Hike #858; Ricketts Glen to Sorber's Mountain

Hike #858; Ricketts Glen to Sorber's Mountain

6/21/15 Rickett's Glen to Sorbers Mountain with Seth Gollhardt, Beth Dillenbeck, Peter G Wilcox, James Quinn, Jen Grove, Jason Kumpas, Amanda Murphy, Tim Kovich, John Discuillo, Jess Collins, Austin Grimshaw, Serious Sean Dougherty, and Corey Janusz.

The group at RB Ricketts Falls

Our next hike would be a point to point in the Endless Mountains of PA, and one that I've been looking forward to doing for years now.

The last couple of trips in this series were to follow the somewhat forgotten Bowmans Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. We'd done a hike between where we finished hiking the old Wilkes Barre and Eastern Railroad and Harvey's Lake on the former Bowmans Creek Branch, then another where we hiked between Harvey's Lake and Sorber's Mountain. This one would be the next on that former rail line, and also encompass the trails of the waterfall capital of Pennsylvania, Rickett's Glen.

It was cool to have the area crew back out; Seth, Beth, and Pete, and then also Jason, Amanda, and Tim who usually do the hikes in this area. Jason and Amanda had had other plans that fell through, and it worked out well because Jason really wanted to do this connecting hike for a long time.

We met on Sorber's Mountain Road, at the state game lands lot that we had met in for the previous hike in that area, then shuttled with as few cars as we could to Rickett's Glen. It's a long, strange route to get there, as there is no direct way. We had to drive to the south and around. I was excited about the seclusion of the area. I'd come to call the area the "Redneck Catskills" because it topographically reminded me of the Catskills, but with ATV riders everywhere, and pickup trucks (as if the Catskills in many parts are not redneck enough already).

Root ball in Ricketts Glen

We took the trail up along the Kitchen Creek, into Rickett's Glen from the parking area on Route 118. The creek was flowing hard and high. Some of the trail was going under water more than usual as I was told. The volume was perfect for viewing the creek and falls coming up ahead. It was a while before we'd get to the first set though. They were to the north of us, and the creek mostly meandered in this area from the start. The trail split in two directions, but we opted to take the lower flooded one anyway.

Murray Reynolds Falls

We made our way along the trail, to where the two met back together, and then reached the first waterfall, the rather small Murray Reynolds Falls. It was a high volume cascade with the trail heading up along side it to the left. We were able to look down on it from above too. This was just the start. We climbed past this and were soon to the next one.

Sheldon Reynolds Falls

The second falls we came across were the much larger and more vertically cascading Sheldon Reynolds Falls. We were misted over by water from it's flow as soon as it came into sight. The trail climbed steadily, but it barely felt like we were climbing because of the amazing scenery. From this falls, the trail went up hill to the left over some finely crafted stone steps.

Harrison Wright Falls

We made our way to the top of the falls to an outlook down on them, then headed up the creek a bit more to reach the next one quickly, Harrison Wright Falls. This one looked very similar to the previous one, but had a clearer view from the bottom of them. We didn't spend a ton of time looking at each falls, and continued up to the next ones.

Unnamed falls in Ricketts Glen

Unnamed cascade below Waters Meet

Just after passing by Harrison Wright Falls, we climbed a bit more and passed by an unnamed cascade. Even this was quite pretty. I thought to myself how in so many other places falls of these sizes are given nice names, but they are of inconsequential size in a place like Ricketts Glen.

Next we reached "Waters Meet", where Ganoga Glen, the west side, reaches Glen Leigh, the east side. We could see up the creek to the left toward the first falls in Ganoga Glen, the lovely Erie Falls. We opted to take a side trip up to that first one, even though that was not the way we were heading. Just after passing this cascade following the left side of the Creek, there was a small unnamed falls coming in from the left. It could have been a high water only falls because of the rain we had recently gotten, but it was still very pretty.

