on the power line heading to the north for a bit.

Early 1900s map of Wind Gap area and Saylorsburg Branch

The Saylorsburg Branch at this time was on the other side of Rt 33, and passes through a nearby flea market. It made an abrupt turn in Saylorsburg, and had a switchback which brought it to Saylors Lake, shown on the historic map as Lake Poponoming, where there was an ice house.

Saylorsburg Ice House circa early 1900s

After refrigeration, ice houses were no longer needed, and the railroads that were built to reach them were abandoned. The Saylorsburg Branch was abandoned long before the rest of the system.

1920s view of Saylorsburg Branch along Saylors Lake

It was getting really difficult to continue walking along the power line in the deep snow. My shoes were full of the stuff, as I really didn’t wear appropriate snow shoes.

Wallkill National Wildlife Refuge land

We reached the old Saylorsburg Branch after descending from the power line toward Rt 33. We got on it right where it would have crossed where 33 is today. Much of it had fallen trees all over it at first, so we had to skirt it to the south.

Saylorsburg Branch

At a sort of bend in the right of way, it became very clear again. Some of the group opted to just walk Rt 33 back toward the cars from where we came down. Trudging the snowy power line had taken it’s toll. Serious Sean, Karen, Angelo, Lerch, and I were all out on the right of way to a former rail bridge, which is now undecked. It really didn’t look that much different than the other time I had done it back in February of 2004. The yellow bollards that were there at the time were gone this time, but otherwise it was the same. We also looked around while we walked for ore tailings piles.

Old bridge

Mike Piersa told us we should see them on the slope, but there was nothing. I figured it migh have either been destroyed through construction of the water authority place, or through construction of Rt 33.
We carefully crossed over the bridge, and Lerch took funny photos and video of me pretending to entice Karen across the bridge using my bottle of wine.

The bridge in 2004

Once on the other side, the right of way was clear and easy, escept for the trudging aspect, all the way to where it goes back over Rt 33. This area is being looked at for the potential route of the 911 Trail, and the route we followed could easily become part of it.

Saylorsburg Branch

Serious Sean went way ahead of us, and when we got to where a woods road went up the hill, we tried walking in his footprints rather than breaking new trail. Unfortunately for us, he walked in this crazy back and forth pattern than none of us wanted to do, so we had to break new trail anyway!

Serious Sean tracks

At the top of the hill, the way we had gone out to the parking area in the past was now blocked off by a giant chain link fence around a building. I opted to go down steeply on the slope to Rt 33, and just walk the short stretch of it back to the AT lot. I think Serious Sean fought through some of the mess to the left.
Either way, we were all soon in the parking area safe and sound, and we got rides back to our cars at the water gap. Even though we did a full tasting, I’d had a pack of Weyerbacher, and then a whole bottle of wine, I blew a 0.2 in Lerch’s breathalizer, much to his dismay once again. We also helped some guy jump start his car in the parking lot at Kittatinny Point before heading on out.
This was another example of one of those days I had no real high hopes for, but ended up being a really great time. It had enough interest, and plenty of relaxation, which was what I really needed at the time anyway.