Hike #1150; Watres Reservoir to Bear Creek Lake

Hike #1150; Watres Reservoir to Bear Creek Lake

8/16/18 Watres Reservoir to Bear Creek Lake with Pete G. Wilcox and James Quinn

It was another of my Thursdays off and I needed something exciting to do. Pete and I had talked over tons of old rail lines we wanted to explore, and there was no shortage.

Bear Creek Falls

I try to save a lot of the ones that involve these rail lines for when he can attend. There aren’t as many people who can appreciate them other than say Pete or Dan Trump. Unfortunately, I didn’t remind Dan that I was posting a hike and he missed this one, so I felt bad.
My plan this time was for two different segments involving two different things I wanted to know more about. One was the old Spring Brook Railroad, a logging line abandoned probably before 1888. I had hiked the Pinchot Trail system through state forest lands years before and noted a definite old logging railroad grade. There was no question about what it was because there were ties in place. The question I had was where did it come from?
Did the line connect somehow with the Spring Brook Railroad, or did it come from the old Lehigh Valley Railroad spur that went to the Mountain Lake/Meadow Lake area to the west? I can find no maps telling me anything about it.
In retrospect, and based on what we had found, it appears more likely that the railroad on the Pinchot Trail connected with the Albert Lewis logging lands to the west rather than the Spring Brook Railroad to the northeast, because the terrain was just too rough. The only other way we can know for sure is to try to follow the grade north from the Pinchot Trail another time, but that’s a ways out to be looking.

Falls

We met at our end point, which was Bear Creek Lake. I didn’t know just where to park, and so I chose a breakfast establishment on White Have Road at Bear Creek Village. Pete knew of a parking spot to the south of there we could use.
The spot was a beautiful waterfall in some lands trust land, called Bear Creek Falls. An outstanding scene to start the day with.
We shuttled from here to our beginning point, a little pull off parking area near Watres Reservoir on Aston Mountain Road. I had used this lot before on hikes along the old Wilkes Barre and Eastern Railroad. I’d even done the first part of the hike.
The hike started on the right of way of the Spring Brook Railroad, which was an old logging right of way abandoned prior to 1888. It was originally one of those narrow gauge logging railroads, but it was also one that was originally looked at to connect to tidewater prior to the New York, Susquehanna, and Western, which owned the Wilkes Barre and Eastern as a subsidiary.
I understand the Spring Brook Railroad was reworked in standard gauge some years later to construct the Watres Reservoir.
I had seen where the railroad might have continued beyond where the reservoir is today in the past, but never really explored it. That was our first main goal for this hike.

Washed out rail bed

We started walking from the road into the woods parallel with the railroad grade. I looked to where it would have crossed first. One day I hope to follow the old right of way as closely as possible.
We followed the right of way along the Spring Brook up stream for a bit. I’m not sure what year this was built or exactly what year it was abandoned. I know it was built for lumber by men by the name of Sax and Hessler.
There were a lot of trucks parked nearby with trailers, like they were out riding ATVs, but we never came across any of them. We followed the rail bed, which was obviously used by them, until we came to a bad washout section. We had to climb down roads and partly enter the creek a bit, then come back up the other side briefly. When we got closer to the spillway for Watres Reservoir, we followed the Panther Creek, which was to the right a bit from the Spring Brook, which flows out of the reservoir. We got to a good place to cross and waded it, then headed out through the woods to reach the Watres Falls, which is the spillway.
The water flow pretty much everywhere in Pennsylvania has been insane. These creeks are usually pretty small, but it was really heavy this time. Watres Falls is always pretty high volume from what I understand, but extraordinarily so this time.

Watres Falls

There was some kind of infrastructure that used to be back there. Maybe run outs for the railroad. Maybe old mills.