Erie Falls

Erie Falls were still very high volume despite the fact that the two branches of the creek were now separate. We went up to check them out, then headed back to the Waters Meet spot and walked over a foot bridge to continue up the Glen Leigh section of Ricketts Glen. It was a lovely little spot with a nice cascade immediately along the left side of this part of the creek. I don't believe that first one has a name though.

Wyandot Falls with unnamed cascade before it

Just beyond this cascade, we could see the small Wyandot Falls ahead. This was probably the smallest actually named waterfall we came across in Ricketts Glen, but it was still pretty, especially when combined with the other falls. The trail continued up the left side of the creek heading up hill, then crossed over it on a foot bridge just before the B. Reynolds Falls.

B. Reynolds Falls

This one was a bigger one again, with nice cascades in front of it. We re-grouped, then headed up hill along the right side of the creek rather steeply.

Unnamed cascade

Unnamed cascade

At the top of these falls were a couple more sets of little cascades as we made our way up stream. They were more unnamed ones, but still very pretty. Again they made me think of the lesser falls I come across in my travels that get acknowledged, and how these ones do not just because of where they are.

The trail made it's way further up hill until we got to where yet another foot bridge crossed over. This one crossed directly in front of the R. B. Ricketts Falls, the falls that Colonel Robert Bruce Ricketts decided to name after himself. The prominent land owner once controlled as much as 80,000 acres in this area. Ricketts bought the land in 1868, and fishermen discovered that the deep gorges had falls on them. Ricketts constructed trails through the gorges and named falls after prominent American Indian tribes, as well as after some of his friends.

RB Ricketts Falls

At the RB Ricketts Falls, we chose to have a group shot. This one we figured was probably to be considered the prettiest falls since Ricketts chose to name this one after himself. It was actually two separate sets of waterfalls flowing into the same spot, one from a side creek to the right, and the main creek to the left with the greater volume. I got everyone together on the left side, and one of the other park patrons was good enough to take the picture for me.

Ozone Falls

We continued up the left side of the creek further on, and then reached the sixty foot high Ozone Falls, second highest falls of all of them there. This was possibly my favorite, because I ran up to it and took my shirt off to step beneath them. There was a nice shelf behind it, and even though the water volume was great, I was able to get behind the main force and soak myself by standing under the falls. It felt awesome, though cold.

Cascade

Steps and cascade

We took a nice break at this one because it was so nice. Despite the fact that it was so nice out and the water volume was so high, the park was not too overcrowded. There were people around, but it wasn't too nuts. At such a prominent falls, I expected a lot of kids to be hanging around. Jason told us about the swim spots where kids would normally like to hang out, but there was no one in the water anywhere except for me.

The trail continued up along the right side of the glen and used some nice cut stone stairs. Jason told us that some of this was there earlier, but that a few years back more of them were added. It was more difficult and dangerous to make it through the glen in the past.

Huron Falls

We next came upon Huron Falls, partially obscured behind rocks until we right up on it. It was a longer stretch with lesser waterfalls connecting this one with the others. It was substantial, but tougher to get a view of from afar. We followed steps up to the top of it around the right hand side.

Unnamed Falls

Just above this falls were another nameless falls, to my surprise. The cascade was really pretty nice on this one, and I thought substantial enough to give a name to, but I've found no such thing for it. We continued up along the edge of the gorge from this point, and then came upon Shawnee Falls.

Shawnee Falls

This was another really nice one with a good view from the front. It seemed like these falls were just going to keep going on forever. It was getting brighter in the gorge, and the possibility of inclement weather was looking less and less. They had been calling for a chance of rain all day, but I figured it'd be fine. The forecast scared off a lot of people who would have come otherwise. They sure missed out.

FL Ricketts Falls

We headed up the Glen Leigh a bit more, and then came to FL Ricketts Falls. This was another very beautiful one in it's simplicity. It was more of a slide than a sudden drop, but I really liked the look of it. There was also some amazing trail work around it to the right, up some steps to gain the top of the falls. I had originally thought this was the last one, Onondaga Falls, because I was counting and considering some of the nameless cascades possibly as the ones further up, but was wrong.

