Hike #963; Starlight PA to Fish's Eddy NY

Hike #963; Starlight PA to Fish’s Eddy NY

8/21/16 Starlight PA to Fish's Eddy NY with Jillane Becker, Gregg Hudis, Michele Valerio, Timothy Kovich, Anne ?, James De Lotto, and Kralc Leahcim (Lerch)

This next hike would be a point to point, and quite a huge milestone for me. It would be the first time that all of my long hikes ALL actually connected since August of 2004.
I'd always had the plan of having every hike connect, but in August of '04, I did a hike in Cape May NJ. I figured I was going to do all of the beaches, and I figured I would connect to that much sooner, but only doing barrier island beach hikes in the Summer made it take quite a long time. When I finally had connected with Cape May a few years ago, by that time I'd done a couple of other hikes that were just barely out of reach of the other stuff I'd connected.

Starlight Station

I worked on connections to Shamokin Dam PA, and to Gettysburg, all which were just barely away from everything else I'd done. The final loose end was a hike I'd done with Jillane in Hancock NY a couple of years back.
We had connected to Starlight PA, at the old Starlight Station the previous Winter, and had only around five more miles left to connect that last piece. I wanted to save it for a Summer hike because I knew there would be good spots to get in the East Branch of the Delaware.
The hike started at the old Starlight Station, built in 1889 for the New York, Ontario, and Western Railroad's Scranton Branch.
We'd been following the Scranton Branch for years in little segments, whether they were loops or point to point things. Some of this old infrastructure is now the Lackawanna River Heritage Trail, and other parks, like through Carbondale, are almost completely obliterated from a past mine fire.
I've learned to love the "O&W" as it's called by it's fans for it's beautiful scenery, and winding curves through crazy terrain. After reading a book on the lines, it's a wonder it was ever built. A story is told of a line that seemed antiquated or forced even before it was completed. In it's heyday, people were already calling it the "Old and Weary", or "Old Woman".
The Scranton branch is in really fine shape all the way from Carbondale up to where it crossed the West Branch of the Delaware at Hancock, and the section from Starlight Station is even drivable. I actually ended up breaking the ball join on my Metro Car by driving it on the O&W for the section we were about to walk on a previous visit.

O&W map

Jillane and I drove up the night before and stayed a few miles west of Hancock after a nice dinner at the Starlight Inn. I set up a meeting spot just east of the town of Fish's Eddy, directly along the former railroad route, which is now called the "O&W Road". Some of the highway we drove to get there, including the bridge to cross the East Branch of the Delaware, were formerly those of the railroad, so it was pretty cool for me right from the start.
A few that had signed up for this one didn't show. It was going to be a small but good group. Once we were all together, we shuttled with as few cars as we could to the starting point, Starlight Station. While everyone was getting together to get started, I backtracked a little bit because I wanted to see a nice little waterfalls again that I could barely get a good photo of on the last hike up this way.

Waterfall along the O&W Trail

From then, we started on our way to the north on the old railroad bed. It was really quite easy and pleasant to walk the route. I don't recall a single car passing by us while walking the entire stretch from Starlight toward Hancock.

O&W Road

I recalled the previous trip up this way, when Jillane and I got stuck when the ball joins broke in my car, how we hiked the Hancock area, but didn't get to see a particular waterfall we were told of.
When my car died, a man named Carl Henderson allowed for us to park in his driveway for the day. During our conversation, he told us that when we came back, we should check out a beautiful waterfall just down below the rail bed. I watched closely for where this could be. There was only one stream I could see on the maps that might have a substantial waterfall, and I thought I could hear it from the rail bed when we were just above.

