Hike #935; Lopez to Rickett's Glen

Hike #935; Lopez to Rickett’s Glen

5/1/16 Lopez to Ricketts Glen with Pete G. Wilcox, Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell, Cory Salvesen, and Linda Whiteford.

Our next hike would be another point to point that didn’t pan out as I had intended at all, but turned out to be the best possible scenario both for the group and for the hike we ended up doing. It really goes to show that sometimes thing just work out the way they should.

Lopez PA

The original plan was to have a full weekend event; two days of hikes and such with Kralc Leahcim (Lerch) taking Saturday and me taking Sunday. With my work schedule, I was anticipating being in a different position so I could attend both days. Unfortunately, work didn’t pan out for me and I’ve been stuck working all Saturdays, so I’d miss that part. Rather than drive out the night before, I headed out in the morning.
When I arrived, I saw Jen Berndt who told me that no one was going hiking. It had rained, everyone was tired, and they’d made other plans thinking that I wouldn’t show up. They obviously don’t know me very well, seeing as though I’ve only canceled weekly hikes twice in the past decade due to being completely incapacitated.
It was such a relief that Uncle Soup was still up to go, then Pete Wilcox showed up. I’d have been fine with the three of us, but even Cory and Linda were good to go. Others were trying to convince me not to go, and to go to a winery or something instead with the others. I was NOT going to make this the first hike I’ve missed in forever, nor do I have any interest in going somewhere to drink if it’s not part of a hike. Everyone claimed it was going to rain all day, but I’d seen the forecast in the morning before leaving: only a slight shower in the morning and early afternoon. That held true and the weather turned out to be overall quite good. We were all able to pile into Pete’s car to shuttle to our start.

Bowmans Creek Branch along a pond with Loch Ness Monster in Lopez

I had changed my plans for this weekend a few times. My first plan was to continue on the historic railroad line we’d been following to the area, the former Bowmans Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Along the way, I changed the plan to a loop in the Ricketts Glen area, then to a nineteen mile point to point in part through State Game Lands #13. In the morning, I changed my mind back to doing the Bowman’s Creek Branch. The route would be easier, and it was something both Pete and I would appreciate a lot being railroad right of way aficionados. We planned for the hike to start in the town of Lopez, a small town along the Loyalsock River to the north.

Bowmans Creek Branch in Lopez

The place we chose to park was literally right on the railroad bed, although we didn’t know it at first. There was a little pond there next to where the tracks were. To the south of us, the right of way has some trailers homes parked on it, and to the north it heads to the Loyalsock. I approached that and could see plainly where the trestle used to be that carried the railroad over the creek. The masonry was in good shape on the north side of the river, but bad on the south side. There was some masonry remnant of the pier that would have been in the center. We turned back and got our stuff together to begin heading to the south.

Former LV bridge over Loyalsock Creek

It was much colder in Lopez than it was up at Ricketts, and far colder at both places than it was when I left home, but still not unbearable. Cory and Linda weren’t really prepared for the cold for this one, but once we got moving things looked to improve a bit.
I was a bit disappointed at first because I had such a large group of people signed up for what promised to be a great hike, but so many just backed out. I felt much better once we got to Lopez and started moving.
This was actually sort of another milestone for me. I had been seeing the Loyalsock Creek on maps for a very long time, and reaching this particular valley felt like it was opening up more doors. The Loyalsock flows into the northern Alleghenies, and leads to the Loyalsock Trail, one of Pennsylvania’s long distance backpacking trails I’d been looking forward to doing. The name “Loyalsock is actually an anglicized Native American word, “Lawi-sahquick” , meaning “Middle Creek”.
I knew very little about Lopez and the railroad through it at the time, but fortunately Pete had done some recon work and research into the line and it’s branches before coming out.

Lopez Station site.

We started walking south on Turrel Town Road. This road paralleled the old railroad line, which was just west of us. After we passed the home trailers on it, we could see some box culverts and such. Then, the rail bed must have crossed the road, or was right on the road. I did not know it at the time, but we passed a large stack, which was part of an old industry there, then we passed the foundation of the former railroad station. I thought it was just some sort of old barn, but we later confirmed rather certainly that it was the old station platform. We continued on the rail bed/road from here to the south, where another road, known as Rail Road continued to the south along the Lopez Creek. Unfortunately, it was gated.

