Hike #962; Lower Water Gap

Hike #962; Lower Water Gap

8/18/16 Portland and Delaware Water Gap Loop with Jim “Uncle Soup” Campbell, Lowell Perkins, Annika Krystyna, Jessica Anne, Janet Lynn McCourt-Finsen, Sean TheRed Reardon, Marissa Barradale, and Celeste Fondaco Martin

Our next hike would be a point to point intended loop in the Delaware Water Gap area, but we ended up doing some extra stuff here and there which gave us the mileage we needed.
I used to do part of this hike as a 24 mile loop, but hardly anyone wants to do that any more. It’s a tough terrain trip to some degree, and I’d tried to post part of it as a night hike once before. A stop at the Slateford Inn on the previous one caused me to reroute.

Delaware Water Gap and Slateford Junction

We met at the Portland-Columbia foot bridge, as I’d done on countless hikes in the past. This would be our start, and we’d walk across, then take the old Lackawanna Railroad main line north.
We walked across, but there were police around when we got to Portland, so I opted not to walk the tracks. Instead, we walked Rt 611 for a bit, then cut in when the tracks left the roadside.
We continued to the Delaware Viaduct, the arched concrete span created by the Lackawanna as the New Jersey Cutoff in 1909. Once we passed beneath it, we walked the road up through Slateford.
I’d not noticed before, but the road through Slateford is perfectly flat. I wondered if perhaps the road was an earlier route of the railroad main line, maybe before the viaduct was built.
I was really on edge at the start of this hike. Too much stress still all around, so getting away from development was going to help a lot.

Lovely Slateford Ravine

We headed out across where the bridge had been filled in over the Lackawanna Cutoff, then hit Rt 611. Initially I had us walking north on it, the wrong way, then we turned back the correct way, south, then right onto National Park Drive. We climbed a bit, then a short distance up we turned left onto a narrow and sometimes steep path through the Slateford Ravine. Two small waterfalls are in the lower section with significant enough pools to take a dip in. Things started feeling better once we were in this area.

Slateford Ravine

Most of us all went in, and I walked around on the falls a bit before we moved on.
It was some tough going from this point up stream, because it's like a narrow goat path. Celeste's dog would have a little trouble getting up some of it where hand holds were necessary, so we went up and around a bit. A few others followed her, while a few followed me the tough way.

Everyone handled it actually pretty well. We made our way along the better path which comes from above after a short while, and I pointed out to everyone the crazy cut the Slateford Creek flows through. The area was rather obviously quarried all out, including the creek bed. Although much of it looks to be natural, the removal of slate from these open areas has certainly had an effect on the flow of the creek. It's possible it's completely moved the creek bed from elsewhere and created all of the waterfalls we see below.
We soon reached the lower Slateford Falls, part of an apparent old quarry wall. The area is like being in a natural Cathedral.

Slateford Falls

I'd found out about these falls from my friend Peeps (Ryan Short) years before. They were not on any of the Kittatinny Trails map series, and I never bothered to look when I was little, hiking the Arrow Island area with my grandfather. When Peeps, who lived right down the hill at the north end of Portland, told me about it and showed me photos, I put a hike together to it.
It was rather dry this time, but my first time seeing it, it was very impressive. On that occasion, we climbed up and out of the gorge to the right through a slight washout, and I figured we'd do that this time too.
We made our way up from the solid rock faces to the rather loose and washed out slope only to find a vertical climb spot with exposed tree roots and such. This was NOT good climbing.
Rocks would fall down as soon as I moved, and it would risk everyone behind me getting hurt. Certainly, if I'd needed to I could pull myself up the thing, but not without great difficulty. I didn't want to take that risk.
Celeste made her way up and around, making a switch back to the west a bit, to where it was easier to head up. When her and her dog made it okay, I decided it would be best to head down and around to get out of there. To my surprise, Annika, who is usually more about safety, opted to climb the crazy tree roots and made it up just fine.
It was still a bit treacherous to go up, but not as big a deal if we were to fall. I took Janet's back to help her get through the worst of it, but by holding it in one hand I accidentally dropped her water bottles out of the side. Not one, but two both went barreling down the mountainside and back into the ravine. I couldn't believe I'd lost them BOTH. I offered to go back and get them, but she said that was fine, not to worry. Everyone was just happy to be out of that mess, the most difficult part of the hike. We had plenty of water among the rest of us that we wouldn't have any kind of shortage.