Watres Falls

The falls were incredibly high volume this time, which serve as the spillway. The last time I was there I went up to the top, but decided not to go for those rocks this time. We got some great photos of it before moving on our way. Watres Reservoir is named for Col. Watres, who served as a state senator and lieutenant governor in Pennsylvania. He was also instrumental in forming one of Pennsylvania American Water's early predecessors - the Scranton-Spring Brook Water Company.
We climbed back down and recrossed the creek. We then followed it up stream for a bit. There was some evidence of what could have been more logging railroads or something, but not totally sure.
We continued to where there was a ramshackle foot bridge built across the creek. I had used this in the past when it was more sturdy. We decided to cross, but this time at least some of it had to be crawled. It didn’t look too safe.
The bridge was sat on the piers of the former Wilkes Barre and Eastern Railroad’s Panther Creek Viaduct.

Panther Creek Viaduct

The Wilkes Barre and Eastern was a wholly owned subsidiary of the New York, Susquehanna, and Western Railroad, which previously terminated at Gravel Place in East Stroudsburg. When this line was developed in 1893, it was the most direct route between coal resources and eastern markets. Regardless, it was a circuitous route which meant the railroad had to impose low speed limits. When the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western improved most of it’s lines with cutoffs and double tracking, there was really no competition. The WB&E called it quits about 1939.
I thought at first what we were looking at was natural block, but then Pete noticed that it had been planed off near the top. Further inspection revealed that this was the creekside footings for the trestle, which was locally known as the “High Bridge”.
Once on the other side, we continued to follow Panther Creek up stream but found nothing. We crossed over the creek again, and found what might have been some grades on the other side. We eventually came to a woods road, which was a gentle enough slope that it could have been railroad infrastructure at one time.

Beaver inundation

We followed the road for a while, and we came upon where there was a truck in it ahead. I didn’t think anyone could get out this far. We quieted down and turned back a little bit. When we looked more closely at the maps, we realized we were within State Game Lands #91, so we were safe to be there. We then turned back and headed past the truck. It turned out to be a couple of young guys out there wrecking a beaver dam that had flooded over the road just ahead. We stopped and chatted with the guys for a bit, and they didn’t know anything about any railroad grades going up that far. They did tell us about some old farm foundations up there though. Someone commented on my Metrotrails post about the area that there was a hermit that lived back there in a cave until recently as well.
We continued on the road ahead, and came upon the first old foundation.

Foundation

The building was very recognizable. It’s so far out in the middle of nowhere, it’s kind of surprising that we found anything. Other woods roads turned off at points, and we reached a spot by the confluence of Panther Creek and Painter Creek (which Pete says are derived from the same “panther” word from German), and found a definite former bridge site. Whether this was a railroad bridge or just an old farm road we cannot know for sure.

Old bridge site where Painter and Panther Creeks meet

We continued along the woods road following the Painter Creek, and that eventually disappeared. We ended up seeing more stone foundation on the east slope of the creek heading south, up stream, and even some sort of concrete footings further out. No clue what any of that could have been so far out in the middle of nowhere.
We continued up the creek, and from time to time there were obvious grades. Again, we can’t be sure if these were possible railroad beds, or if they were just old logging roads or whatever. The lumber railroads were used only for such a short time, they might have been insubstantial.

Maybe an old grade?

There were definite old woods roads, and a few old stone walls. Everything we looked at might have been some sort of a clue. Pete and I were looking so closely for railroad grades that some of the stuff might have been far fetched.
Eventually, there were some very obscure woods road grades that started taking us up hill away from Painter Creek. I wanted to get up in there further to try to get on some real trail, because this was starting to take us a really long time, and we had a very long way to go.

Bridge

Up the slope for a while, we came upon the Watres Trail. This trail was another loop built off of the Pinchot Trail loop to the north. I’ve still never hiked the trail, so this was my first time on any of it. My hopes were that it followed an old logging railroad grade, but it didn’t. It was actually undulating terrain until the very end, at the Pinchot Trail intersection. There, it lookd as though it might have been a rail grade, but it is only on it a short time. The grade disappears into the Rhododendrons along Painter Creek.
We turned right, or west on the Pinchot Trail and soon crossed over the Painter Creek. There were people camping along the creek, which was tiny up in this area, just to the right. We then continued on the trail, which soon picks up a long forgotten old logging railroad grade. My hope was to follow the grade more closely rather than follow the Pinchot Trail this time, but we had to get moving if we were going to finish after dark.
We followed the trail briefly on the rail grade, and then it split off to the right of it. We could see the grade continuing on, and Pete followed it for a time.