Historic scene at Lopez Station

I most certainly did not want to be discouraged again this early on. We backtracked a bit, and there was a meager path that went off to the east, down to the Lopez Creek. We followed it, then bushwhacked along the creek heading up stream for a bit.

Historic scene at Lopez Station

There started out to be a good path, but that soon disappeared. We found ourselves wandering along the creek, down the hill from the rail bed as to keep out of sight and respect the privacy of nearby home owners.
While walking the creek, we noted a site of a likely former dam, because the crib work was still all in place within the creek. Very cool!

Old dam site on Lopez Creek

We only went for a little ways down below, until there were no more houses above within sight. We then made our way back up to the dirt road which was built on the railroad bed and started following it to the south. It was wide, clear, and easy.
The road passed through pleasant woods at first. There were fresh tire tracks in the wet top soil, so I was slightly concerned we’d have a run in with someone who didn’t want us there, but I tried not to focus on that. We continued walking, and passed by a little gate thing over the right of way again. There was a small structure but no real dwellings that someone would stay in. We passed a bridge across Lopez Creek also, but no one was around.

Rail bed along Painter Den Creek

I moved along fast, sometimes getting pretty far ahead of the group. I was nervous being back there. We were getting closer to State Game Lands #13 all the time, but until we got to that I couldn’t quite relax. It was a good thing we had such a small group, because we’d not have been able to get through there with a large posse.
We reached an opening along the road/rail bed where a small tributary flowed in at a wetland, and beyond the Lopez Creek flowed out of sight. The rail bed continued to follow another fork known as the Painter Den Creek, and it became a narrower valley with the lovely rocky stream. As we reached a bend, we could see a swinging foot bridge spanning the creek a short bit away from the rail bed.
We walked further ahead into a thicker forest grove when I spotted a good sized house. Then, I saw a truck in the driveway. I had Uncle Soup and Pete wait up without going ahead while we waited for Cory and Linda. I approached the house more closely, and upon surveying the area decided it would be smartest to make our way to the foot bridge we’d seen before.

Footbridge

We made our way on a good path to the creek side, and I climbed a ladder to the bridge deck to cross first. It was very easy, and pretty stable as far as swinging bridges go. Uncle Soup went next, followed by Linda and then Cory. The road was in plain sight from here. We headed up hill and the path ended, but we remained on the hill high above the creek.

Painter Den Creek

Just as we reached the crest of the hill I could hear a sound. I looked off at the road and could see a pickup truck driving down. They probably had cameras up or something. I don’t know what. But either way, I felt we were in plain sight on the hillside there. The only good thing was that the vegetation was so thick, if anyone opted to cross and follow they probably wouldn’t catch up easily. I was pretty certain we were seen. I had everyone follow me further up the hill, which we skirted further down stream slowly but surely. The moss was immensely thick on the rocks, and some of the Hemlocks and other evergreens were thick enough to provide cover so we couldn’t be seen well from the other side.

Thick mosses

It was a slow process hiking through this section. There was a lot of wet land. Despite the fact that we were on a slope, the Catskill-like bio diversity kept it pretty wet despite the rugged nature of the surface.
From high above the creek, we eventually descended back to the edge of the creek. No road was visible at this point on the other side, and the rail bed was out of sight across an expansive flood plain. We walked up stream just a little farther and found the boundary to State Game Lands #13 or #57. I’m not exactly sure which one it was at this particular point. No matter, I felt like we were much safer at this point. We continued down stream from here.

Tree

We would have to get back across the creek to get back to the railroad bed, and I was thinking I would just wade it until we saw a conveniently fallen tree over the creek. We used that to cross on, then made our way along the creek edge into State Game Lands where there was a parking area.
There was a good wide flood plain, and all of it was mowed off so it was easy to walk, and to observe the interesting erosion of the creek in the area. There was one huge washout in view, and the slopes down to the creek at field edge were steep because it had eroded so much with no trees on the shore.
We soon reached a parking area walking the creek up stream. There was a confluence of creeks in this area, and the Wolf Run flows into Painter Den Creek.

Weird pipe

As we walked the Painter Den Creek toward it’s confluence, we came across what looked like a dead tree bit sticking up along the edge of the creek, spouting off water vertically. We were astonished by this for a time, until we realized that it was actually a gnarly, rusted piece of metal pipe. Still, we’ve no clue where the pipe was coming from or where the water was spouting from.
We continued from the parking area up hill very gradually on the access road to the state game lands parking area. At the end of the bit of hill it joined with the railroad bed. To the north of us, the railroad was just a grassy old woods road, but the direction we were going, it was now a drive-able road.