Upper Slateford Falls

We reached the National Park Drive again just above, near the former entrance to Slateford Farm, and turned left. We left the parkway style roadway and started following the pleasant dirt road to the west farther. We then turned left down to the upper Slateford falls for another more relaxing swim spot at a deeper pool. We needed it after the rather stressful climb.
These falls were also rather dry compared to how they would normally be, but it fortunately did not effect the water level too much. It was here that Sean and Marissa met up with us to continue the hike. I had them park at the Arrow Island Parking Area a bit further down the road and walk up to catch us a short distance.

National Park Drive

We all continued from the swim spot back up hill to the dirt National Park Drive, which at some point becomes Laurel Hill Road.
This road is lightly used and is to me almost as good as using a trail. We walked up past the historic abandoned old school house on the right, which has a bad hole in it's roof. This is likely to be one of the ones that will just get demolished, sadly, because a building without a roof is basically a ruin. The National Park Service has so many buildings, and it can hardly keep up with them. Even with the grand money that's come in as a result of the power line mitigation, there is still just so much work to do.

Old Slateford school house

Sean shared some Red Label and we all calmed down a bit more. It was a beautiful walk down a lovely back road through woods for a good long while. I'd wished there had been more time, because we could have seen the Slateford Farm, and the next historic farm site up before the sun set, but we had to at least try to get up the hill to the Appalachian Trail before dark.
We passed by the house on the right where Tott's Gap Road used to come down. My grandfather took me here first when I was very little. He said he used to drive up Totts Gap Road, but it was now closed off.
We pulled into the driveway that was now part of the road, and we had a dog come after us (it bit my grandfather, and he picked me up).
I remember the owners coming out and telling us that the road had been closed off for a long time now, and that their driveway used to be the road. They showed us where it went in, and told us if we went just a bit up the road to the power lines that we could get back to the old road. I remember driving up that way with my grandfather a bit and walking the rest of the way to the Tott's Gap Cave, which the land owner below called the "Bear Cave".
As we walked by that house I'd stopped at with my grandfather, I saw there was a German Shepherd out front. I wondered if it could still be the same people. People tend to get the same type of dog again and again like that.

Tott's Gap Cave

We reached the power line and followed it to the right to the old road route, then turned left onto it. It switched back up the mountain a couple of times, and eventually we came to the mine cave on the left side.
I've read a few different accounts on this one. The more believable story is that it was an Ingersoll-Rand dynamite test cave. The other story goes that some old man took a gun stuff full of gold dust and shot it into the rocks so they could justify prospecting for gold there. While that story is less believable, It's typically the one people like better.
We all went back into the thing, which doesn't go very far, but it's still pretty interesting.

Totts Gap Cave

We had a brief break, then hurried up to the high point in the gap where the Appalachian Trail crosses. We'd be on white blazes from here to the town of Delaware Water Gap, and it's usually well worn and pretty wide, so we'd be alright. I wanted to try to at least get out to the utility line view to the east before it got too dark.
We did make it out there with enough light to see around a bit, and had a nice little break there. The lights were on at the houses below, and we could still make out the perimeters of fields and with trees. In the other direction we had the silhouettes of other ridges to the north.
We made our way on along the AT from here, which the reroute takes through woods up and down a bit, where it used to simply follow the old fire road along the ridge. I think I kind of like the fire road better up there. Putting it off of that point seems kind of pointless and a maintenance burden.