Onondaga Falls

We soon came to Onondaga Falls, the last serious ones on the creek. We remained along the creek after this falls, and crossed again. At one point we made a wrong turn to the right looking for the correct trail that we had missed, but then got back to the right place. The creek was really pretty the way that it transitioned from deep gorge to rather quiet flowing and through wide flat conifer forest. We got to the Highland Trail and somehow turned to the right to get on the Cherry Run Trail, probably the most secluded in the entire state park.

Old Lake Leigh Dam

This took us by the old dam of Lake Leigh, now purged open and no longer a lake. We could look right through the opened base of the formerly large lake, where the Glen Leigh begins. It sounded like there was another unnamed waterfall just down below the dam in the woods, but I didn't bother investigating it because we had so much farther to go this time. Corey and I went into one of the dam compartments to check out a flower he'd found as I recall.

Porcupine

The Cherry Run Trail for a while followed an old woods road that was pretty easy, up hill from the former reservoir site. As we gained a little elevation, there was a Porcupine in a tree to the left. It's always neat seeing those animals. We continued on the woods road for a ways until a right hand turn on a foot path to the right, on Little Cherry Run Trail. The trail made it through some wet uplands and eventually descended to the Little Cherry Run, where it began to follow it down stream to the right.

Falls on Cherry Run

There were a couple of nice little waterfall cascades on this brook, none of which are shown on the maps of Ricketts Glen State Park. It seemed like just as I said there was no one out in those woods and along those trails, we came across another group trying to go the direction we were coming from, but not able to cross. We all forded the stream right in front of this family of people. I stood in the stream and helped everyone over, and Serious Sean actually tight rope walked a tiny old Hemlock branch that went across just down stream from the rest of us! The patriarch of the family just stared at us in awe, like if we were completely insane.

Mountain Springs Lake

We managed to continued down hill without it taking so long, and eventually the Little Cherry Run Trail intersected with the Mountain Spring Trail, yet another woods road. We turned left on this, which led us down hill parallel with the west branch of the Bowmans Creek. This fed into the Mountain Springs Lake. The map showed that the lake was now dry, but since that time it is now completely filled back in and looking quite lovely. As we walked and the lake came into view, we could see a vehicle (we think) on the shore on the other side, at what appeared to be a beach. I don't know how though, it would be tough to get a vehicle out there with the washouts we were coming up on.

The trail reached the lake and started skirting the left side of it. After a bit of a dip down hill, I immediately began seeing railroad ties. This was indeed the end of a former spur from the Bowmans Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. There was a relief I felt with this familiarity, and sort of knowing we were going to trace this line back without too much problem.

The woods road followed the old railroad bed all the way out to an open grassy area where we took our bridge. We checked for a better access point first, to the west, but there was nothing great there. When we got to the dam, many of us opted to go for a very relaxing swim in the lovely lake. I took a walk over to the main dam with Corey, and walked out some of it. I had to jump each section that was open for spillway, but managed ok. We headed back over to the others and hung out for a while.

Mountain Spring Lake

This was among the most peaceful places we visited all year. It was a wonderful feeling just relaxing on that shore. I didn't want to leave. I could relax and swim all day. But, we had to get going. We continued across the open area from this point, and passed a black cinder base of where it looked like a building used to stand to the right. I assume this must have been the former ice house associated with the Bowmans Creek Branch spur. Mountain Spring Lake used to be Ice Dam #2 or something I think it was called. The one at the other lake was referred to as "splash dam". This must have been where that complex would have stood.

Crossing Bowmans Creek's north branch on the former rail bed

When the former rail bed entered the woods, we soon crossed the north branch of the Bowmans Creek. The water was rushing like mad and had washed out the grade on both sides of the bridge over it. We had to wade across the flow to the bridge, walk over the bridge, then across again on the other side. It seemed weird that it was such a poorly built bridge at first. A bit further down, we crossed the actual intended bridge; the railroad had built over the creek at the normal point it flowed, but recent flooding had completely changed the course of the creek. It was almost dry under the former railroad bridge, but the other smaller bridge, probably not normally a problem except during flood level, was  flowing crazy.

