Hike #1106; Martic Forge to Columbia

Hike #1106: Martic Forge to Columbia

2/11/18 Martic Forge to Columbia PA with Jillane Becker

This next hike was just Jillane and I, out for a Valentines weekend in Lancaster PA area. We had a nice day exploring the Ephrata Cloister and going to a few stores on Saturday, and I came up with a hiking route for Sunday.

Old underpass on Rt 324

I originally looked at a railroad called the Quarryville Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, but much of it went through private farms and it would be some tough walking.
Instead, I thought back to the Enola Low Grade Line, an old rail bed we had gone under when we backpacked the Conestoga Trail years ago.
When we took a break where the trail goes beneath the Martic Forge Trestle on the line, I climbed to the top of it to have a look around. It wasn’t yet decked, the trail not finished, but I was interested in it. It would not be a good warm weather hike because it’s just too open without shade, but this time of year it’d be great.

Martic Forge Trestle

I figured if we got on the rail bed from Conestoga Trail at Martic Forge, we could walk as far as Columbia and have a pretty good trip. We could use an Uber to get back at the end of it all.
We headed out from our hotel in the morning, got a bite to eat, and I found where the trail crossed Rt 324. There was parking, but it was closed off, and there were signs saying that the trail was closed. I was definitely not parking there. I made a slight attempt but my tires were spinning in the mud. Instead, I dropped Jillane off there, and I went to the parking for Conestoga Trail at the state game lands in Martic Forge itself.

Conestoga Trail at Martic Forge

Even though the route to the trestle was only slightly longer from the place I dropped Jillane off, it would save her the trouble of having to climb up the steep slope from Conestoga Trail to the Martic Forge Trestle.
We checked out an old culvert underpass where the highway used to go beneath the tracks first, and then I was on my way to park while Jillane walked west. The spot I parked was adjacent to the foundation of an old trolley station in Martic Forge. I then got on the Conestoga Trail and started walking it toward the trestle. The Pequaea Creek below was running dark and muddy with the recent rain.

Pequaea Creek

There are sort of slanted ladders up from the river to the top of the trestle, which I used the previous time to get to the top, but this time they were in even rougher shape than before. I had waded across the river to see the better one the last time we were out, but this time there was no fording the creek at all.
I think the driveway on the opposite side is the old trolley bed, but I’m not totally certain. It passes in the correct direction; the Conestoga Trail follows it through the deeper gorge of Pequaea Creek, but on this end I think it must go onto the private land on the opposite side.

Martic Forge Trestle

I soon was directly beneath the behemoth of a trestle. The towering structure was completed in 1905. The formal name for the Enola Low Grade Line is the Atglen and Susquehanna Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Martic Forge Trestle

The reason for building this line was to relieve congestion on the main Pennsylvania Railroad line to the north, through Lancaster and environs.
These lines to the north were burdened with both passenger and freight service, which meant frequent stops. The low grade line was built predominantly for freight, with limited stops along the way. It could then reach and maintain higher speeds without so many stops, and it was designed to have little or no at-grade crossings, so lower speed limits were not imposed.

Plaque on the bridge

Construction on the line began in 1902, and was completed in 1906, with the opening of the Safe Harbor Trestle over the mouth of the Conestoga River.
A rather late arrival on the railroad scene, by the 1950s truck service had already begun to take away freight customers.
The line continued to decline, but it remained in service after the merger between Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central (Penn Central). By the time Conrail took over, trains were being routed over former Reading Railroad lines.

Martic Forge Trestle

The last train to pass over the line was in 1988. Conrail petitioned for abandonment of the line in 1989, and the tracks were promptly removed in 1990.

Map of the Enola Low Grade Line

Conrail retained the line even after it was removed reportedly due to the historic nature of it’s bridges. A group petitioned early on to turn the right of way into a trail around 1999, but it ended in failure when it drew opposition from municipalities along the way.

Martic Forge Trestle

Eventually, after Conrail split between Nofolk Southern and CSX, Norfolk Southern sold the sections to seven different municipalities along the way for $1 each. They awarded 1.4 million dollars to the townships for either repair or removal of the bridges along the way in 2008.
Amtrack retains the rights to use the overhead wires, which are still active and in place for the entire length west to the Safe Harbor Dam.
The first section of the trail opened to public in 2011, and work continues today.

