Hike #1096; Northwest Easton Loop

Hike #1096; Northwest Easton Loop

12/7/17 Northwest Easton Loop with Justin Gurbisz, Dan Asnis, Dan Lurie, and Daniel Lurie.

Our next night hike would be following the success of the previous Easton ones, but more specifically, the most recent one two weeks prior.
When I was scaling off the previous hike, which was really a very nice time, I had started on a different one at first. When I finished and posted the one I did, I stayed put and fine tuned the previous one I’d given up on. Happy with how it looked, I decided to post it for two weeks out as not to have two Easton area hikes two weeks in a row.
I started this one dead tired. The night before was my buddy Jack's annual Strikesound Party, and I was up drinking, singing, and dancing like crazy. I didn't end up leaving the party until after 2:00 am, and didn't get home to bed until after 3:30. I got about two hours of sleep and worked a full day, and even passed out on my lunch break onto my work bench. I figured this hike would take what little life I had in me away, but it actually felt rejuvenating.

Sunset at the start

The meeting point would be very near to where we had met on the previous one (Whitehall Mall). I chose the K Mart parking lot because it was directly on the former Easton and Northern Railroad, now a trail, for our return, and directly across from the high school, which according to aerials might have a good greenway along it heading to the west for a bit.
This hike would be another weird mish mash of stuff thrown together, which I thought looked promising. Truthfully, it could have been awful if the things I’d seen on aerials didn’t work out as well as they did.

Easton Sunset

I had to plan something that would work out well enough to be done almost completely in the dark. We’re fast approaching the shortest days of the year, and so we often don’t even get started until it’s nearly dark. This hike was no exception. As I reached the parking lot, direct from work, the sun was going down fast.
I made sure that the hike I’d planned would be something we’d have little trouble navigating completely in the dark. We would be much in wide open spaces with lights from nearby businesses, or if we weren’t, on paths that were wide and clear enough not to be trouble.

Sunset

I met Justin and Dan at the K Mart, which Justin was sort of enamored with because he had never been in one before. Dan and I were trying to figure out where he was, because it’s not like him to run so far behind, and there he was walking out of the store looking around.

Sunset stuff

He came over to us proclaiming “It’s like a Walmart in there!”, which was rather funny.
Most K Marts had closed (I purchased forty one pairs of sneakers at an average of a dollar a pair when two local ones went out of business years ago), so it’s weird that there are any around.
We started walking from the lot directly down hill to the west. There was a crosswalk that got us over by the high school property, but no walkway on the other side. We continued to the west on the grass parallel with Rt 22.

Path parallel with 22

To my surprise, there was a good clear path parallel with 22 only a short distance away. It cut into the swath of trees on the north side of the high school property, and remained far enough away from the buildings, but kind of like a typical trail.
The trail took us past multiple different kinds of ball fields off to the left, and directly beside Route 22 the entire way. It took us up onto a little bit of a rise where we could look back and get some good views of the mostly abandoned old Dixie Cup Factory as well.

Historic postcard of Dixie Cup Factory

The Dixie Cup Factory still has some stuff stored inside it here and there that’s new, but it’s been out of commission for a long time. Stef Statler told me that they wanted to put apartments into it, but as of now I’ve heard nothing new about it.

Dixie Cup Factory

We walked along the edge of the school property to where there was a trail around a retention pond system. We didn’t bother with that, because what we were following took us directly out to South Greenwood Avenue.
We crossed the road directly, and there was an Italian restaurant on the corner. There seemed to be a good swath of land going to the north, over toward Route 22, and some sort of box building beyond with mowed turf, so we opted to just turn through the grass of the restaurant and continue following Route 22.

The school

We had to step over a very low fence, and then kept to the right past the box shaped building. We emerged on their parking lot, and then went to the west side of it into more grass. At the very corner of the lot, there was an opening and a path that led into a vacant field, and then a mowed trail looping around the outside. This was made by an adjacent land owner, but it was good enough for our purposes to get a little further along.
We made our way to the end of the mowed pathway, and found somewhat worn down sections of weeds easy enough to walk through to the west.