Logging rail bed along Pinchot Trail

Pinchot Trail went up hill a bit, and it looked like the older route of the trail up further on a hill had been re-established. The time I first hiked this section, it had just been closed and painted out. Maybe I’ll have to come back and do that section again when I do the rail grade.

Google terrain map showing the logging grade

We continued on the Pinchot Trail out to Pittston Road, a road closed to motor vehicles. The Pinchot Trail turned right on it for a time. I couldn’t help but note that the gentle grade of this road could easily have been a railroad grade at one time.
Before this hike, I was still thinking the line we just saw had connected with the Spring Brook Railroad, but after this I started leaning more toward the Mountain Springs/Meadow Ponds area.
A closer inspection of the google terrain maps show a level grade making it’s way closer to Painter Creek from where we were walking on the trail,d then returning to it around Pittston Road. This changes everything. The logging railroad could easily have reached the upper end of Meadow Lake could easily have been the connection.

We continued walking where the Pinchot Trail turned off to the left. That’s called the Scrub Oak Trail section. We continued south from there, and connected with the Pine Hill Road. There was actually a ranger of sorts parked there, surprisingly. We continued south on Pinchot Trail’s White Line Trail section. This makes up the boundary between State Forest and Game Lands, as well as I believe Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties.

Historic postcard

We continued on this trail for a ways, and I recall we went by one of those new deer enclosures. The trail went around the fence to the right, and at one point it continued straight while we turned right on a road, and the trail came back to it. It didn’t match what was on the map, but I keep forgetting that they’re crap.
We continued on the trail right on out to Bear Lake Road. The section on White Line was a section of Pinchot Trail I’d never done before. Most of it was straight as an arrow, but appeared that some sections were rather recently rerouted closer to the road.
When we got to the road, we turned to the right. I wanted to see along the way if there was any rail infrastructure.
I’d seen on the aerials that there was what looked like level grade deviating from the road slightly, but I wasn’t sure. Our facebook friend Lee Curry later said that the railroad did continue through here, serving to collect ice from Bear Lake. The logging lines likely broke off of this line heading north.
We checked out one section of level deviating grade to the right, which could have been it.

We kept walking the road beyond where the grade returned, and soon entered the settlement of Meadow Run Ponds/Mountain Springs. There were a few homes through the area, and a couple of abandoned houses. We continued until I saw another thing that could have either been a road or an old rail grade. It connected to East Avenue along Meadow Run Pond. We opted to try to follow it for a bit, and came out on the road. We then turned right on East Avenue and followed the section north, along the east side of Meadow Run Pond. It was a development here, and there was no sign of railroad on this side. We’re sure there was railroad on the other side, but not totally sure of the infrastructure out to the Pinchot Trail.
We turned left from the road to the dam that separates the Meadow Run Pond to Meadow Lake above. There is a path from the one side to the other along the dam. Immediately on the other side, we reached the old railroad grade, now a development road.

Rail bed at Meadow Run Ponds

We weren’t going to be able to follow this one unfortunately, it was a dead end out there in a housing area.
The railroad and lands were all thanks to lumber man Albert Lewis. Lewis moved to the area from Maine and worked for the Lehigh Valley Railroad for years. He was drafted to serve in the Civil War, but paid another man $300 to take his place, and he followed in his father’s footsteps in the lumber industry. He acquired lands around present day Bear Creek Village, and partnered with the Stull family (who became in laws when two brothers married his sisters).

Lehigh Valley Railroad agreed to finance a railroad line from Bear Creek Junction to Moosehead in Lewis’s lands in the early 1880s, to Bear Creek Village. Later, it was extended from that point to the Mountain Springs/Meadow Ponds area. Villages known as California and Beaupland were along the line. The latter was named for previous land owners from the early 1800s.
The lumber industry of Lewis faced some major set backs in the form of forest fires that destroyed everything in the Meadow Ponds area. The land and rail line remained in use until 1892 when it was deemed unsafe and was dismantled.
Lewis saw the decline of the lumber industry, but saw the prospect of ice industry in the ponds. He rebuilt the old Lehigh Valley Railroad bed at narrower gauge, and began harvesting ice. There were two ice plants at Bear Creek Village, two more at the first Meadow Run Pond, and two more at the second. It was a thriving industry for quite some time.
Historic documentation says that Lewis also harvested ice at Penn Lake, but that’s probably the one to the southeast.
Historic maps show that the earlier road alignment was some of the grades we walked, but that doesn’t mean they were not once rail grades. The rail line on Pinchot Trail still had to come from somewhere.