The rail bed

From this point, the railroad turned slightly and began following the contours of the land along the Wolf Run, while Painter Den Creek finds it’s source in more desolate endless mountains beyond.
The road was pretty obviously the rail bed shortly, then they diverged once more. The road went slightly up hill and the railroad bed was a washed out mess. Apparently, the Wolf Run floods periodically, and it has taken much of the railroad bed with it over the years. We climbed over some rocks and hiked the rough terrain of the rail bed for a while anyway, which was kind of interesting in that it was different than what we’d been doing.

Bowmans Creek Branch right of way washed out

The railroad bed and the road came back together when the washout made it’s way to it’s rightful place in the creek valley, and we had some much easier walking, but just before we got to where they came back together, a lone truck came driving down the access road, which at that point was right above us. I recognized the truck and my heart sank for a second.
It was the same truck I spotted when we got up on the cliff, the guy that was heading to the cabin that we didn’t know we’d end up at. There were two guys in the truck I could see, but they were too high above us to really stop and we were moving along pretty good. I figured they must have gone to see if we were coming out in the area on the other side of the creek. Since I had a leisure suit on, complete with butterfly collar, I figure they probably doubted it could be the same group.

Old rail bed, now road.

They did move on along the road and down to the parking area we were on. We continued walking the road where it and the rail bed came back together. We then passed through a wide open meadow area that was part of the flood plain of the Wolf Run.
I knew while we were walking that these two guys were coming back. This was the only vehicle access to the land, they couldn’t get out another way, and there is no hunting on Sundays so they’d not have much business back there other than to look for people snooping around. As we walked, I watched evergreens along the east facing side of the rail bed and thought to go sit in them. We were on public land now, but it’d be kind of funny when the guys came back if we were gone.

Rail bed along the wetlands of Wolf Run

I just knew that when the guys came back they’d start questioning us. I chatted about what our story was going to be to keep moving along. I wouldn’t have minded hiding for a bit if it meant no confrontation.
Sure enough, the guys came driving back along the wetland after a not so very long trip to the end. Maybe they thought there was no way we could have gotten through from that side, especially so quickly, maybe they didn’t care because we were on our way out, but either way I was surprised when they did not stop to ask us a single question. I gave a wave as they went by, and that was that. What a relief.
I could see the outlines of some railroad ties in the pressed surface on the road as we walked. The Wolf Run continued to the south, away from the rail bed, and the rail bed continued to follow another tributary known as Open Run.

The rail bed near Open Run

We continued walking, and gained a little elevation. Open Run had a good wetland section, but then Rail Road, the road constructed on the right of way, turned ninety degrees to the right, heading south, while the rail bed went straight onto private land and then goes under the waters of the Open Run pond. Beaver activity or something over the years had caused the entire right of way in this area to become inundated with water. We had to continue to the right on the road where the railroad bed went into the private yard ahead.
We didn’t have to walk the road away from the right of way for too long. There was another game lands road that went to the left, back toward the pond. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure this was what we should do, but figured we’d check it out either way, just to see.

Bowmans Creek Branch semi flooded

It turned out the road was a good deal. It descended to a mowed cul de sac sort of area, then got a little rougher where it regained the railroad bed. The rail bed emerged from the water onto a slightly higher fill in a grove of White Birches. It was not a wide right of way, but we were able to bully through it. It got a bit worse as we went, but we could do it. The weeds got worse, the ground at the head waters of Open Run became very wet and hard to navigate through, and some of the scrubby undergrowth was getting near impenetrable stages, but fortunately we were able to get through without too much problem. There was even a nice little cut section out there.

Bowmans Creek Branch at game lands

We pushed on through just a little while and soon reached Rt 487 former crossing site. The tough stuff was over with here, and the rail bed was a mowed and well maintained game lands trail on the other side. I was actually very surprised at the lack of ATV use found on this entire section. When I say “grassy”, I mean there was not so much as a bicycle tire on it much of the time. The section rather closely paralleled the highway, but was always out of sight keeping the good feeling of seclusion one tends to get when hiking the Endless Mountains.
The right of way probably had a spur somewhere in this area to the Splash Dam Lake which was not far from us, and I did see a side trail, but of course we didn’t have the time to explore much side stuff on this one.