The old ladder thing

The Safe Harbor Trestle remains closed to public, other sections to the east are planned to open some time in 2018, and other sections work will begin in 2019. All we would be walking save for Safe Harbor was just about complete.
As I understand, with the Amtrack usage of the overhead wires, permission was somehow secured for the trail, and they might have footed some of the bill for resurfacing because they’d need it for their own maintenance.
I made my way to the slope to get to the top of the bridge.

Structure under the bridge

Compared to how it was the last time I went up the thing in 2013, it had gotten much worse. I had to hold on pretty carefully, and there weren’t nearly as many rungs to grab hold of. The loose cinder slope could easily have sent me careening back down to the road if I wasn’t careful.
The wooden structure beneath the west side of the bridge, which I used to climb through to the deck back then, was still in place. Of course, since the trail was now open, it was nothing I could pass through this time. I climbed to the north side.

Martic Forge Trestle in 2013

When I reached the top, I could see that it looked so much different than my last time on top.

Martic Forge Trestle 2018

The decking was never as bad as a lot of other railroad trestles. It didn’t have the holes between railroad ties where we’d be looking down at the river below. There were some missing here and there, but it was never all that bad.

View from Martic Forge trestle

The view on the top this time was much wider for me. There were leaves on the trees on the last visit, because it was May, but this time I could see up and down the Pequaea Ceek much further.
Looking ahead, I could see Jillane approaching through a rock cut on the east side.
There were quite a few people out and about on the bridge. One guy was pushing a baby stroller back and forth along the center bit of the new decking. I commented that he was curing any fear of heights young as I went by him.

Looking toward my car

To the south, I could see my car parked over at the trolley station site. I got to the side of the bridge and greeted Jillane, then got some more photos of the structure from around the outside of it.

Pequaea Creek from the trestle

The weather was really pretty nice to be out. It was drizzling a bit when we started walking, and the forecast was calling for a bit of rain all day, but this was actually the end of it. It barely even drizzled for the entire remainder of the time we were out.

Interesting graffiti

Things were rather clear from the top of the trestle, but as we looked ahead into the next cut, there was a heavy fog looming over the rail bed. This apparently is from the Susquehanna.

Martic Forge Trestle

We headed away from the trestle and into the fog ahead. We passed through a cut, and reached the Colemanville parking area for the trail. It seems that there may have once been a bridge over the railroad at this point, but not any longer.

In the section ahead, there was a “walking trail” signed to the right. It went up hill into fields and such, then returned to the railroad bed a bit ahead. There’s just so much more to explore, it’s hard to keep track of.
We continued into yet another cut with more fog, and then passed beneath a bridge carrying Rt 419. Abutments for an older bridge were closer to the railroad bed on either side of us. We continued through the cut to the east, and then passed through a very nice wooded area, transitioned from rural lands.

Photo by Harry P. Stoner; Columbia Historic Preservation Society photo

We could see the fog beginning to get thicker as we continued to the west. The Susquehanna River would unfortunately be barely discernible in this fog, but it’d be cool in it’s own way.

The rail bed

We passed through another cut, and crossed over Green Hill Road on a high fill as we made the curve toward the Susquehanna. When we got to that point, we transitioned from being on a cut or fill to being on a high shelf closer to the river.
There were no benches for some reason on the section closer to Martic Forge, but as we reached the Susquehanna, they became more frequent. We continued walking steadily as the slopes to the right became more dramatic and access points more infrequent.

Photo by Harry P. Stoner; Kline Collection; Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

The rocks started getting more steep, and we came upon a trail access in from the right. I was expecting to find a trail head sign and maybe a map or something, but it was rock climbing.

The rail bed approaching the Susquehanna

Apparently the old railroad cut rocks are extremely popular with rock climbers, and more so than anything else the signs need to cite liability, and where it’s allowed and where not.
We continued walking, and soon saw the giant rocks that people love, with anchors still in place in many sections of it.
I thought of my friend Mike Cuccia, who loves rock climbing. He’d really love this place if he doesn’t know about it already. I’ll have to tag him when I posted more of the photos on a public page.

The rock cuts

We continued up along the river following the railroad bed, kept nicely as a trail, until we reached the Safe Harbor Trestle. The old bridge was blocked off to keep people form crossing.

Safe Harbor Trestle

I really wanted to cross it; there really wouldn’t have been a better time because all of the fog would cover us from being seen. Just like the old Martic Forge trestle used to be, there were no huge holes between ties. They’d been filled with secondary ties.

