Hike #1315; White Haven Loop

Hike #1315; White Haven Loop

4/4/20 White Haven Loop with Jillane Becker, Justin Gurbisz, Jack Lowry, Sarah Jones, Dr. Michael Krejsa, Brittany Audrey, and Professor John DiFiore

The crazy continued in the world, and more and more things were shutting down. Governor Phil Murphy would say he was “tightening the screws” more each time something happened.

Lock #29

In the time since the previous hike, the curfew of 8:30 pm changed to 24 hours. No one was to be on the road for anything at any time unless going to work or for something essential.
Fortunately, getting exercise is essential, and since the parks in New Jersey were mostly closed off, we headed to Pennsylvania to do some stuff I’d been meaning to do for a long while.
Like so many of the series I work on, I walk away from them and never get to walking them because I get distracted by other things.
Both the Central Railroad of New Jersey and Lehigh Valley Railroad parallel one another from the east side of New Jersey all the way up into the coal country, and I had walked both of the lines all the way to White Haven.
For whatever reason, I had never bothered walking either of these lines further north, and one of them is always a trail going on through. I just got involved in other things and it never came to pass.

Lock 29

Similarly, and perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that I had walked the entire Lehigh Canal as closely as possible, including the toughest stuff through the most secluded sections of the Lehigh Gorge, and never got around to finishing that one.

Lehigh Canal Lock 29

I had only about two more miles of it to walk.
Because of the COVID19 stuff, and all of the “social distancing” (which shouldn’t even be called that, it is physical distancing, not social distancing), I have tried to come up with only loop hikes so that we don’t have a problem.
I figured we would do Pennsylvania stuff while we could, and this looked like a good one to do. I would finally finish the entire Lehigh Canal, which I didn’t make a big deal about but it was a big deal to me.

Lock 29

I figured we could walk the Lehigh Canal up from White Haven to its end, then cut up hill onto the D&L Trail which follows the Central Railroad of New Jersey line.

Gate pockets

The two lines trade places regarding which one is active and which is abandoned, and we follow the active track out and loop back on the abandonment.
There’s a ton of history behind all of this, and I really wanted to experience it all.
I made the meeting point the upper parking lot in White Haven, on the north side of town, where I had met for a previous hike on the route where we traced much of the old Lehigh Valley Railroad including the Rockport Tunnel.
I instructed everyone to head into the woods form the parking lot when they arrive and meet at the kiosk, as not to make a scene in the lot.
I headed down to the Lehigh Canal site before everyone else to make certain of where exactly we were going, then came back up to greet everyone.
When we all got together at the kiosk, everyone had had their own experiences with what was going on in the world.

Gate pocket

Probably no one had the crazier experience than Jack and Sarah, who had nearly gotten trapped in the Islands out of the country during a quarantine thing.

Lock 29

Some of the people from the festival they were attending did not get so lucky and were stuck there quite a bit longer.
Almost all concerts are currently canceled, so Jack’s business is kind of shot for the time being.|
John, who teaches English as a second language, has been putting in more time teaching online, which he described as a bigger commitment, but actually might be better for the students.
Brittany has been out of work at the state because they didn’t want anyone in the Waterloo buildings, although she is going back soon.

Lock 29

Justin is working from home but also going out in the field with compliance stuff.
Jillane got her hours cut at the veterinary place, and I’m still collecting a check but working more minimal hours or as needed in the parks. Everything seems quite crazy.
We started walking right from the kiosk along a side trail from the D&L Trail that said Lock #29 right on it. This was probably the easiest to get to of all of the Lehigh Canal Upper Division locks.

Lock 29

The Lehigh Canal started out early on, in the early 1800s with “bear trap locks”, which were downstream only navigation to get anthracite coal to market. It became a conventional lock and towpath canal about 1829, and the Upper Division was developed from 1837 to 1843.
The Upper Division became a thing of great fascination for me. It was one of the largest canal construction projects in world history, and had the tallest canal lock ever built, at a staggering thirty feet in a single lift.

Lock 29

The Upper Division was far less canal than the lower division, and it relied more on canalized river, where the river was dammed and a towpath was built along the slack water pools.

Lock 29 post 1862 block

It’s said even the contractors didn’t think that such huge locks that this canal section called for could be built, but eventually some rose to the trask and made it work.
Flooding plagued the canal, as it does to all canals, but the narrow Upper Division, which came to be known as the Upper Grand Division, was a much larger maintenance burden.
One major flood nearly destroyed it early on, and it was rebuilt, but in 1862, a major one came along, swelled the river to beyond the capacity of the dams, and it washed out so badly that they decided to call it quits on the entire Upper Division save for two locks up from Jim Thorpe where interchange could be made between railroads.