The rail bed

The outflow of the Spash Dam Lake is the Mahoopany Creek, a scenic, rocky mountain stream that I would love to done day follow entirely. It probably has old logging railroads along a lot of it.
The next point of interest on our journey was the ghost town of Ricketts, PA.
The town was named for Robert Bruce Ricketts, the founder of the Ricketts Glen tourist area prior to it’s being a state park, as well as a big time lumber man. The town spurred up in about 1890 directly associated with the lumber industry. The Bowmans Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley railroad that we were walking was completed through to this area in 1893.

Former Bowmans Creek Branch Mahoopaney crossing

The town was pretty much abandoned in 1913 when the lumber of the area was exhausted. Pete knew the area pretty well already, and so he pointed out to us where one of the main town intersections was, then where there was a bridge across the Mahoopany Creek.
There was a wye on the railroad at the town, as well as a junction. The Ganoga Branch was another rail line that broke off and basically went to RB Ricketts’ house, while the Bowmans Creek Branch continued along the valley of the Cherry Ridge Run.
We followed the rail bed from the former center of town and then had to wade across Mehoopany Creek, then climb up the other side to regain the railroad bed.

Ricketts ruins from the Ganoga Branch

Immediately on the other side of the former bridge site was the junction with the Ganoga Branch. It was a pretty obvious junction site, though it was more obvious that the Bowmans Creek Branch was the main through important route, because it had finely crafted stone abutments that remained, and all that remains o the footings of the Ganoga Branch are a couple of vertically standing rotten bits of wood. I thought it was amazing that any of the wooden infrastructure of this short lived spur line remained at all. From the Ganoga Branch right of way, we could also see some of the ruins out along the Mehoopany Creek as well.

Ganoga Branch trestle supports

We checked out the bridge site and then made our way back to the junction site to continue to the east a bit on the Bowmans Creek Branch. Pete had managed to find an historic shot that showed both Bowmans Creek Branch and the Ganoga Branch as well as their junction from afar, and showed it to all of us. It showed the buildings in the town of Ricketts which are so hard to picture all being there today.
Amazingly, there were once eight hundred people living in the town of Ricketts. After most of it was abandoned in 1913, the town dwindled to nothing. The last of the buildings from the town was demolished in the 1930s.

Junction at Ricketts

Then and now shots of the site are hard to even figure out, and then it really does nothing anyway because so much vegetation has grown in. There are not really good frames of reference to go by.

Historic view of Bowmans Creek crossing Mehoopany in Ricketts

I thought I got a rather good one of the junction site compared with the historic photo that Pete had to show us.
One telegraph pole still remained on the south side of the bridge, while the rest of them were mostly all fallen over.

Historic view of Ganoga Branch junction in Ricketts PA

It truly does not look like it can even be the same area at all. There were no trees, lots of buildings, and now nothing.

Present day shot of the junction at Ricketts

We continued walking on the right of way ahead, through some wetlands. It was sometimes necessary to leave the rail bed and walk more of the height of the land on the east side to get through. We followed the right of way to where it game to a game lands management road at Wild Foul Pond.

The rail bed along Wild Foul Pond

The right of way was partially overtaken by another management road along the west shore of Wild Foul Pond, so we walked that very easy after a mercifully brief bushwhack section.
That management road soon joined with the public drive-able road that we had covered on the previous hike, built on the Bowmans Creek Branch to a great degree from this point all the way to the town of Noxen. This would be the last bit of the road section we’d not yet covered.
We followed the road very easily heading to the south, parallel with the Cherry Ridge Run, toward Opperman Pass.

Rail bed on the road

Compared with the other stuff we had been doing, this road walk bit was somewhat more boring.
We broke up the monotony by climbing down to one of the historic stone culvert underpasses and walking through it. I think it was where Cherry Ridge Run went beneath. Only Pete and I were feeling crazy and energetic enough to do it. Linda was tired, and every time we stopped she’d squat like a constipated person and grab hold of Cory’s lower legs to stretch. We didn’t have too much longer to go on the road section at Opperman Pass till we reached the Cherry Ridge Trail to Ricketts Glen State Park.

Fun culvert!

We started following the trail gradually up hill a bit. I noted that the color markings had been changed since the last time we were on it, and it still wasn’t done correctly. Nowhere on the trail were there any turn blazes or anything, though it maybe could have used some.

