Hike #950; Columbia/Hainesburg/Slateford Loop
7/7/16 Columbia/Hainesburg/Slateford Loop with Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell, Karen Ezzo, Kralc Leahcim (Lerch), Larry Phillips, Taylor Lauren, Steve Levy, and Michele Valerio
This next looping night hike would be like a night hike, but using benefit time I was able to start much earlier. Amazingly, despite the early start, it also finished much later, but it’s all because we were having too much fun every step of the way (except a wrong turn at the end).
The group!
We met at the Portland-Columbia Footbridge on the NJ side to start out. For this, our 950th hike, we started at the same point that I started Hike #1 back in 1997, and the anniversary hike every year until 2010.
Columbia Lake Dam
I’d been so incredibly stressed out from work since the previous weekend, it was good to get a hike like this together, where we’d visit a winery, get some food, and see some old familiar places and new and exciting ones.
We started by walking down the Liberty-Water Gap Trail/Paulins Kill Valley Trail route along Rt 46 to the underpass. Lerch had not seen this section yet either, so I showed them all the old dam that was there before the current Columbia Lake Dam. The trail then goes up to cross over the Rt 46 bridge over the Paulins Kill, then turns left on the original Blairstown Railroad right of way, built in 1876.
Columbia Lake
The rail line was originally from the Lackawanna main in Delaware out to Blairstown, and was purchased and extended as the main line of the New York, Susquehanna, and Western in 1881. The Blairstown Railroad became a secondary, and ran a “dinky” train between the Lackawanna line and Blairstown.
The trail heads down into an old quarry site, parallel with the railroad bed, then emerges on it again at the Columbia Lake Dam. I wanted to do a hike to here again because I’d heard it was going to be removed. We went down and walked across the base of it, which is an easy spillway to cross. The lake behind the dam is badly silted in today. It used to be much clearer and nicer, but now it just looks like a mess.
Columbia Lake
We continued on the railroad right of way to where the trail passes beneath Interstate 80.
There’s a giant pipe that a vehicle can pass through close to where the railroad was.
Directly where 80’s bridge is today is where the NYS&W main line crossed the Paulins Kill as well. There was a junction at about that point with the former Blairstown Railroad that went south along the Delaware, and the main line continued north along the NJ side through Delaware Water Gap, and crossed the river at Karamac. It ended in East Stroudsburg, at Gravel Place, with another Lackawanna interchange until 1893, when they completed the Wilkes Barre and Eastern, a wholly owned subsidiary.
Brugler Road bridge
We continued along the trail, here just a gravel road along Columbia Lake out to the next road, Warrington. The railroad bed is still state land ahead of this point, but it’s now totally overgrown and no one is maintaining it. The trail now turns right and then left on Bruglar Road, but it’s still a contentious area.
Where the railroad used to go in, there are “no trespassing” signs, even though this was once marked as the trail, the adjacent landowner insists he owns it all. It really makes no sense because the entire railroad was found to be a linear piece by Supreme Court several years ago. This guy is just acting and there are no consequences.
Paulins Kill Valley Trail
It’s a lovely spot with a beautiful stone arch bridge. The trail beyond is in quite poor shape because someone sabotaged it, by changing the drainage situation.
It makes me think of all of the problems I’m facing with Warren Highlands Trail and how there have been no consequences for the illegal removing of the trail going on there. Just another subject of stress for me currently.
The trail became nice again after a short bit, and we made our way to the former site of Hainesburg Junction, where the Lehigh and New England Railroad joined.
The Lehigh and New England came in in 1886, and they intended to build their own competing line parallel with the NYS&W, but instead bought trackage rights for about twenty miles from Hainesburg to Swartswood Junction.
At Hainesburg Junction
The Lehigh and New England was only in place until about 1962, when it was abandoned. The telegraph office between the two tracks of the junction was a pile of rubble as far back as I remember, but another out building was still standing when I started doing the hikes. The roof had come down by the last time I was at the point, and now only two walls of the structure were still standing...sort of. When I first started hiking through Hainsburg Junction, there were still barely any trees over head. Even in the middle of the Summer, we were out in the open. In fact, the right of way was so clear that I was able to drive my 1984 Camaro all the way from Brugler Road to Station Road.
Historic view of Hainesburg Junction
There were now some historic photos of the site, and I was happy to be able to get “Then and Now” shots to use on Metrotrails page on Facebook, which would come out alright considering I was using my cell phone (I forgot to put a memory card in my camera).
Hainesburg Junction now
Hainesburg Junction was gone by the end of the sixties, as the NYS&W lasted only about a year longer than the Lehigh and New England.
Today, the LNE line is on private land just to the west of Hainesburg Junction out to Brugler Road.
Hainesburg Junction historic view
Beyond Brugler, the rail bed is township land, which I was on the board to help preserve, and then on state land. It’s proposed to be called the “Knowlton Trail” to form a loop with Paulins Kill Valley Trail.