Descending

To the right of the bridge, there was a rope secured at the top of a steep path. We could descend via this along the east end of the trestle to the bottom. The rope was kind of muddy and gross from laying on the ground in the rainy weather, but we made due with it and descended to the bottom.
We entered an area that was clear with a path beneath the trestle over to the the active former Pennsylvania Railroad tracks at a lower grade along the Susquehanna. This line is the one the low grade line connects with to the north.

Power plant bridge

I didn’t know what we were going to get to get to the other side. We could have gotten out onto the bridge by bending a piece of wire that was rather simply placed to close the chain link fence over the bridge, but I still didn’t know what it would look like on the other side, if we’d be able to get off on that side.
Below, we could cross the active railroad bridge below to get across the Conestoga River, but I couldn’t see if we’d have a way to get back up to the abandonment on the other side. The cliffs over there looked large, and there was no pathway or even moderately graded slope to get us up like the south side.

Safe Harbor Trestle

I walked over to have a look at the active track bridge and get views of the trestle from below, then we decided to head down to the access road to the power plant. One option I thought we’d be forced to take would be to follow the Conestoga River up stream to the next bridge. I was a bit nervous because there was a guard shanty building right where the access road came out to the power plant road. Fortunately, it was unmanned, but it kind of didn’t matter anyway because public is allowed to cross the bridge and visit the plant for either tours or to visit fishing access areas. We crossed, and I was surprised to see rails.

Tracks at the dam

The rails were abandoned. They went across the bridge then were covered over. Another spur went into a fenced in area to the right on the other side of the bridge, and a branch went directly toward the plant straight ahead. This probably broke off of the older lower main line.
The Atglen and Susquehanna Branch was already in place when work began on the Safe Harbor Dam in April of 1930. The dam was completed in December of 1931. It inundated a flood plain of the Susquehanna known as the Conejohela Flats.

Historic image from Greg Paweleski

The small bridge was used to gain access to a rail yard east of the dam, shown here on April 28, 1933 by the Dallin Aerial Survey Company. It was a coal loading yard for loading coal that was dredged out of the river. There was a washing and loading tipple also. The Village of Safe Harbor is up on the right. The yard is now Safe Harbor Park.

Safe Harbor Trestle before the dam

The lake behind the Safe Harbor Dam was dubbed “Lake Clarke”.
There was an historic marker on the Susquehannocks, the “most warlike” of all native American tribes who were mostly knocked out as a result of wars with the Five Nations around 1675, and then battles with the Virginia and Maryland colonies.

Safe Harbor Trestle

We couldn’t go far behind the little bridge; I checked out the fishing spots with views of islands in the river, mostly fogged over but somewhat visible. We went to a certain point, and then I spotted a set of steps along the active tracks above, leading up to the trestle.

Safe Harbor Trestles

I figured we could go back the way we came, get on the active railroad bridge and hurry across, then take to the steps to get up to the other side. Clearly other people do this to get through, because the path on the other side was so well worn.
We made our way back, and passed another walker on the way. We then went back up hill the way we had come. We noticed that it was signed from that direction, but not from where we came from. Climbers rather obviously use this for access, which was why there was a rope.

The steps

We took a quick break under the trestle. I didn’t want to hang out there for too long, in case a long train went by. We didn’t hang around, and then hurried across the bridge along the east side. Once we were on the other side, we were a bit more out of sight and could slow down a bit.
The first section of steps was actually a sort of temporary prefabricated set. It was put together with metal steps on a loose scaffolding. The scaffold went up to a section of wooden steps beneath the framework of the bridge.

View from the Safe Harbor bridge

I hurried to the top, and found that we had to go up the steep slope to the right of teh trestle at the end of the steps, but it wasn’t all that bad. Once on top, there was a wooden platform.

Old railroad shanty

The fence blocking off the north side of the trestle was a bit in better shape than the one on the south side, but we could easily have swung around the east side if we’d tried to cross it. On one hand, it would have been cool, but I’m glad we did what we did because we got to see so much more, and it broke up some of the monotony of the otherwise pretty similar old railroad bed. It really broke up the sections before and after pretty well.
The wooden observation platform on the north side offered good views of the river.

Safe Harbor Trestle

There was a cool cloud cover over it, and we could see the entire bridge with no problem. Just on the north side, there was an old Pennsylvania Railroad bridge guard shanty still there.

Historic image from Greg Pawelewski

Safe Harbor Trestle: PRR Class G5s #5725 with an Off The Beaten Track Excursion at Safe Harbor, Pa. on July 12, 1936. (John W. Barriger III Photo)

Current view

Today, there is a guard shack, which might date back to World War II era when guards were deemed necessary.