I had spotted Black Owl Brewing Company along the pond where we ended up and reached out to them. I did get a response, but they don’t have an official location to sell from yet. I was hoping the guy who owns it would see us and say hello, maybe give us a sample! No such luck, but I did have a conversation with him on line. He’d followed some of the old rail grades and was at least interested in what we were doing.
There was once a station in this area, and we turned to the left on West Ave. We could see down to where the railroad was in yards. It only followed the road known as Lagoon Ave for a short time.
When we got out by the main dam for the lake, there were some guys fishing there. They were right on the railroad grade, and one guy told us that back in the woods there are ruins of the ice house and still rails in place. This sounds like something we’ll need to see!
We crossed over the highway, Thornhurst Road, and could see the railroad grade on the other side. The first bit of it was flooded out pretty badly with springs. We got through it okay, and saw some remnants of something or other. Old concrete and such. We continued on this grade until it came out to a back yard. It was just after the right of way was starting to get good. They had plowed the fill away, and overtaken it into the yard. We had to backtrack to where we could go off into the woods and reach Meadow Run Road.
We stopped when we got to Meadow Run itself and took a dip in the stream. It was brutally hot. The guy we met earlier said it was so clean in the lake you could just drink it as it was.

Old concrete thing

We came out to the road and turned right to pass the house that blocked us from the grade. After that, there was a second house on it, but this one was abandoned. We passed it, then realized we could get through there. We walked down and didn’t go into it. We just walked around back and found the old right of way there. I wanted to get far away from sight from the previous house.
The right of way had a cut with water in it at first, and then remained overgrown when it went onto a small fill. It was grown over with hay ferns, which were nice to walk through anyway.

The rail bed

Just beyond, the rail bed went into State Game Lands 127 I think it was. At some point it shifts from this to Bear Creek Camp Conservation Area. I’m not sure on all of those boundaries.
There was a foot bridge that came in from the left, and made the right of way accessible. It was almost mowed for the first bit, probably periodically, and definitely mowed a little further along. It was a really nice section.
It was straight as an arrow for a while, on a good fill along wetlands, with Meadow Run directly to the left. There was nearly no shade in this area which made it tough.

Along Meadow Run

The rail bed soon was right on the edge of Meadow Run. I was looking forward to a really nice section ahead, but it was not to be. The path people use went off to the right and the rail bed was overgrown straight ahead. I could still make out where the ties once were.
I fought through some really rough stuff until it got a little clearer, and there was a great little swimming hole on the Meadow Run. I laid down in it and waited for Pete and James to catch up.
When we were all cooled off, we continued on and found a former bridge site. The creek was now overflowing over rocks where the railroad was, and the grade was badly eroded ahead. We stepped over the rocks, and soon after had to get in the creek to continue. The rail bed was down to maybe a tenth of it’s width, only held together by remaining plant roots. A major wall system once held the railroad bed up and kept the Meadow Run from destroying it, but time has taken it’s toll. The tracks were finally ripped up through here in 1938, relatively early for a railroad line. With no maintenance since, it’s definitely been overrun by nature.