Uncle Soup on the Cherry Run Trail

We had already done this entire trail on the previous hike through the area, but I was intrigued enough by it that I was happy to do it again.
Most of this trail is actually rail trail. It was old logging railroads operated by RB Ricketts; much of the trail has contours on the surface where we could see where the ties once were. It came as a surprise to me the previous time we hiked it, so this time I watched very closely for where we picked up the railroad bed. It seemed like the trail sort of picked it up right at a dead end somewhere.
We continued on the right of way to a switchback point, where we turned a hard left.

Cherry Run Trail, former RR bed

This time, we were also armed with good maps that Pete had prepared on his phone ahead of time. The trail section itself was easy to see remnants of where the tracks were, but there were several more rights of way out through the land that were not today’s trail. Pete’s map showed a web of them going all through the area. In fact, the first section of obvious rail bed we were walking was not even on his pretty accurate map. There really must have been a whole lot.
Pete pointed out when we got to another junction site as per his own GPS and historic maps, and so we knew when to try to look for it. Sure enough, it was stuff we would have missed without knowing, but it was there. We saw one right of way weave off to the right, almost invisible in the second and third growth forest. We could probably make another entire hike of trying to trace these routes. Two of these other lines particularly were prominent when we were looking for them.

Old rail spur from Cherry Run Trail

We continued following Cherry Run Trail, and it turned away from the old rail bed through woods, until we got to the abandoned dam, now purged, at what used to be Lake Leigh.
From that point, the trails all converged, and one could get down to the waterfalls. We skipped all of the waterfalls and instead continued on trails we’d never done before in the preserve. Most of the group had already done the waterfalls the day before anyway. So, I ended up being one of the few people that drove out to Ricketts Glen and saw no waterfalls!
It was getting extremely cloudy. We had done very well with weather, with only two times that it started drizzling a bit. Otherwise, it was pleasant walking weather.

Purged Lake Leight dam

We headed up hill on the connecting trail, a wide route, toward the cabin area and Beach Lot #2 from here. When we got to a road, the foot trail continued to the left, just barely into the woods parallel with the road. More fog was rolling in as we moved on. I was originally intending to follow the beach trail to the north, then take that back to the visitor’s center, but we’d have absolutely no view at all if we did that, so instead I opted to do the Bear Walk Trail, because it would be a direct route we wouldn’t want to do as badly another time, but was a good choice on this hike when there was no visibility for anything.

Bear Walk trail

Soon, we turned left on the Bear Walk Trail, which was a very easy route with a crushed stone surface part of the way. We crossed access roads and such, and weaved around in a very indirect but pleasantly easy route. We stayed on it until it took us to the campgrounds. We then turned right, heading to the north, to get to the main road into the park. We walked the main road from there to the west, and headed out across the main dam to Lake Jean. The fog was so thick this time that we really couldn’t see anything at all. On the other side, there was a cut off road to the right, which then had a side path that led to the parking lot at the main visitor’s center.

And I disappear...photo by Pete Wilcox

We all disappeared into the fog on that last stretch, which is what I felt like I was doing at the moment. I had no night hike planned for the upcoming week, and the next two weekends I would be backpacking the Mid State Trail with Jillane in central Pennsylvania. It would be nearly three full weeks till I had a group hike again, and I felt slightly miffed that so many bailed on the last one I’d do with the group for a couple weeks, but it turned out to be the best scenario.
We could not have pulled off some of the hike with a larger group. If we had two more people, there’d not have been enough time to get everyone over the footbridge near the beginning without being caught. People might have had a harder time with the stream crossings, took longer, who knows. We had a good group to do this hike; we got a good long section out of the way and had now connected with the Loyalsock Creek.

Ham

We finished with a reasonable amount of daylight left; I gave Pete a ride back to his car, and then we opted to spend some time doing some recon work for the next hike on the Bowmans Creek Branch.
We went back to Lopez and drove up the road a little bit while Pete checked his historic maps.
We could see where the rail line went over the Loyalsock, and how we could pretty easily follow it after wading the creek. We then drove further up the road to look for more access points. It turns out that the entire tract is private property it’d seem, but we got the name of the land manager. There was also a spur line that is now a road, apparently that went to a colliery on the hillside above Lopez. Pete was going to look into the prospect of hiking through that property for the next hike.

I felt like we finished the hike in a good place, that we’d had a really great time without regret for changing the planned route at all. I was long ready for vacation, and this westward extension into our ever growing network was just what I needed to inspire me for the coming week.