Abandoned school

We emerged on the gravel access driveway to a billboard along Route 22 next to a little hill, and just beyond was what appeared to be an older abandoned school. The grass had been brush hogged or something, and was limp, so we could walk across it with no problem.
Before we continued along the back of the school, I looked back to make sure Dan was still caught up, and saw a guy in a white shirt and a black tie, kind of heavy set, looking angry and walking toward us. He walked onto the mowed trail and continued to follow the same way we went toward the end of the field.

Sunset at the old school

I didn’t say anything about him right away, and turned away as to pretend I didn’t notice him following us. I figure he must be someone that works at the building we walked along in back of. If not security, just some guy that wanted to come out and bark at us.
I didn’t turn back and look again until we were well onto the land of that old school. The man had continued all the way to the other side of the lot, but he wasn’t going to fight through all of the weeds we did, even though they weren’t bad, to get to us. We had gone slightly up hill to the billboard, then weaved back a bit. He did not turn back to the building he came from, but instead went up Watson Street to get up by the school.

Sunset at the church

We soon emerged at the ball fields associated with St. Jane Frances Church. There was something going on there, because a lot of cars were pulling in from the south of us. I looked back and scanned the landscape to see if the yahoo in the tie was still following us. I couldn’t see him, and so we walked past a restroom, then across grassy fields directly to a development and South Nulton Ave. At the point we reached the road, a paved trail went off to the right, blocked by bollards. We were able to walk it and continue as we had, parallel with Rt 22 on this path.

Sunset at the development

There was a high white fence that separated us from the development, so no one could even see us back there.
I figured since the guy was following us through the mess, I wouldn’t put it past him o go the short distance back to his car and hunt us down. It certainly wouldn’t have been hard to predict our trajectory prior to getting onto that last paved pathway. We didn’t see the guy again, although he probably called the police and said there were “suspicious characters” around.

Path along 22

We remained on the path west until we came out to it’s end at Bethman Road. We turned to the left here to cross the bridge, and caught the end of the sunset with the traffic of Rt 22 heading for us.
It was surprising that this bridge did not have good guide rails or barriers to keep people from throwing shit off of it. After the woman was killed at an Easton overpass several years back, I thought these were eliminated from all Rt 22 crossings.
On the other side of the bridge, there was a lovely old farm, which looked like a time capsule compared to the big highway next to it.

Sunset 22

As soon as we were on the other side, we turned to the right onto a pathway that accesses yet another billboard, by stepping over the galvanized railing. From here, there was a brand new paved trail leading to the east, to the still under construction Charles Chrin Community Center of Palmer.
The surface was dark black, and looked as though it was completed only in the last week. It weaved back and forth, close to and then away from the access road to what looks like will be a new parking lot for the community center.

22 sunset

One part of the community center was already open, and we discussed going inside, but eventually decided not to. We just continued on the very new trail, which led east away from the center to the south side of some ball fields of the Palmer Elementary School. We started going further east, then north, but changed course and headed back to the west a bit, skirted some more baseball fields, then a dugout, and emerged at the corner of the parking area on Green Pond Road. We crossed the road directly here, and entered a cemetery known as the Northampton Memorial Shrine.

Lovely farm view

We continued walking through the grass to the east a bit more, and then turned to the left, north into the cemetery even further. It was quiet, and light from surrounding houses made it easy to see where we were going. Lerch called Justin while we were out there, and we coached him on some state interview stuff he has coming up on Monday or something.