Hainesburg Junction now
The one missing bit of the LNE line is owned by a guy that hates the public coming through. I’ve heard of many people getting screamed at for going back on it. The line crosses a through truss bridge over the Paulins Kill just out of site of this spot, which remains undecked.
Larry and Lerch. We sent this photo to Shane who wanted to come, but backed out
We headed further down the right of way, then turned left on another path which continued along the river more closely. We followed this until we got to the Paulins Kill Viaduct, a seven arch concrete span still ranking among the largest concrete structures in the world. It held the rank of #1 at the time of it’s construction about 1910.
The Lackawanna Railroad built this as a “cutoff” between Slateford PA and Lake Hopatcong, because prior to that their main line meant going all the way to Washington, maintaining two flooding tunnels, and making lots of other curves. Under Lackawanna President William Truesdale, many bridges were replaced with concrete, and many cutoffs were made. The NJ cutoff is the most substantial of these.
Lerch's headless cat thing
We had a nice swim in the Paulins Kill under the bridge. It was a good break spot on such a hot day.
Lerch found a headless cat statue in the river and put it up on a beam on the shore. I wonder if the beams that stick up were some part of an old construction item for the cutoff?
After our swim, we made our way back along a path to the former site of Hainesburg Station, and then climbed up under the viaduct on the steep slope directly beneath. When I was younger, we used to climb up into the thing from this side, but since then there have been huge metal plates that make it very hard to get into this way. That didn’t stop Lerch though. He’d go that way and meet us on top.
Viaduct
Once we followed the narrow path to the top, we walked out across. There was another group of kids that had just climbed through the thing. Uncle Soup invited them to join us the rest of the way, but they didn’t seem like they were much into it, and they were amazed we were going so far. Surprising since they were all shirtless washboard abs guys and girls. Just because they have the look apparently doesn’t mean they have the stamina! We made our way to the third arch manhole where it’s best to access the bridge, and headed down to have a look around a bit. It had been a couple of years since I was in the thing.
Good break
I’ve been going up to the Paulins Kill Viaduct since I was only eight years old with my grandfather, and he took me climbing through it for my first time then.
Historic view of Paulins Kill Viaduct
Lerch rejoined us, and we only went through a couple of arches before climbing back out and making our way along the cutoff to the west. Other than a couple of ATVs passing by, there was no one else up there at all.
GAME BOY!
Steve and Larry went ahead a bit, and I had to get them caught up with us when we reached our next turn, the Tunnel Park.
We climbed down steepy from the railroad grade to this Knowlton Township municipal park focused around an old unused railroad culvert below the Lackawanna Cutoff.
As I stated before, the Lehigh and New England Railroad had intended to build their own line rather than get trackage rights over the NYS&W, and so when the Lackawanna Cutoff came in, they had to acknowledge this and construct a culvert for passage of this railroad.
The LNE never constructed their line, and the only tracks that ever passed through the culvert were the construction tracks, which ended at the other side of the culvert. I’ve read that some of the LNE right of way that had been proposed was graded for tracks further along at different places like Blairstown, but I haven’t seen these sites yet.
Historic view of the Tunnel Park culvert
We made our way over to a pavilion at Tunnel Park to wait for Steve and Larry to get back to us. It was another nice little break before moving on. The hike wasn’t going at much a fast speed because we already spent time swimming and climbing, but it was worth it.
The LNE tunnel today
We headed along the former LNE right of way that was never finished through the west side of Tunnel Park, then out along Rt 94 for a short distance.
We took the road to where the Lehigh and New England main line came out and crossed present Rt 94, at the intersection with Brugler Road.
Brugler House site
It was here I made the sad discovery that the historic old Brugler House had been torn down. There was a beautiful old home that sat off the road at the corner of the intersection, and I remember people on my hikes telling me when Mrs. Brugler was still alive, at 100 years old living there. The house had several historic buildings around it. It was built in 1794 and five generations of Bruglers lived there. I wish I’d had a photo of it.
The township and local historic society were trying to get it saved. The guy who tore it down, a Mr. Kero, began without getting permits. He then got the permits and was allowed to continue. The township had proposed an ordinance that would help at least buy time to discuss options, but they wouldn’t approve it, and the entire farm was lost.
LNE rail grade
The real kicker to me is that this is all preserved farmland, meaning they can never build anything on it anyway. Maybe another house where the old one was. It’s otherwise UN-developeable.
How anyone with a clear conscious can destroy such history, especially a building in good shape, is beyond my understanding.
We continued to the right on the Lehigh and New England railroad bed. It was annoyed to see someone had put new “no trespassing” signs up on that one too, which is not legitimate and quite illegal. We followed the right of way out to Stark Road and turned left to the Brook Hollow Winery.
We went inside and had a very good wine tasting. I think we also got some to go as well. Along with it, we got good wine glasses, which we sipped from even after leaving.
Ruin along the Cutoff
We had met the guy doing our tasting in Chester a couple of years before, when we accidentally happened upon a street fair where he was doing tastings. I told him I would bring the group back to the winery, but we hadn’t gotten around to it until this one.