Historic image of Safe Harbor power plant

There was a good kiosk with historic information on the Safe Harbor Dam right there. I checked out some of that, and it was nearly the same view we got along the edge.

Safe Harbor Dam

After a break, we continued to the north a bit more. There were still really steep cliffs along the right side for much of the time, and designated areas for rock climbers. There were anchors in some of the rocks along the way that were popularly used.

Crazy power lines

There was a trail going off to the right at some point that read “Turkey Hill Trail”. Turkey Hill si where the power windmill for the Turkey Hill Dairy exists. I’ve been wanting to hike it, but this would simply not be a good day for it with all of the fog.

Old signal and rail bed

I figured this was pretty far south for such a trail to be going up, but it turns out that it may continue along the tops of the cliffs for a much longer distance than I realized. This would certainly merit returning for a long day trip.
We passed beneath the overhead power lines coming off of the Safe Harbor power plant, which was really cool looking in all of the fog. The river had constant crackling sounds from the warm weather breaking up the jammed ice.

Old graffiti dating from construction of the railroad!

While we were walking, the drill marks became more pronounced on the cliffs to our right. I missed it, but Jillane spotted a drill that was broken off and still jammed into the rocks.

Historic image of the construction of the rail line between 1902 and 1906

There were etchings in the rocks to the right as we walked, and in them I spotted one from 1906, the year the line was created. I wondered if it had been one of the workers.

Drainage of Frey's Run

Occasionally, we would still see some mile markers left over from the railroad days. Because the line was roughly 29 miles long, I figured the mileages, in excess of thirty, must have been to other locations like maybe the junction sites or something. Maybe it was referring to Harrisburg.
Along the way, more and more springs cascaded off of the cliffs, and the small streams flowed through gullies and into the Susquehanna below. I watched the other side of the river, and I spotted similar ones across the river. Jillane and I camped in one of them on Mason Dixon Trail, believe called Cuff’s Run several years ago.

Old mile marker

We were both watching the maps and noted something odd looking coming up. It turned out to be the outflow of a small creek called Frey’s Run coming off of the mountain to our right. This odd creek flowed normally from the mountain, and beneath the railroad bed, but then went onto an elevated causeway that dropped the flow of the water further out into the river. The best guess I have for why this would be used would be to keep siltation from happening during flood level. It would inhibit erosion of the lake banks.

Mann's Run Falls

It would then also go over top of the railroad line below, and alleviate the possibility of it washing that out as well.
We continued along, and paused at frequent outlooks. The trail was built in such a way that it was occasionally piled higher so you could see over the fence to the west for an unobstructed view of the river. There was still always a sort of fog over it, but it got to the point where we could see a little bit of it. We paused another time to watch a train go by on the active lower track as well.

Mann's Run Falls

There were a couple more places with those elevated flumes that carried the water out across the lower tracks to the Susquehanna and Lake Clarke. One of the nicest ones was Mann Run. There was a nice waterfall at the bottom of it, so I followed a path up along the falls for a better look at more of the cascades up stream.
We picked the right day to be doing this, because the rain that had come made the streams flow a little bit stronger.
We had only passed a couple of people on Martic Forge Trestle, one at Safe Harbor, and no one until later on in this stretch. We started seeing a few after Mann’s Run.

Sun going down over the Susquehanna

The trail could be somewhat unpleasant to walk in some places because it was so spongy and not hard packed. It will probably settle more with time, but some don’t like it.

Old shelter

I personally thought the trail’s surface was rather comfortable to walk.
We continued ahead a bit more, and soon an access lane was along the left, fenced in, on a former track bed. We passed another worker’s shanty in good shape, this time with a new door and windows instealled. I was blown away that there was not one bit of graffiti on the inside our outside of the entire building. It wasn’t even that far from the nearest parking lot, and I understand there are other accesses above.

Caboose

The Turkey Hill Trail we had seen earlier had come down the hill again a bit further back, but I think a branch of it might stay up top. I’ll have to research it a bit more to find out for a f uture trip.
We soon came upon an old caboose on display to the right. Again, this one had no graffiti on it, which was really impressive. Where we had started, every single one of the vertical poles were tagged with the same obnoxious name, multiple times, one below the other.
This was Caboose #23832, built for the New Haven Railroad in Connecticut.