Falls below the O&W

When we got to what looked like a good spot, I ran down the hill as best I could to check it out. It was actually quite a long and steep climb down the railroad embankment. I made it quite a long ways down before the grade got to where I could get over to the stream.
I first found a tangle of branches on a small cascade. I hoped that would not be it. I then looked further down stream, and saw the steeper dropoff to the falls that Mr. Henderson must have been referring to. I walked the stream down to them, and could see it was something nice. I then walked down stream and around to get a better photo of it from the lower side. There was a driveway and a little bridge over the creek just below where I was, so I didn't hang out for too long. I made my way steeply and with some difficulty back up to the railroad bed, and soon caught up with the others who were waiting for me.
We soon came to Winterdale Road, the end of the formal "trail" and road section. There used to be a bridge that carried the line over the road, but today even the abutments are gone. There was a path below the rail bed to the left, which paralleled and went right toward the West Branch of the Delaware River and former bridge site that carried the O&W across.

O&W bridge abutment

The right of way was high above us as we walked on toward the former bridge site. As we reached the spot, we could see the remaining concrete abutment for the south side off to the right. It was a peculiar looking stacked concrete design. Tim went right up and got into the thing to look around, while I went down to close to the river to look more closely.
There was a very low pier remnant close to the river itself, which someone had placed a plank up against. I tried to go up it, but it was far too slippery from the rain to get up the thing at this point.

Old bridge pier

Looking at historic photos, one can see that this concrete structure was not the original bridge that carried the Scranton Branch over the West Branch of the Delaware. There was once a slightly lower deck girder style bridge with metal stanchions at about the same spot. Perhaps the lower grade that we walked to get to the point along the river was actually the predecessor railroad grade.
The river itself was too difficult to reach with all of the heavy brush along it's shores. Probably all invasives, they were thick but not abrasive. Just enough to be annoying. I turned back and climbed to the abutment where Tim was to look around.

The original Bridge #2, over West Branch of the Delaware

It seemed surprising that such an abutment would be constructed for such a heavy duty railroad bridge. I'm not used to seeing them of this variety.
The original iron trestle that crossed at this site was built in 1890, and reportedly there are still pieces of it laying on the ground out around where we were walking, but I don't recall seeing them, and if they were there I would not have known what I was looking at at the time anyway. The later bridge at the site was built sometime around 1913, when the line was double tracked in this area. The bridge was apparently known as "Bridge #2".

The old bridge

Tim and I climbed back down from the railroad embankment, and Jillane had found an area with some old bottles to look around at, which we'd come back to later.
Jim DeLotto was coming to meet up with us, and he made his way to the start of the fishing access point we had walked in at. We had to turn around and backtrack anyway to get out to Hancock, so we headed out to the road and met up with him rather quickly. There was an old gentleman there doing a spot of fishing who had parked there and we chatted with him briefly. He told us that DeLotto's car would be fine there for the rest of the day, and so we could be off.

Historic view of the old O&W bridge

We followed Winterdale Road to the east a short distance toward Route 191. Just ahead, we passed the home of Carl Henderson, the man who let us park my car in his driveway after the ball join on it had broken.

Historic view looking west of the old trestle; March 1913. Note the original bridge's pier in the center.

It was at this point that all of my long hikes finally connected again. I now have the satisfaction as I approach my twentieth anniversary of organizing these hikes that I can say all of them somehow connect with that first one.

Old quarry road on Point Mountain

We made our way across the West Branch of the Delaware, with some good views both up and down the river. At that point, Jillane, Michele, and Delotto opted to continue out and around to town and take a break for lunch, while Gregg, Tim, Anne, and I would climb Point Mountain to see the old abandoned mausoleum.
Jillane had already been up there with me before, the day my car died. The hike we did that day was a sort of unplanned wandering around type of thing.
On that day, we found an old quarry road which made for a good route up the south face of Point Mountain, the promontory that stands directly between the East and West Branches of the Delaware.

Old quarry road

The route really feels like some of the Catskills bluestone areas. The rocks are are really cool and bear the marks of many years of erosion.
It was really steep at first, because we went off trail to cut a corner and get up to the quarry road. We then had a more gradual ascent along the quarry road itself past the rock outcroppings.
The old roadway ended at what was once a quarry. From there, we steeply ascended where there was a collapse of quarry walls. This was the toughest part of the climb up Point Mountain.
Rocks were falling loose beneath us, and I tried to keep us going at a slight angle, though we did continue rather steeply up much of the time. We hit another quarry road when it started to get easier, then went off trail again as we started to plateau a bit.
Tim handled the hill pretty quickly, which was surprising since he hadn't been out with us in quite a while. He'd been working literally insane hours, and had noticably lost a lot of weight since the last time we'd seen him, not that he was really fat before anyway!