The rail bed appeared to turn hard to the left ahead, or the woods road did. I figured the tracks must have gone straight. Maybe they did for a while, but most of what we ended up following was not old rail. The woods road took us along the former ice dam lake on the slope to the left. The grade changed too much for it to be railroad. I assume it must have gone over to the other side of the creek. There is another grade there I had considered using for this hike, but when it was taking longer than anticipated I changed the route to eliminate some miles. It was a good thing I did because we certainly rain way over time on this one.

The woods road had another come in from the left, and we continued on a rough one through woods ahead. Unfortunately, it petered out a bit ahead, and we had to bushwhack up hill to the left. We managed to get through and soon were on the old Bowmans Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, now a game road in State Game Lands #57. We began walking it to the right, when all of a sudden someone realized we were missing Serious Sean.

I decided to hurry back along the rail bed to see if we could find him. I knew he was with me when we crossed the messed up bridge, but thought maybe he went a different way when we got off the rail bed somehow. It turns out he went up hill at a fork in the woods roads further on to reach the old railroad bed ahead of time. I kept going back yelling out to him. The rail bed shifted direction from west to north, and was getting worried.

Just then, some kids drove by in a four wheel drive truck. They were coming from the direction I was going, and I asked them if they'd seen someone in a striped shirt back there. "Yeah, he's looking for you!" they said! I was relieved to know I'd catch up with him that way. It wasn't more than a few minutes before I heard him call out.

Evidence of former ties on the LV grade

We headed back on the rail bed toward the rest of the group, and noted the difference in coloration of the road where the ties once sat as opposed to where they were not. This was a really great route to hike, because even though this section was drivable, it was still narrower than a lot of the actual rail trails we have hiked. It was a great route.

The rail bed continued to the right at one point where the road went slightly down hill to the left. I thought at first that it was a spur, but then I saw that it was where the game road had to go to cross the creek because the original railroad bridge over the creek was now gone. All that remained were it's two stone abutments.

Former bridge site over Bowmans Creek

At about this time, the sky let loosed and poured rain on us for only a couple of minutes. It had been pretty  hot out, so this actually felt really refreshing, and it was over with before we could get really cold. When it stopped, everything looked so much clearer. We never even had to stop for anything, just continued on like it wasn't raining.

The other old rail bed came in from the right, the one I had originally planned to follow. It was good to see it was clear. I would have to come back to explore it another time. The rail bed made many more sweeping turns in the Bowmans Creek gorge, and when Wolf Run flowed in on the left, I bushwhacked up it a bit to check out yet another cascade.

A guy drove by us with Confederate Rebel flags on this truck, and he offered us all a ride in the back. I told  him we were good, but thanked him. If that weren't enough, on his way back through, he asked yet again if we were all still good, and then again a third time later he came back to check on us.

We continued on along the rail bed a ways more. It seemed like a long time. When I saw a path to the right that was sort of prominent, I would want to stop and see where it went. Certainly if it merits a path it must be something.

Falls on Bowmans Creek

The best spot we found was a lovely little cascade on the Bowmans Creek at a deep hole with a rope swing. I of course had to go swimming, even though no one else wanted to go in. It was cold, but perfect. I tried to swim up stream to the cascade itself, but the current was just too strong. The water was way over my head also.

Small waterfall along Bowmans Creek

When I got out, I checked out a little further up stream where there were lots of flows of water coming down off the cliffs to the south. There were more waterfalls everywhere flowing off into the Bowmans Creek. It was absolutely stunning. Soon, we were on our along the rail bed further. We had a more open area where we could see the real size of the Bowmans Creek Gorge, how deep it was. The road and rail bed weaved around a lot for a lot more time, and the area became a bit more accessible. We saw a few cars, and I believe there was a house or two.

LV Railroad bed

We stopped for another break when I found another path to the right, which led to another deep spot in the creek. I again went in, and Jason went in with me as I recall. We continued from here and soon the railroad bed turned off of the road to the right for a bit.