End of the trail

It was painted with 1914 era Pennsylvania Railroad colors, although it never actually had them in the past. The closest thing was Penn-Central colors from when New York Central and the Pennsy merged.
We continued just a bit further and came to the parking lot for the western terminus of the trail. We passed just a few people in this area. We continued to walk where the access road was built over the rail bed to the east, and I saw where another trail section went up toward Turkey Hill. That’s for another trip.

Old bridge over active tracks

At first, I was planning to follow parallel roads to Columbia from this point, but it looked too busy, and it would probably have been absolutely horrible. Instead, I decided we’d try to keep following the old low grade line to it’s former junction with the main line.
We headed into woods and around a fence where the trail’s access road turned to the right out to River Road. It was clear enough to walk for a bit, and then we got to an undecked bridge over part of the active railroad.

bridge

The active line split; one section remained on the west side of the low grade line, and the other was on the east in a cut. Each was only single tracked. We tried to keep following the low grade line after the bridge, but it was getting overgrown as soon as we reached the south side. Even the bridge itself had weeds all over the ties. We weaved back and forth, but it was getting dark and we wouldn’t be able to keep navigating through it easily. We couldn’t get down from it though, until we got away from the steep retaining walls.

Low grade line over the active line

Once we could get down, we did. We followed the line to the east, which went through a nice little cut. We could see where a stream passed beneath both this line and the “low grade” line above us, and soon approached the former junction between the lines. Just beyond that point, both the two tracks of the other Pennsylvania Railroad line came back close together. We continued to follow them, and I originally planned to get off of them and walk River Road when we got to the Blue Rock Boat Launch. When we got there, the road looked too busy, so we just stayed along the tracks, which had a nice path beside them.

The junction site

We continued walking, and there were occasional places where access crossings existed to get over to the Susquehanna. Sometimes there was a good pathway along the two sets of tracks, sometimes there wasn’t.
We passed through Washington Borough, a small settlement along the river, and continued to the north. There was a lit up ball field to the right, and Jillane wanted to call an Uber to get out there, but we had only done 12 miles. I was determined not to cut out until I hit 15. I was grateful that she stuck it out and did the remaining distance with me to get to the town of Columbia.

Ore car

We passed by a truck on the tracks that Jillane spotted ahead of me, and it was just a group of people fishing off of a concrete slab creek underpass. I said hello to them, but it was obvious they didn’t want ot be bothered. We continued parallel with Water Street to the right of the tracks, and much closer to the Susquehanna as we neared Columbia. There were only sounds of the ice breaking up from this point. There wasn’t a lot of wildlife on this entire trip except about four Bald Eagles. When we hiked the Mason Dixon Trail, we once saw four of them on one rock.
I got ahead of Jillane as we got closer to Columbia. We passed a waste water treatment place, and my plan was that we could turn to the left when we got to Union Street and head to the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge, which we crossed when hiking the Mason Dixon Trail.
Just as I reached the entrance to the power plant, a police car was parked facing traffic. I got behind him quietly, and could see his driver’s side door was wide open. I turned back to let Jillane know so we could get off the tracks if necessary. We decided to just try our luck walking right by the back of him quietly, and he didn’t see us.
When we got to Union Street, rather than head for the bridge, we instead opted to head up hill and cross another set of tracks to get to the Wright’s Ferry Mansion.

Wright's Ferry Mansion

Wright’s Ferry Mansion was built in 1738 for Susanna Wright, daughter of John Wright who founded Wright’s Ferry. They first moved to the fringe of Pennsylvania Wilderness in 1726. A bibliophile who honed her knowledge with the likes of friend and pen pal Benjamin Franklin, Wright was multilingual, fluent in French, Latin, Italian and even some Native American language. Franklin and others even sought her advice in politics during the late colonial years. She served as a court cleark, but also created poetry and other works, including works on women’s inequality in marriage (she never married).
We crossed the tracks and turned left on Bank Street, a narrow alley heading north. It had been dark since just about when we got on the tracks, and I really enjoyed the relaxing walk with just river sounds and distant head lights on cars.
We turned right at the end of Bank Street, then right again for only two doors down on 2nd Street to reach Wright’s Ferry Mansion.
We sat on a porch across the street for a bit, as well as another nearby spot, as we waited for the Uber that Jillane had ordered. It didn’t take the guy long to show up and get us back to Martic Forge in short order.
It was a long drive back from here, and we stopped at Sheetz on the way for a snack.
I was happy to get back home to the cats, but part of me would have loved to just keep walking. There’s so much more I want to see there, and pretty much everywhere. I’ll just have to keep doing what I can and learn to be satisfied with it. There’s not enough time in a life time for it all.

Kitties