Mausoleum

It's absolutely amazing that this place isn't more popular than it is. An abandoned mausoleum on top of a mountain...with open graves and a church arched doorway. How could this not be a draw? But it was surprisingly not completely full of graffiti. Obviously kids have found it, but have not really destroyed it as much as one might think.

Mausoleum

The story behind this structure is something straight out of Weird NJ it would seem. It's totally fitting.
The man who owned the land and had the mausoleum constructed wanted for this to be his final resting place, tombs were sold off to other individuals in the past.
Security was apparently a problem right from the start. The place fell victim to grave robbers, and as the story goes, a kid was trying to steal a necklace off of the corpse of a woman, and her head fell off. The shocked kid passed out, and rescue personnel had to come and get him.
Now, most of the tombs are all opened up, all of the bodies were moved to other burial sites.

Hancock NY

We walked all through the structure, careful not to step into one of the open holes of the floor. Likely all of the open coffin containers were busted open by kids looking for bodies. I got in one and laid down for a photo, but then I got some of that light concrete dust in my eye and screwed up one of my contact lenses. It made for some unpleasant walking for a while.
There is a woods road that is used for a cell tower now, which is right next to the mausoleum. We just used the road to get back down toward the town of Hancock. Jillane called me and let me know they were at a pizza place. I believe it was Little Italy II.

Hancock NY

We turned right on Fifield Avenue, then when we got to Leonard Street we turned left up toward town.
We cut a couple of corners and walked through some parking lots, and soon reached the pizza place. It was just starting to rain a bit harder, so our timing was great to sit down and enjoy some food while it blew over.
Inside, the pizza place was oddly huge, like a gymnasium of pizza places. It had a lot of patrons, but was just so much larger on the inside than any mom and pop style pizza place I've ever seen.
I believe I had two slices and the others picked up my tab, which was very nice.

Hancock NY

We realized as we left the pizza place and started making our way through town that the entire town could probably use a Weird U.S. mention.
There was an enormous fish painted on a wall, depicted as floating through a scene of woods and trees rather than any aquatic setting; there were stone busts of people's heads with some sort of old mining style masks over some of them just sitting in a storefront window on the main street; there was a nude mannequin of a woman wearing a wig and sunglasses posed in a chair staring at passersby, and what appeared to be a photography studio that advertised "Uncle Brother Food and Drink Specials All Summer".

The Delaware River's East Branch in Cadosia

We walked along the main street out of town heading to the east. The road was busy at first, but calmed down as we reached the far side and we turned to the right on Green Flats Road, in Cadosia.
The old O&W Railroad's main line has been built over through Hancock, and is now Route 17. The Scranton Branch that we were following had it's junction with the main line just on the west side of town. I'd not followed the O&W at all in this area except briefly on the previous trip with Jillane. To the southeast, we had hiked sections of the O&W main line down near Wurtsboro. I would like to do the remainder of it as another series.

At Cadosia Creek, where Rt 17 crosses a high bridge today, there was once a deck girder trestle span on the O&W. There's nothing to see remaining of this site today. There was also a junction with a former branch line that went all the way up to connect with the Ulster and Delaware Railroad.
We turned to the right at a river access area to take a dip. I went a ways out among the rocks in the Delaware to get myself totally in, which felt great after the tough climb up Point Mountain earlier.

"Tomb stone" for Hawks Mountain Tunnel

Once finished here, we followed Green Flats Road to the east. It started to rain a bit again, so it was tough to get my phone out for one, and I was getting limited service. Lerch was getting ready to meet up with us, and we were only just on the east side of Hancock now. My last message said that he was fifteen or twenty minutes away, and then Gregg got another shortly following. I think Michele might have gotten one too. We didn't hear anything just before entering the woods along Green Flats Road, where it turns to the south to a quarry area. This was the former site of the Hawks Mountain Tunnel.
This tunnel became a bit of a fascination for me. I knew I would like the O&W because rail fans like it so much. It had lots of curves, several tunnels, and just looked like it would be an interesting one to explore.