Path at community center

We emerged from the cemetery at the northwest end on John Street. We turned left here, and followed it to Farmersville Road and turned left yet again.
We didn’t have to go very far on the street at all before coming to a paved path that leads to the north. It had a gate over it, but no signs saying not to go there. It seems to show as a bike trail.
We followed the path down hill to where it opened into wide open fields. We continued as it turned to the west a bit, and went back and forth. We gained a bit more elevation, and reached a dead end road with a cul de sac to the south of us.
We walked gradually up hill a bit, and there was some new construction going on to the right.
Justin and I headed over to it to see what was going on. It was totally open, so we wandered through and had a look. Dan sat around on the road I think.
There were also lots of machines parked around, which I really wanted to get on and ride, but there was a vehicle dealership right there moving cars around, and I didn’t want to get in any trouble.
We followed the access road north to just beyond the dealership, and there was a sort of paved or gravel path going straight where the road curves to the left. I assumed it was an earlier alignment of the road that is now Commerce Park Drive.
In researching this, I found something that we might have missed. There is possibly an abandoned house down that road, or maybe one that’s still lived in. The route we walked was the original driveway to a farm. When the new road went in, around 2005 with the completion of Route 33, the road route was changed. I don’t remember walking by any houses prior to getting to the new building construction, so it might be worth looking into.
The former route we took led us out to Hecktown Road, where we went straight across.
There was a dealership called Koch on both sides of the road, so rather than walk that, we just cut through the auto lots heading north.
As we walked by their maintenance center, we talked about dealerships and how they just leave keys to cars in the service department lots all the time. I go to Smith Dodge with my work truck, and find it in the parking lot with the key left in it. This place had cop cars in the lot, and I’d imagine they do that with those too. And so, we discussed what we’d do if we stole a cop car and how far we’d get away with driving it. Just as we passed by, a guy walked to the service department door, warily looking back at us. I wondered where he came from, and if he was listening to us hoodlums talking about stealing his cars.
We cut up hill on the grass at the end of the lot to reach Newburg Road. I’d driven this road so many times but never walked through this area. We went direct across on Northwood Ave, and then cut to the left off the road and onto somesort of driving track. It was some trains and lanes place, a hobby store. We walked a portion of their track, then passed the building, followed by another track. We were able to walk direct over fields on the other side before cutting back over to Northwood Ave again where a good sidewalk starts up.
Dan and Dan Jr. were waiting to join us at the Walmart just ahead, and so we headed toward it. Justin and I had been talking about how much we love Burger King, and how sad it is that so many of them have closed locally. Particularly, the one in Hackettstown that is closest to Justin’s residence, and the one in Chester which is near me when I work at Hacklebarney are sorely missed.
No sooner did we stop talking about it, we saw a Burger King across the lot. We gave up looking for the Dans and opted to shift course to the Burger King.
The inside was nice, and it had these lounge chair cushion seats, but these four trollup girls were sitting in them. We made it audibly clear that we loved these seats, and they eventually left so we could take them over.
I let Dan know we were going to BK, and he and Dan Jr. came to meet up with us there.
After a delicious break, we were all on our way. We walked across the lot toward the front of the Walmart, then cut along the south side of the building to a grassy slope that led behind an apartment complex. We went all the way around the back of the first one, and came out at a retention pond and bridge on Corriere Road.

Retention pond off Corriere Road

We kept to the left and crossed the bridge, then turned left again, to another berm for a retention pond or something. This required climbing over a fence, but we had no real trouble.
We continued to the east to Van Buren Road (BACK THAT ASS UP, MARTIN VAN BUREN).
We had to cut through a little bit of weeds after the last retention pond, but it was fine.
This section was the biggest gamble of the hike. Everything had gone really fabulously up until here, and I figured we could either walk along bit of development roads, or take the chance skirting a field heading east.
I was feeling bold, so we skirted the field. It went close to a private road, but we were separated from it by the Schoeneck Creek, so I figured we were okay.
The edge of the field was almost like a path anyway. We headed up hill gradually on it, away from Schoeneck Creek, and only occasionally had to walk into the rows of corn a bit more, which were all still standing dead.

Justin apparition

As we headed up, we were behind a line of trees separating a mansion's yard with the field. We got past that really quick, and were soon in the upper portion of the field. The field widened, and we continued south along it's edge, then east along another edge. It got to be some really lovely walking.
When we got toward the end of the field, we emerged near someone’s house and back yard. I told everyone we needed to cut through the field for a bit so that we could emerge directly on the cul de sac to a development.