We made our way back along Stark Road to the Lackawanna Cutoff again, climbed down and made our way to the west. Michele joined up with us around the Delaware River, where the railroad crossed on the Delaware Viaduct, another huge concrete span.
Historic view of Delaware Viaduct
My original plan was just to walk across the viaduct and continue up through the Delaware Water Gap, but Lerch wanted to show me an epic swim spot he had found by accident kayaking.
Larry left us early to get back home to meet up with some family. He was only out for a limited time on leave from the National Guard or something.
Delaware Viaduct
We climbed down from the bridge and walked up the road a bit, past a little memorial that sits next to Interstate 80. The road was a frontage road, but originally this was the New York, Susquehanna, and Western railroad line prior to the construction of 80. The original road would have been where 80 is today.
We soon reached a concrete box shaped underpass that went all the way under 80. It was totally dry, and very huge for lots of runoff water. On the other side, a vague path went up stream along the Delaware. The path terminated at a great rope swing into the river.
Rope swing
In order to swing off and not hit the water, we had to climb up a bit of a tree. It gives us pretty good height jumping off of it. We probably spent a good hour at this site going off the rope swing and swimming around.
It’s such an odd spot, caked narrowly between Rt 80 and the river. No one would even know it was back there or that the river was so deep at this point.
After swimming, we made our way back along the path and out to the culvert back under 80. We then returned to the viaduct and used it to get across the river into Slateford PA.
Once on the other side, the rail bed has been overtaken by people’s yards, so we descended to the road to the north for a bit.
Rope swing
Before reaching the Slateford Gorge, which was my next planned stop, we came across another unplanned stop: the Slateford Inn.
We all decided to go in and get a bite to eat. This was a great stop.
I forget what exactly I ordered, but it was gone in short order, and Uncle Soup ordered a bit mess of sloppy nachos that he required assistance with. It was absolutely great.
After a little while, we made our way out of the bar and onto the road up to Rt 611. Then, we headed up hill on National Park Drive to the first left turn into Slateford Gorge. There are unmarked trails that follow Slateford Creek up stream.
Water Gap from the Viaduct
It was a steep slope, and I sort of didn’t remember going this way on any of my past trips up the Slateford Gorge.
The trail descended gradually to the creek, and then came to a nice deep spot where we could take a dip. We continued from here though a bit further up and soon came to an even better one, with two small waterfalls I don’t remember seeing before!
I don’t think I had seen them before because on past trips I’d always taken the more prominent path to the west of where we came in. We hunt out here and got in the water for a short bit more, and I realized it was just getting too dark for me to continue with the hike I’d had planned.
Viaduct
When we got out, we headed back the way we came for a little bit, back up 611 and down the main road through Slateford.
Somewhere between here and the end I lost my favorite grey hat.
Michele, Lerch, and Taylor decided to cut out before continuing on back to loop toward the cars, and if we got done within reasonable time we’d try to meet up with them.
It was getting pretty dark as we made our way back across the Delaware Viaduct. We remained on the cutoff this time back toward Hainesburg, and climbed back into it briefly. It was an awesome night to be out, with lightning buts and lots of sounds along the path.
View from Delaware Viaduct
The view from the bridges were both very nice. It was lighter at the Delaware one, and I pointed out where the Lehigh and New England Railroad would have crossed the Delaware (almost all remnants of the bridge save for one pier and abutments are gone).
The Paulins Kill one was great to see the stars from. No one else was around surprisingly as we made our way across and down the path to the eastern side.
We made our way down and onto the road in the dark, and then back beneath the bridge where we had swam just a bit before. Strangely, Lerch’s headless cat that he had found and left on one of the stumps was now gone.
Historic view of the Lehigh and New England Bridge crossing the Delaware, now gone
We made our way from beneath the viaduct the way we came, on the New York, Susquehanna, and Western right of way back toward Hainesburg Junction after a short bit on the path along the river.
Water Gap sunset view
When we reached Hainesburg Junction, I couldn’t see it well enough and somehow got us turned the wrong way. We were now on the Lehigh and New England right of way, the one that I did NOT want to be on!
The path remains clear for only a short while, then becomes an overgrown mess. It took us a while to get through on the right of way, first because of the weeds, then because of the through truss bridge over the Paulins Kill. Not only is this old bridge undecked, it’s very rotted. We had to carefully make our way across on the ties, staying on top of the metal support beams in the dark. Once on the other side, we had even more bushwhacking to do.
If I had it to do again, I probably would have just turned back and tried to find the other right of way again. We turned left on Brugler Road again and soon reached the Paulins Kill Valley Trail. That would take us back along Columbia Lake, past the dam, and then out to Rt 46.
Historic view taken near where we parked!
We were able to get out past the house at the very end of the trail with no problem, then out along Rt 46 to the end. Uncle Soup was on the phone with his wife briefly, and during the call he said “Mike...my wife says you’re crazy”.
Indeed, it was by this point probably 2:30 am. Certainly one of the longest duration hikes we’ve done, but also some much needed fun after the craziness that had been going on. And no one died or even came close. I’ll call that a “win”.
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