Hike #979; South Pinchot Trail Loop

Hike #979; South Pinchot Trail Loop

10/23/16 South Pinchot Trail Loop with Jillane Becker

This next hike was just Jillane and I; we had planned to take Sunday for just the two of us to hike, and I had a ton of things on my list to do. Jillane left it to me to make up my mind on where to go, so I decided it had been a long time since we’d been on the Pinchot Trail. We had done two other hikes that incorporated parts of the Pinchot Trail, and I figured we’d soon finish the entire long PA backpacking trail, but we hadn’t gone back to it in years.

McClinton's Gate Section of Pinchot Trail

The last time I’d been on the Pinchot Trail must have been 2010 I think. It was one of the first of the long PA backpacking trails I had looked at. The first one other than the canals and such that I wanted to start was the Thunder Swamp Trail in Delaware State Forest. The Pinchot Trail was just the next long close one.
The trail was laid out many years ago by a retired trucker named Frank Gantz who made many of the trails in the Pocono region. I set up the connecting trails between Tobyhanna and Gouldsboro State Parks, and the ones in this area. One of the connecting trails now bears his name.
The area was now dubbed Pinchot State Forest, though the previous time it was called Lackawanna State Forest. The original name was taken for the native American word meaning fork in the river. The name Lackawanna is used all over the area, and it was probably changed both to eliminate confusion as well as to honor Gifford Pinchot, our nation’s first Forester, who was responsible for much land preservation, and held the seat of Pennsylvania Governor.

McClinton's Gate section of Pinchot Trail

I was not aware of any new developments to the trail, and we got a rather late start, at about noon. We parked at the larger main parking lot for the trail that I had used before, on Bear Lake Road. From there, the trail follows the road to the west for a little bit, then cuts off to the left on dirt surface Tannery Road.
Since my last visit, a new parking area had been constructed at the intersection with Tannery Road, so we didn’t have to do the whole road walk bit. It was too late, and so we just headed onto the section down Tannery Road, then turned left into the woods on the McClinton’s Gate Trail section.
Many of these Pennsylvania State Forest Trails have individual sections named separately. We found it not only here, but in much of the Mid State Trail that we’d hiked.
We passed through lovely sections with the Rhododendrons skirting the Balsam Swamp, then headed through an open natural meadow area that’s quite beautiful. I had done this entire section before, when we hiked the south bit, then headed over to the Wilkes Barre and Eastern Railroad to follow it north. We’d just have to double back on those sections to make the loop.

Stone Lookout

Soon, we made a turn and at what seemed like a random spot with no intersection, the trail becomes the Stone Lookout Trail section. We continued on the trail up hill for a little bit, and then came to a rather new looking road section that goes over a hill. This, it turns out, is some sort of Stone Lookout Trail for snowmobiles in season. At first, I thought the stone structure at the top of the trail had been destroyed for this road, but it had not. It was just beyond where we crossed the roadway. We stopped for a short break there.
I don’t know that there is anything particularly historic about the Stone Lookout. It just appears to be a large stone cairn atop a hill which at one time probably was a place with a view. It was now just the height of the land.

Sunday Trail section

My best guess is that as the trees grew taller, the view became more obscured, and so people piled the stones up higher to get the view above them. Certainly, it wouldn’t have lasted all that long. It’s just a reference point on the trail now.
We soon hit another woods road which took us gradually and pleasantly down hill, then turned right on another woods road which skirts the Spruce Swamp Natural Area. We walked the road for a ways to the south, and then turned left onto the Sunday Trail section.
It’s interesting to me how state forests handle their trails. In NJ, they want them to be all wide, but in PA, in the natural areas, they require trails never to be wider than thirty six inches. It’s a pretty good standard for a natural area, but it also means that after a rain it will feel like hiking through a car wash.

Kellers Swamp Trail section

The Sunday Trail section came out to the intersection of dirt roads, Tannery Road from before, and another one that went to the north. Angled across, Pinchot Trail continued onto the Birch Still Trail section. I suppose this is probably named for a still that used to be in the area for making beverages, but I’ve really no clue.
It was a nice section, somewhat parallel with a creek called Sand Spring, and it was probably the first section of the Pinchot Trail on this hike that I’d never done. We weaved around on the section, then came out to cross Phelps Road. The trail turned left to cross a small bridge on the road, then right up some nice stone steps on the Keller’s Swamp Trail section.

Pine plantation on Heller's Swamp section

The entire trail is one of those that is just beautiful in it’s simplicity. It was really the kind of hike that I needed at the time. No stress, no other hikers to worry about staying caught up, just us walking through really pretty woods.
We came to one section with a large plantation of pines that was quite lovely. The trail passed into them and continued along some swamp lands, then crossed directly over another dirt road. This was the Butler Run Trail section. We had one steep incline spot, and one little water crossing. It was really pretty where we crossed the creek, because it passed directly beneath the root system of a tree, which was really beautiful.