Historic view of Hawks Mountain Tunnel

When Jillane and I went looking for the former tunnel site, we found the tomb stone with the O&W logo on it, as well as the original railroad predecessor's name, and date of construction: 1872.

Abandoned old 17

I had read that the Hawks Mountain Tunnel was blasted away during the construction of the present route 17, but then I started finding some stuff that might mean otherwise.
It was obvious that the west portal had been at least covered over if not blasted shut, but there remained a large cut to the east side. I wanted to see it, but had not the time the last time I was there with Jillane.
We climbed up again to walk the abandoned old Rt 17, the paved four lane highway with the hairpin turn that was used when the railroad was still in service.

Old 17

As we climbed the embankment to reach the old highway, which was treacherous enough, I spotted what I thought might have been the site of the west portal of the tunnel, something I had missed before. Historic maps show that it might have been just south of the present highway route.
Interestingly, old maps also show that Green Flats Road was once another railroad bed, a spur that once went to the quarry. I had stated that I thought it looked like a railroad bed earlier.
We turned right on the abandoned highway and followed it out around the hairpin turn. Everyone thought it was pretty cool, but it started raining rather heavily .

Looking east from former Hawks Mountain Tunnel site

When we got to where the old highway comes closer to the present one again, we started descending carefully and steeply off to the right. I knew we were coming straight down to where the east portal of the tunnel was supposed to be, so I turned us all to the right a bit. Everyone seemed to want to find their own easier way down, which was fine. This was a rough spot, and the rain was only making it harder.
I soon found an old woods road that turned off to the left. I decided to follow this because it was heading the direction we needed to be going. I turned slightly away from it and toward what looked to be the old railroad cut to the right, and I was correct.
The cut was obvious, deep and leading straight out toward the river side. Unfortunately, it looked as though the mouth of the tunnel had in fact been covered over completely. There was a deer path heading down into the cut which we would use to get to the railroad bed.

Historic view of Hawk's Mountain Tunnel

Debris was stacked up gradually through the cut, and near where the mouth of the tunnel should be, I found several openings animals were using to get into the rocks. I'll bet there is some sort of cavernous remains of the tunnel being used as habitat today, but nothing I could ever fit into.

Hawks Mountain Tunnel today

It was disappointing that I couldn't get into the tunnel portal. I figured there was some sort of chance, because obviously no one ever ventures through the mess to get to this point. It's still quite interesting, and it leads me to believe the tunnel may still be there, buried.

We reached the base of the railroad bed and started following it to the east. It was clear enough at first, then got progressively more overgrown as it reached the edge of the Delaware River.
The next disappointment was that it appeared the right of way had been completely washed into the East Branch of the Delaware ahead. It went straight out to a steep slope drop off and then disappeared completely. To our left, along the river, it was a rough and steep slope. Our only choices were to go up to Rt 17, down and walk in the river, or simply follow the slope with hopes that the rail bed would re-appear.

The rail bed appearing from under the debris

With none of these options sounding desirable, I decided we'd go along the slope and see what we could find.
The weeds were a pain to get through, but at least most were not too much a mess. I had glimmers of hope when I could see short sections of level appear from under rubble that had been dropped down the slope for the construction of current Rt 17.
I kept pushing ahead, and eventually Gregg and Delotto decided to just head down hill and walk up the shallow edge of the Delaware. I was about ready to do the same, when on my way down I spotted what appeared to be an opening in the trees ahead. I figured that could be the rail bed.

Walkin' in the Delaware

I climbed over the last bit of stone debris to find the railroad bed wide and walkable, though overgrown with grasses on the other side. I called out to Gregg and Delotto down in the river, as well as to everyone else following me along the steep slope.
We made our way onto the rail bed and fought through the grass ahead.
We were able to follow the right of way without too much difficulty for a while. We had to go around some trees and some Japanese Barberry, but it wasn't bad until we got to a tributary that flowed over it. It had washed out whatever culvert the rail line had once used to cross, and would have meant we'd have to climb down and back up. Rather than do this, I knew we were getting close to Dark Hollow, where there is a private house built along the right of way. I figured it a good time to follow the creek up to Rt 17.