Bridge site

We climbed back onto the grade when it was wide enough to walk, and there was an amazing intact wall system along the way. We followed this to another former bridge site, a major one over the main flow of Meadow Run.
The water was very high and swift. We thought we might have to go back and make our way across another way. I climbed down and hugged the edge of the wall to get under the former bridge site, and then found a spot just up from a major current flume to step across without getting swept down. James and Pete both followed me, and we climbed back up the other side.
The path passed through Rhododendrons and was a little rough until we got to where a power line crossed. It had obliterated a bit of the grade, but just beyond it got to be great again.
We were very high up on a shelf above the creek at this point, and it looked more and more like a trail. Soon, we came across trail markers leading to the left and right.
One of them was called California Mills Trail. This would have been named for the little settlement that was known as California in the area.
The right of way was perfect for a long while from here. We passed some little waterfalls and even an old cabin that appeared to be long vacant. This was all part of the Bear Creek Camp. It’s unclear whether this was all open to public or what. From what I understand from looking at the land trust maps, it is somewhat open through some sort of conservation easement when camp is not in session.
We just kept passing more and more trails. The property is enormous. We will absolutely have to go back to hike all of them in the future.
We continued on and passed the former site of Antler Lake I believe it was called, one of the ice dam lakes owned by Albert Lewis. We could see from afar the remnant of the one dam abutment from the railroad bed, which started to get disturbed probably through construction efforts.

Old ice dam ruin

We got walking a bit beyond and I saw what I thought for sure was another railroad bed going straight, but the road went to the left. I figured we were losing the railroad grade. The road was going out of the way, and we didn’t have the time to bushwhack into it to follow it more closely.
Now, I know that both of these were rail grades. There wa sa through line that follows the present day road, but the route that went to the right went out to the lower ice dam lake. We continued on the road, and then came across a boardwalk side path going off to the right. I said “well, we’re here now, you guys want check it out?”. We unanimously headed over to have a look.

Rail trestle observation deck

The path went over the boardwalk, through a bit more woods, then onto a big observation deck out onto the wetlands that all used to be part of another ice dam lake.
I realized pretty quickly what this was; they had built the deck onto the piers of the trestle that carried the other railroad grade for the ice hauling. What an amazing creative re-use! We were so glad we went out to check it out.
We returned the way we had come, and somehow that railroad bed rejoined what we were walking, but I didn’t notice where.
We were on a good shelf for a time, above the creek, and then continued through woods out to where the railroad bed becomes Beaupland Road at a gate.

The rail bed, now Beaupland Road

Hardly anyone was using the road, which was really great. We managed to wander on through with almost no cars passing us.
Pete told us about a guy he had worked for, who lived in this development, that was responsible for getting the movie “The Molly Maguires” starring Sean Connery actually made, because it was a local interest thing.
We continued on the roads until the railroad broke off to the left. It was easy to miss if we weren’t looking, but the outline of the railroad ties were quite obvious through the yards.
To the left of us, up the slope, is a bed and breakfast that now occupies the historic home of Albert Lewis, the man behind the lumber and ice industry of the area.

Historic view of Bear Creek village

We continued on parallel roads ahead, until we reached the intersection with Cove Road. There, we walked just a little ahead along the waterfront where Pete pointed out the old railroad station, which still stands as a private residence. There were people out front, so we didn’t try to get too much closer to it.
We came out of the development onto Rt 115, and we could see where the railroad would have crossed over. In this area, it split in two and both branches connected with north and southbound Lehigh Valley Railroad main lines. I plan to hike that section in the future as a loop hike, but it’s one that’s better for a larger group because it’s so simple to put together. I’ll hold off on that one for a little while until I have a good time to post it.
We continued from here along White Haven Road south, but there was a pathway along the first part. It led to a private farm property, but it got us off the road for a little bit. We were able to simply follow the road from there to Bear Creek Falls where we had spotted cars earlier. The last stretch of road seemed to go on forever by the time we got there.

Historic view of Bear Creek Village station

I was really happy to have finally explored this bit. I had watched it on historic maps for many years by this point, not knowing when I’d ever get around to seeing it. This was a major one. There’s still so much more of it to see, but I feel better knowing that now I’ll actually get around to finishing it. There’s so many other series of hikes going on that it makes it hard to try to get to them all, but we’re chiseling away at them slowly but surely.
Even though my crazy work schedule is a frustration when it comes to consistently bringing newcomers out and having good weekend hikes, in some ways it’s a blessing the way we are making the best of it exploring all of these obscure back woods gems that would be harder with a larger group.
There is still so much more to see, and I only wish I had more time to visit and document it all!