Lock 29

I had traced the canal right on up to White Haven and parked at the lot we were parked in previously, but I never bothered walking the rest, and never bothered stopping to see Lock #29, which was just a short distance into the woods.
And so, this time I would finally finish the Lehigh Canal. There are a few more remnants down further along the way that I could look more closely and possibly find more, but I had walked along the entire thing.
We headed down the path, which led to a canal that I initially had thought was the Lehigh Canal. This first one was the power canal that served businesses in White Haven.

Lock 29

We went down and up to the other side, which looked like a tow path, then headed to the left along it.
In a short distance, Lock #29 came into view to the right of us.

Lock 29

The stone work is quite well intact. I tried to explain what everyone was looking at, how the lock chamber was actually lined with wood, which was why there appeared to be grooves in it.
Lock #29 had a lift of 24 feet, and on the far side was a stepped abutment where Dam #20 extended across the Lehigh. The slack water pool had a towpath beside it, and navigation was possible for another mile and a half above this point prior to 1862, and probably even a little later, although it then did not connect with the rest of the canal.

Lehigh Canal dam 20 remnant

The dam here was maintained for some years later to provide water to the power canal, and the upper end of the lock was filled over with a stone wall to keep the water from flowing through it.
Above White Haven, the terminus of navigation was at Port Jenkins, but downstream only navigation was possible above there for maybe five or so more miles. There were two “Bear Trap Locks” still in that section at about five and six miles from Port Jenkins, now likely under the waters of the Francis Walter Reservoir.

Old room

I climbed down to the bottom of the lock and into some of the chamber. The gate pockets were in good shape for the most part and very recognizable.
We climbed back up onto the lock, checked out the dam site, and then walked beyond the site. I noted that there were was some wooden crib work still in place beyond the lock site, which might date all the way back to 1862. It would have been the lead in to guide boats into the lock I believe.
We continued ahead, and there was an old stone building up slope from the former canal route. I climbed up to it to see more closely. It looked like a sort of root cellar; it was an arched doorway and just a little covered room inside. Not really sure what it would have been. The former Jersey Central railroad track was just above, so maybe it had something to do with that or its predecessor.

Old crib work above Lock 29

We moved ahead from here, and I tried to figure out where the towpath was. The clear walking path form here seemed to stay close to the river at first, which was obviously formerly a pool in more recent years. The entire area was silted like it had been dammed more recently than the other Upper Division dams.
Soon, the trail started to follow what I believed to be the former towpath. We moved a little further ahead, and then reached several ruins of old buildings. I’m not sure what these were. Maybe a tannery, maybe other industry of some sort.

Abandoned building

There were some beautiful cascades coming off of the hillside through this area. The moss was bright green with the start of Spring. Everyone was bundled up pretty good on this one, but I knew it was going to be warm, so I dressed pretty well accordingly.

The old canal route

We continued walking past this first set of ruins, then came upon another set. Whatever was going on up along this last stretch was something very substantial at one point.
The 1870s maps of the area show that there were two separate saw mills operating in that area, one of them was adjacent to a Brown and Lawall property as per the map, and the other was R. C. Albertson, who is probably a descendent of mine.
It makes sense that it could possibly have been a large scale lumber operation, and the small streams were there to have provided power.

Room

They are not shown on any of the newer USGS maps, and so these foundations might have been dead industries going back as far as the 1880s.
We continued upstream, and passed below some lovely rock outcrops that had clearly been cut away for navigation. The towpath was along the river, and in some places very obviously graded as such.
When we got beyond those rocks, a canal channel turned off to the left. I could find nothing on this having been part of the canal, but I figured it had something to do with docking or mooring at the end of the regular navigation.
For the rest of the canal, I had referenced Davig G. Barber’s excellent book on it, published by Appalachian Mountain Club. I had the pleasure of meeting and hiking with Mr. Barber a couple of years ago, but he recently passed away.

Sort of cellar thing, idk

His description ended in White Haven at Lock #29, so I didn’t have anything really on the northern end of navigation. Everything we saw up there is purely speculation.

On the path

Jillane had walked ahead and was waiting along the river at a wide grassy flood plain area. From there, we turned away and took a mowed grassy path back toward the hillside where we had seen the somewhat watered route I think was part of the canal. Unfortunately, going this way, the trail led to someone’s back yard, and we had to get back up hill to the D&L Trail.
We started going off trail to the left and right in a switchback as best we could. This led us up to the former Jersey Central track bed, where we turned to the right.

Along the Lehigh

My plan was to actually follow the former Lehigh Valley Railroad to the north (westbound), but the Jersey Central right of way is closely parallel to it and just downhill from it here. It was actually the earlier of the two lines to pass through the area.
This section didn’t start out as the Central Railroad of New Jersey. It was first the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad, which was a subsidiary of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company.
The line was chartered in 1837, work began in 1839, and was completed in 1841.