The rail bed parallel with Old State Road

We managed to get up to the highway, then carefully walked it to the east for a bit. I had gotten periodic text messages from Lerch when my service was good enough, which read variations of "What the hell, man?"
He'd driven a very long way to meet up, but between lack of service and heavy rains forcing me to keep it covered, I couldn't get back to him very quickly.
We made our way along the highway until we got to the Old State Road overpass, where we waited underneath to dry off and rest.
While waiting, Lerch eventually made his way to us. He managed to find a weird spot on Old State Road to park his car, and then ran out to the bridge to find us beneath.

O&W railroad bed

Together, we walked ahead along 17 briefly to a mowed path that cut back over to Old State Road. We then turned left on the road to follow it for a while.
The little streams along the edge of the road looked to be at flood condition. It was eroding away the QP that was put down, probably after heavy snows.
We kept our eyes to the right, and could occasionally see the rail bed being used as driveways, and at one spot some sort of private camp or something. We crossed over City Creek, and then Tar Hollow at a spot historically known as Tyler Switch. Just ahead of here, where the line was used as a private driveway to the west, it was a private nature sanctuary to the east.

East Branch Delaware

We were able to turn onto the right of way and continue to follow it along the East Branch of the Delaware.
It was in very good shape as far as railroad beds are concerned, but in very bad shape as far as clearing was concerned. There were plenty of fallen trees that we had to climb over, under, or through, and no one wanted to be getting wet after just drying. The rain was letting up by this time.
The right of way did continue to get better as we walked, but it was also very wet. Springs as well as entire streams flowed off of the highway and surroundings, and it all seemed to go right to the railroad bed.

O&W right of way

The on and off rain wasn't much more than a minor annoyance by this point. The two off trail scrambles at Hawk's Mountain followed by the mess that was the washed out and covered over O&W right of way beyond the tunnel site was some of the worst stuff we've done on my hikes in a while. Lerch said "Ahh, I miss all the fun stuff".
We came to a point where there was a stream bed crossing over the right of way. No culvert remained in place, and it was probably a pipe of some sort originally. We had to go up stream a bit to the left in order to cross it. Once on the other side, the right of way improved much more.

Snapping Turtle

We also saw a baby snapping turtle in this area. Typically, snapping turtles are the ugliest things one will see in nature, but the baby ones are actually kind of cute.
A short distance on the other side of the messy creek crossing, we came upon a nice green sign that read "Filippo's Pool", and we were on a legitimate rail trail section. This was kind of surprising because none of this comes up really as public trail on google maps, save for one small icon if you were to zoom in far enough, reading "East Branch Hiking Trail".

Tar Hollow Brook

The sign at the end of the trail at "Filippo's Pool" had a sort of poem on it, a quotation by Judith Lynn DeStafano about the late Filippo who must have passed in 2007 as per the date on the sign.
We continued on along the right of way from here, and we came upon an open area next to the Old State Road used for parking. I was afraid the trail section would end here, but it did not. The rail bed just passed through an opening and then continued on along the river on the other side, this part surprisingly even clearer and more well kept than the section we had just been on.

Filippo's Pool

As we walked along this next section, I hung back and chatted with Lerch a bit, and then stayed back with Jillane.
Just ahead, there was a really nice looking bench overlooking the river off to the right of the trail. She and I just stopped and took a short break there for a bit before continuing on. It was an absolutely beautiful section, so we just let the others hurry on ahead for a bit.
We were up and moving again shortly, with good black cinder based trail ahead. We'd make very fast time to the end of we kept moving through this section, but I really didn't want to be done yet.

It's official!

The trail moved away from both Old State road and new Rt 17 a bit for a while, giving us an even better sense of seclusion in this section.
We continued on until we came to a very nice surprising old cemetery just off to the left of the trail. With everyone else still ahead, Jillane and I went in to check out some of the old tomb stones.
Some of the stones were the old brown stones and field stones that area now pretty much impossible to read. The earliest stones we found dated back to the early 1800s.