Justin silhouette

I watched my phone GPS carefully, and we parted the corn to emerge directly on Stephanie Drive.
We had a pleasant section walking this development road, which was a nice little break and not at all annoying. One yard had this weird light system on it, where Justin walked out to it and looked like a light dot covered silouhette. Other houses had mostly interesting looking light displays. I don't recall seeing any of those tacky blow up displays, which I just want to shoot with a pellet gun when I see them. These ones were all pretty tasteful, if not weird.
One particular house had the Death Star from Star Wars superimposed onto it, and Yoda's head would fly by in front of it every couple seconds. The other side of the house had R2D2 and a Storm Trooper head flying by. It was bizarre.
When we got to the intersection with Howard Lane, there was a little park on the opposite side. We cut directly across to that, and there were two people with separate cars, but both in the same car, in the lot. Dan made some comment about that and what they were doing. I think someone made a comment about them both being married, just not to each other.

Weird building

We cut through a line of trees at the back of the park to a power line right of way, then turned left into the rear of the building for the American Legion. There was a very weird shaped building with doors looking like coffins in back of it.
We kept to the right of the building and continued out almost to Corriere Road, a different one than what we were on before, and turned right. There was an army tank in front of the American Legion, and Justin climbed up on it because I thought I saw the hatch opened.
We continued to the east on the road, and walked along the front walkway of a mini mall.

The tank

We managed to reach Tatamy Road with hardly any road walking at all. This had gone just great. From that point, all we had to do was continue straight across on the cul de sac to Penn's Grant Path, which I had used on many hikes before. From that point, the remainder of the trip was pretty much 100% trail. I was really happy about how well it went.
We reached the end of the cul de sac, and started following the path down hill, which was soon immediately parallel with the Schoeneck Creek. We continued along it to where it reached the rail trail on the former Easton and Northern Railroad.
We turned to the right to follow it south. It was a really pleasant time to be walking it. We crossed Stocker Hill Road, followed by Northwood Ave. It was around that point I got to be a bit reminiscent on the trail. I brought up how many times I'd walked over that before there was any decking on it, just ties.
We continued on and crossed over Bushkill Park Drive, followed by another bridge over Bushkill Creek. This section took us out behind the former Binney and Smith factory, and I pointed out how you could still see some of the original masonry through the windows, and then the masorny on the other side. The factory utilized the stone walls of a very old mill, probably a grist mill.

The rail bed in 2003

We crossed over Edgewood Ave, and then turned to the right on the path that was created for the trail to circumnavigate the industrial properties to the south.
When the railroad right of way, formerly part of the Lehigh Valley Railroad system, was abandoned and then sold for trail use, it was originally thought that it would go right through the industrial site. I actually did one of my hikes where we walked right through the place shortly after it happened, and no one said anything to us.
Some deal was struck that the company would build the trail around, connecting Upper and Lower Hackett Parks with the rail bed on either side of their property if the county would give up that right of way. A deal was struck, and the trail was created.

The rail bed in 2003

We headed up hill on the path to Upper Hackett, then cut across grass to make a corner, then went across Hackett Ave to the down hill route.
We headed down across Rt 22 on the pedestrian bridge, then reached parking for Lower Hackett.We turned right where the trail closely paralleled Wood Avenue, crossed over, and regained the old railroad bed.
I had a good discussion with Dan Jr, first about Vegas and the differences between things out there and out here, and that somehow evolved into discussing how things have changed over the years. It's still a crazy trip to me how I don't really feel any older, and yet I'm not that guy that's pointing out things saying "this used to be such and such a way". No more was that true than at the very end, when we were coming to the cars and crossing Northampton Street.

Hiking across Northampton Street in 2001

The first time I'd hiked this, there were still rails in the pavement, and there was a Wonder Bread distribution center on the corner. We would walk out and around tractor trailers before the Northampton Street crossing. Now, maybe the first time I'd really taken notice of it, the entire facility was gone. There was now some Lehigh Valley health care center in it's place with a large parking lot. Even Justin seemed to remember the first time going through there, having the distribution center right there. Things just change so much it's unbelievable. I'm not upset about it either way, it's just an absolutely mind bending realization that these rock hard structures, built to withstand weather and years, are gone and yet I, soft flesh and fragile bone, still walk by.
We cut to the right when we got toward Taco Bell, and followed the edge of the lots right back to K Mart, and I was able to get the Dans back to their car.
I really loved this hike. It was exactly the kind of interesting and diverse wandering that I want to do when I'm out. I managed to make it home alright without passing out, which was a miracle.

This is Martin Van Buren

HAM