Red Sean

The trail eventually did meet with the woods road, then it was a very easy and leisurely stroll along the ridge top out to the top of Mount Minsi.
Mount Minsi has a great flat area at the top, perfect for camping, where there was once a fire tower, but only the footings and base of the steps remain today. There is also a little side trail that goes out to my favorite view, out along the Delaware River to the south. From here, we could see the entire distance we'd just walked, and it always seems so unreal that we could have done it in such short order. We took a longer break here, sang some songs and just relaxed.
From this point, there was a rather steep descent on the AT down to the Minsi Fire Road, then another steep descent on foot path for a ways until we got to the Lookout Rock. We took another break there, where we could see the cars going by on Rt 80 clearly.
When we were ready to go, the trail became much easier. It's a much more gradual route down from here.
On the way, we passed two very large groups of hikers, on a full moon hike escorted by National Park Service staff. The moon was now coming out and giving us really good light.

In Delaware Water Gap

The trail continued down past Eureka Creek, which sadly had almost no water flowing over it. I had intended to lay in the water at this point, but it wouldn't work out for us.
We continued on the trail past Council Rock, and through tunnels of Rhododendrons, then slightly back up hill to rejoin the Minsi Fire Road. From there, the trail remained on the road past Lake Lenape, where we had a pleasant little stop before entering the town of Delaware Water Gap.
We passed through the parking area, then came into the middle of town, where there was a bar and restaurant with live jazz music going on to the left.

Night and Day with the jazz band

We wanted to refill our waters either way, so we figured we'd take a short break. When a couple went in, I figured "Whatever" and went in myself. Most of us all went inside for a short time, and I think it was Uncle Soup bought me a beer. I sat at the bar, and the jazz band was playing some more rather well known songs. When they broke into a nice rendition of "Night and Day" I started singing along. I can only imagine what newcomers to Metrotrails must think of some of the stuff we end up doing. "What the hell kind of hike is this? A stop at a bar? A jazz club" was some of my thought process. But that makes it all that much funnier. The last thing anyone would have guessed we'd be doing a couple of hours prior would be sitting in a posh night club listening to jazz.

In Del water Gap

We didn't stay all that long. Uncle Soup called it that if he started drinking there, he wasn't going to end up leaving. Despite the offer of another beer, I kindly turned it down because we had to be on our way. It might have been a good thing in the long run that Sean's bottle of Red Label broke.
We continued from the old hotel building with the sound of jazz emanating as we left, down the street on the route of the Appalachian Trail out of town. The AT crosses the Delaware River into New Jersey on the Interstate 80 bridge, and we followed it right to that point. Just before stepping onto the bridge, we stepped to the right, and climbed down to the railroad tracks.

The bar in the Delaware Water Gap

This was the old Lackawanna Railroad main line. Just to the south of us is the lower Caldeno Falls, which flowed right through the kitchen of the former Kittatinny House hotel, which burned down a century or so ago. Resort Point Overlook is now built partially on the old building's foundation.
We had a pretty easy walk along the old line heading south through the Water Gap. I kept my eyes open to the left for a place I used to like to swim years ago, bu that I hadn't visited in years. I knew it was close to the Indian Head overlook, which is recognizable by a large parking lot on the right. When I saw it, I soon started seeing the paths down to the river.

Full moon in the Water Gap

The moon lit up under the clouds like a lamp shade and it seemed to illuminate things even more. We went down, and took another dip in the river, which was great to get the sweat from the climb and rocky sections of the AT off.
After taking the last dip in the Delaware, the rest of the hike along the tracks went by really fast. We got back to Slateford in rather short order or so it seemed. I felt pretty energized.
Some were talking about running up to Sean's car from the bottom, a distance of about a mile. I didn't have that much faith in myself to handle it well, but when everyone started to take off running, I took off with them. Actually, it was only Sean, Lowell, and Jess that ran up with me. I managed to push myself up the hill pretty briskly, and really surprised myself by getting to Sean's car first. For someone at 36 to outrun three others in their twenties is somewhat of an ego boost I suppose!
I drove Sean's car back down to the bottom to pick up the rest of the group, and then drove everyone back to Columbia.
I was saying to Lowell how the hikes just seem to continue to be these outstanding experiences. Each one of them so different, yet thought provoking and fun, and I really needed to keep that positive energy level going.