Rock outcrop at the end of Lehigh Canal towpath

I understand the line started off as a mule drawn railroad like some of the earlier ones.

Towpath and former pool area where slack water was

The route climbed up from the Scranton area 19.58 miles from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area to Port Jenkins/White Haven by way of three major inclined planes known as the Ashley Plains, one tunnel, and some major cuts. It was quite an innovative railroad for its time.
When the Upper Division of the canal was washed out in 1862, Lehigh Coal and Navigation Co. obtained permission to extend their Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad downstream to Easton on the Delaware River.

Ruins along the towpath, probably sawmill

That section was completed in February of 1868, and the first rail bridge over the Delaware was completed the following month.
Phillipsburg became a regular railroad hub, and after the advent of the modern locomotive, the Lehigh and Susquehanna continued running with the planes and tunnel all improved upon.
The Central Railroad of New Jersey leased the Lehigh and Susquehanna starting in 1871. Eventually, the Reading Railroad, which owned a controlling interest in the CNJ, bought the L&S, but Lehigh Coal and Navigation would continue to get lease payments for 35 years from it.

Ruins in sawmill area

That never came to be because Conrail bought it in 1978.
The Lehigh Valley Railroad also plays a key role in all of this. It was a competitor for most of the time of operation, starting when it was completed between Easton and Allentown in 1855. It was extended to Mauch Chunk (today Jim Thorpe), and beyond there acquired other trunk railroads to branch out into the greater upper Lehigh Valley. By the 1860s, it branched up to the Lackawanna River valley in direct competition with the original Lehigh and Susquehanna.

Lehigh Canal towpath

Like most of the rail lines, it succumbed to Conrail in the late 1970s.
For a time, both the former LV and CNJ lines remained in service, but as was customary with all of the Conrail stuff, one of them had to go because it was repeating the service of the other.

The ruins

The two lines switch off quite a lot. In Alpha NJ, the former CNJ is active to the bridge over the Delaware while the LV is abandoned. In Easton, they trade places and CNJ is abandoned, LV is active. In Bethlehem, both sides are active for a bit, and it switches to CNJ being active and LV abandoned in Allentown. It remains like that until Lehighton, and then they are both active once more to Jim Thorpe.
Once at Glen Onoko area, they trade back again and LV is active, CNJ abandoned to White Haven.

Some cascades

Just above Port Jenkins, the two switch places yet again. The Lehigh Valley line used to keep to the west a bit, but a new connecting track was created to bring the cars over to the CNJ line straight ahead.
We walked past an old railroad box and such out to the crossing of Middleburg Road.
The trail came out right next to the tracks, which at this very point had switched from following the Lehigh Valley line to the CNJ. This was the start of walking the active tracks for a while.
The trail had been developed with paved ramps to the road crossing, and then a paved trail leading parallel with the road to the left over to the other grade.
We went straight across, and I tried to hurry along a bit because I didn’t want to have a problem with anyone going by. I was a little too paranoid for this one.

Ruins

My friend Dan had checked schedules and there was in fact no trains scheduled for this day, so we were good.
To the right and right after the road crossing, there was a junction that used to be to the right. It’s rather confusing to follow, but this was a spur track that went to the north a bit, then swung around and along the Lehigh River to a place known as Devil’s Elbow. Another branch of that same line went out to pass through a quarry area also nearby.
In some way, this line also weaved to the north to connect I understand with the Bear Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. It’s a confusing area.

Ruins

A lot of those rights of way are on proper land and I want to wait until we have people who know where they’re going besides me before I attempt it.
We walked the tracks to the north, passed through a lovely rock cut, and I spotted the first Red Eft of the year, sitting right on a railroad tie. They are usually orange, strangely.
Just after the rock cut, we passed another junction on the right. This is the Central Railroad of New Jersey’s Bear Creek Junction.

Cliffs

The Lehigh Valley Railroad also had a connection with it, as it was their line, but I was for some reason under the false impression that it connected with the Lehigh Valley main on both of the two junctions.
I had hiked a lot of this already. Last year, Pete, James, and I headed up there and did the entire Bear Creek Branch as well as other lumber lines out of Pinchot State Forest, out to where the Bear Creek Branch ended in Beupland at some lakes.
The branch was there for the Lewis Lumber company. Albert Lewis was a prominent name in the late 1800s, when railroad construction was huge, and coal mining reached its peak. More and more lumber were needed for mine props and railroad ties, and so more railroads were built out into these lands to provide them. This was the original reason for the Bear Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Even after the LV abandoned a portion of their line, Lewis reactivated it as a narrow gauge and kept it going. It’s quite a fascinating history.

A map showing the branches between CNJ and LV above Port Jenkins

In addition to the lumber, during the Winter months Lewis found more profit in production of ice from the lakes in the region.

Possible end of the Lehigh Canal

We had hiked the route all the way to Bear Creek Village, where there was a station and a split. The line broke off and connected with the CNJ line at the south end, and then the Lehigh Valley main at the north.