The rail bed turned right away from the road for a bit, and was a nice ATV path. We followed this on through and it came back to the road again, now called Wilson-Ayers Road. There was a big washout point beyond that, with lots of rubble rock holding the road up to the left. The rail bed was completely destroyed here. We walked the road to where there is a bridge over the creek to the right, with a lock on it. Maps show this as state game lands, but we had no time to explore the other side. The road continues on up the mountain. The rail bed became parallel and accessible to the road again.

We turned right to follow it on a fill closer to the Bowmans Creek. There were great views of the mountains around us as the wooded valley gave way to a section of farm land. When the rail grade reached the fields, we cut to the left to follow the road, which was now it's own right of way. The rail bed continued roughtly aligned with a power line up ahead, skirting a farm.

Lovely view in Bowmans Creek Gorge

We followed the road past the farmlands, and then watched as the rail bed continued into woods on the other side, along the power line. We passed another washed out area, still couldn't get on the rail bed, and then came to a former grade crossing. Unfortunately, we were now out of the game lands and couldn't follow the rail bed yet again. We had to stay on the road, which was nice enough. The road went closer to the creek, and between us and the rail bed was one of the largest Eastern White Pines I've ever seen.

Giant Eastern White Pine

We came to a more open area where the rail bed was in private land out in a field. We had to continue on along the road for a while, and it eventually came out to join the road again. At that point, it turned right soon and followed more closely to the creek, which we were able to follow, then came back to the road again.

The rail bed left the road one last time when we got to where the Bowmans Creek made a sharp bend to the right. We had been on Sorber's Mountain Road across from this point before. There was the remains of a dam crib work in the river at this point, and likely site of an old mill or tannery. This was the little village known as Stull. We turned right to follow the railroad bed into the woods here. Jen was having trouble with her knee, so Seth stayed with her there until someone could come back to pick her up.

Bowmans Creek Branch at Stull

We followed the railroad bed until it came back out to the road, now Stull Road, at the intersection with Sorbers Mountain Road. We had now connected this hike with the previous one I had done in the area. It was a great relief to have accomplished this. However, I should have parked the cars in a closer state game lands lot, which I didn't realize existed when I planned it out.

Once we crossed the Bowmans Creek on Sorber Mountain Road, I kicked it into high gear. I don't know where I found the energy, but I started walking as fast as I could gradually up hill and past the former dam site. The fastest ones ahead of us were Jess and Austin, making really good time. I hurried by them and continued to gain elevation on Sorber Mountain. After a certain point, I decided to just start running. I wanted to get to the cars badly at this point. I somehow managed to keep myself going and ran all the way to my car. I got in and headed back down to get the others as quickly as I could. Although I offered, no one else wanted the short distance ride back to the top of the mountain when I offered.

I didn't realize it at the time, but Amanda was also sitting at the bottom of the mountain. Had I know, I would have picked her up. When I got back to the top after finding Jen, Jason asked me where she was. I must have blown right by her super fast and didn't realize it! So...SORRY AMANDA!! I probably kicked up all sorts of dust on her too. I felt horrible.

I headed back to take drivers to Ricketts Glen, and on the way, Tim ended up with a flat tire while following me. Fortunately, handy man that he is, he was able to take care of it. I didn't notice he'd had a problem or I'd have stopped to help.

Many of us stopped to have some dinner at "METRO", a restaurant in an old factory in Dallas PA.

METRO

I had a huge nachos meal that was quite inexpensive for the amount of food I got. It was really great. And I also got a great photo op in front courtesy of Pete, with the Metro Car and the Metro restaurant, looking like I'm franchising out.

It felt so great to branch out further into the Endless Mountains. We experienced some of the most beloved state park land in the state of Pennsylvania, but also some of the most back woods and forgotten sections of the Endless Mountains, with it's obscure and fading history. I so look forward to continuing this series, to complete hiking the rest of the Bowmans Creek Branch, to see the rest of Rickett's Glen, and to connect on through to the Loyalsock Trail and state forest of the same name in the Northern Alleghenies. It's really not that far from where we left off, and my excitement builds for making that connection.