Camp site on Choke Creek section

The next bit was the most popular section of the entire Pinchot Trail, the Choke Creek section. I had never done this before, but I’d recommended it to my friends Commando Tom and Laura because I knew the trail was easy and good for beginning backpackers, and I’d read that there are good camp sites. Tom confirmed to me that it was quite beautiful, but I’d managed to put off going to it until this time.
We came to a trail intersection reading “Choke Creek Nature Trail”, which makes a shorter access loop with the Pinchot Trail. It had yellow blazes going to the right. We continued ahead and followed a property boundary to the edge of the Choke Creek. It wasn’t long before we came to the first very nice camp site with fire pit.

Along Choke Creek

There were several more sites as we continued ahead. The creek was a small, narrow and rocky route. No trespassing signs were on the other side for a bit, but the the other side switched and became part of State Game Lands #91.
The trail continued with the creek to the left past several more camp sites, and ascended to a higher elevation level. It switched back and forth between creek side and higher up, especially when we got to areas with a lot of beaver activity. There were sections with dams at the wider flood plains, where the trail had to move to higher elevation. I’d imagine at one time it probably followed the shore more closely.

Choke Creek Nature Trail section of the Pinchot system

We came to one flood plain section where more recent beaver activity caused the trail to go completely under water. We could see the blazes clearly, but we’d have been more than knee deep into the creek. We had to go out and around through some thick blueberry bushes and such until we could regain the trail to the northwest.

Choke Creek

The trail took to higher elevation one last time at a larger beaver meadow, and we had some stunning views of the wider land. The trail continued above the creek with more views out to near a confluence with another smaller branch of the creek. At that point, we turned away from Choke Creek to head up hill a bit.
Jillane pointed out an informal side trail that went out across the smaller creek on a somewhat haphazard foot bridge. The map shows that this goes to a private tract. We continued away from the creek heading up hill on a good footpath.
There was a really interesting little phenomenon along the section ahead, where the blueberry bushes to the right of the trail were all green leafed, and those on the left were red.

Red and Green

My best guess is that much of these plants share a common root system, and the ones on the right were closer to the water source, or something like that, while the ones on the left were more dry. Whatever the case, it was really a cool sight to see.

Choke Creek section of Pinchot Trail

We followed the trail as it weaved around through lovely Mountain Laurels heading to the north. A final stretch before coming out to Tannery Road was straight as an arrow, and looked to be something that was constructed once as part of a fire line.
When we got to Tannery Road, the trail turned to the left to follow the dirt surface. One car went by me as I got there, and a couple others went by as we were walking it to the northwest. Other than that, we did not see anyone on the trail the entire day.
The trail passed the woods road that goes back up to Stone Lookout, then it turned into the woods to the left. The footpath remained pretty closely parallel with Tannery Road as we made our way west.

Pinchot Trail into a deer fence

We soon came to an interesting clearing, with a woods road access going left and right, and a very large deer extruder fence some twelve or more feet high. There was a strange yellow gate there, which lifted up very easily. I thought that this could not be part of the trail, it must have been rerouted. But sure enough, the yellow gate lifted up very easily, and I was able to step right inside the deer exclosure.
As I walked a bit further on, the blazes were clearly there. It was surprising the trail was left in place to go through this. Still, I didn’t want to chance getting stuck in there. It was getting dark. Jillane and I paralleled the fence back to Tannery Road, then turned left on the road. Sure enough, the trail did come back out of the fence, at another yellow gate thing onto Tannery Road. I’ll have to return to hike that section.

Sunset off Tannery Road

The trail continues along the Tannery Road for a good while, then cuts to the left on the Behler Swamp Trail section. I was looking for it as we walked, but I didn’t see it. No matter, the distance is really not different because it parallels the road some more, and it was too dark to really enjoy it.
The sun set as we walked the Tannery Road section, which took us right back to the Bear Lake Road where we first got on the trail, at the McClinton’s Gate section. Across from there, there is a snowmobile trail route that goes out and apparently crosses the same road, and even that looks like it’s at least in part worth hiking. We’ll have to come back to explore that section another time.
We walked the road back to my car at the main parking area probably around 7:30 or so PM. We really did pretty good, just over 15 miles even though we got a late start.
After this section, only the Behlor Swamp, White Line, and part of Powder Magazine Trail sections remain and we’ll have completed the entire Pinchot Trail. I’ve already scaled another loop including the six mile Watres Trail at the north side to do another day.