Along the rail bed

We walked throughout the entire cemetery, and then found a path out that led back to the railroad bed. Jillane spotted a ceramic cat on one of the graves, to which she announced that this was what she wanted on her grave.

Old field stone graves

The others were waiting just up ahead, at the far end of the grave yard, but still on the railroad bed. The rail bed joined with a power line briefly, and then another trail turned off to the right.

Old 1850s tomb stone

The railroad bed continued ahead through an industrial site. We could probably have gotten out and around to stay on it, but the hiking trail appeared to continue on through past the place on a more attractive route, so we turned right to follow it.

Graveyard cat

The trail led out toward the East Branch of the Delaware and started following what appeared to possibly be old mill raceways. One trench went down stream beyond where we picked it up. We turned to the left and soon were parallel with the fence that surrounded the industrial site to our left.

Nice big Oak

There were some really nice big trees in this area, growing close to the shore of the Delaware. Jillane and I were still far behind the rest of the group pretty quickly because we were checking out the big trees.

Delaware River East Branch at Fish's Eddy

The others continued ahead beyond the end of the trail, and turned up the gravel access road out toward Route 28, but we spotted a path leading off to the right. It looked promising, leading to the shore of the Delaware, so we headed down to check it out.
It turned out to be a beautiful spot on the river with deep water and not too much current!
We decided to go in for a swim, and the others really missed out. It felt great.

Old O&W Bridge over the East Branch of the Delaware

When we were ready, we headed to the parking area, then out the gravel drive to Rt 28.
At this point, the highway had been built directly over the old O&W right of way. Originally, during the railroad years, it was slightly off to the east of the current alignment.

Fish's Eddy bridges, with possible wider rail span

There really is hardly any sign of the old road bridge left. Looking down into the river, it's evident that there could have been piers in the water, but nothing stands up really any more. There is a driveway on the far side of the former O&W bridge that leads to the former road bridge site.
It's really odd that the old railroad bridge has been converted to a road bridge. It's very narrow, and a very long span for a single lane bridge. I believe based on photos, and the fact that the piers for the former O&W bridge are wide, there may have at one time been a wider section of the span.

View from Fish's Eddy Bridge

We made our way across the bridge and could see how the railroad's alignment worked out. Some of the fill for the railroad had been plowed away to merge better with the roads.

Former O&W bridge at Fish's Eddy

There used to be a depot a short distance from the bridge in the town of Fish's Eddy. This town really has nothing to it today. There are no stores, no parking areas or even fishing access points right by the bridge.
They do however embrace the history of the O&W Railroad, as the town sign near where the depot used to stand denotes this as "former site of the O&W".
We turned left on a road that begins to head out of town, now known as the O&W Road, which is where we parked.
The road is paved, but almost undeveloped save for the section closest to Fish's Eddy.

Fish's Eddy NY

I figured the road walk would be kind of boring, but even on it there were some interesting remnants to see. We came across an old whistle marker, just in someone's front lawn, which surprised me.

Whistle Marker on the O&W, Fish's Eddy

On the straight away, we could see the rest of the group like specks barely within sight. I suppose it's surprising they weren't already further since we stopped to swim and all.

Old O&W

We continued along the road the short distance further to the pull off parking area where we met in the morning.
I'd found that place by chance just looking at Google maps, trying to figure out a spot we could park somewhere near Fish's Eddy (I didn't know about the public lot just near the bridge).
We were easily able with the cars remaining to get everyone back where they needed to be.
Jillane, Delotto, and I went back to the old railroad bridge site over the West Branch of the Delaware. Jillane looked around for bottles while Delotto and I checked out the bridge remnants.
There is still so much more to see on this line, and the next bit east will likely be very easy to post, with much of it on the old O&W Road. It will likely be a very long time before I complete this entire line, seeing as though it leads all the way up to the Great Lakes, but perhaps one day, one step at a time. I've connected this far already.

Historic O&W map