Cliffs along the canal

I had come up with even before then a large loop that would incorporate a little of the Lehigh Valley main, but mostly be on the two branches of the Bear Creek Branch. I hope to do that one somewhat soon, as soon as the leaves start to green up and provide a better degree of cover. A lot of the land it goes through is State Game Lands as well as Pinchot State Forest and non profit land, but the non profit land is questionable regarding access.
I didn’t’ really even notice the first junction site when we reached the active tracks, but the second one was very apparent to me. I didn’t think it was Bear Creek Junction though. I had thought that this was an earlier route of the Lehigh and Susquehanna to bypass a major rock cut coming up just ahead.
The area is a bit confusing, because it turns out this Bear Creek Junction went up and had a quarry and possible spur to Penn Lake, but then rejoined the Lehigh Valley line before the main branch connected back out to Bear Creek Branch.

Red Eft

I didn’t figure much of this out really until we started getting closer to being done. Even now, it still confuses me a bit.
We headed into the deep rock cut ahead. I figure the original Lehigh and Susquehanna might have bypassed some of this originally one what would later become some of that Bear Creek stuff, but I can’t say for sure.
The rock cut took us beneath the Lehigh Valley Railroad main line, now the D&L Trail section known as the Black Diamond Trail (The Path of the Black Diamond was a nickname for the Lehigh Valley line).
The original stone bridge abutments over the cut were still there, but the trail uses a new pedestrian bridge to span the gap.
We continued north out of the cut, and came close to a few houses. Jillane and I powered ahead through this section. I was probably a bit more nervous about being out than I should have been, what with all of the closures and such.
Dogs started parking like crazy in adjacent yards, which drives me nuts in times like that. A lady came out and grabbed her dog to escort it in.

The rock cut

I’m sure they’re not used to people walking the tracks. If we had been on quads, it would have been probably far more normal and acceptable to be out there, but this was just odd. I’m sure people knew we were heading toward the tunnel.

The tunnel

The tracks came out very close to Tunnel Road, where we were in pretty plain sight, and we crossed a couple of access roads to the right that went out to other properties with houses. We just moved along quickly and didn’t have a problem.
Along the way, there were lovely old metal mile markers, kept in good condition and painted by Reading, Blue Mountain, and Northern Railroad. Owner Andy Muller is quite a rail fan, because he has built enormous reproduction railroad stations and buildings along his lines. They say he’s a cut throat business man, and eccentric, but I would love to meet the guy having seen what he’s done.

The tunnel

The railroad went up onto a really high fill to cross over Creasy Creek, which was a nice spot.

There were people working on trees or something below us to the left running loud chain saws, so I wasn’t worried about being heard talking through there. Once we started going into the cut at the approach of the White Haven Tunnel, I was feeling much better.

It looked to me like the tunnel had been shortened at some point. New regulations for railroads often call for that to happen for ventilation reasons. They either have to put a vent hole in the middle, or open it up more. This one had what appeared to be the spray concrete on the east portal we were approaching.
The tunnel wasn’t all that long. We could see right through it like nothing.

This tunnel was one of the really early ones, dating to 1841. Certainly, they had to upgrade it at points to allow for larger trains with locomotives to pass through.

Tunnel Station; by Clinton T. Andrews, Bob Fischer Collection

The height of the mountain there didn’t look so high, it was almost a surprise they didn’t just try to cut through it. A lot of the rock at the approach appeared to be shale.
The inside was adorned with an odd facing on the sides similar to the ones we had seen at the Rockport Tunnel when we went through that.
The settlement here was apparently called just “Tunnel”. When looking up the tunnel name, it only comes up as White Haven Tunnel. It’s kind of surprising it was never dubbed something else, or if it was, it doesn’t have that name today. There was also a Tunnel Station on the other side.
There were so few tunnels at the time of this construction, it was probably just fine to have a generic name. I mean, we have a million “Mill Creeks” out there to this day.
We got through the tunnel, and the west portal was far prettier than the east. It was fine cut stone, certainly dating back to the 1800s, probably to the time it was upgraded to allow for larger locomotives.

White Haven Tunnel and station

The east portal probably had something nicer at one point as well, but it would have been removed if they had shortened it.

Walkin

There might have been an earlier route over the tunnel because some historic photos show a track going up around the side. I have no idea what that was about.
There was a house near to the other side of the tunnel, so once we were out of the cut, I wanted to continue on rather than look for station foundations or anything.
We came close to Tunnel Road one more time, and then moved off in a more comfortable area.
We passed an abandoned house on the left, and then simply continued on the tracks undisturbed. The rest of the hike would be a lot easier with far less for me to be concerned about.

Abandoned house thingy

My original plan was to head up hill at a path that led toward a lot for State Game Lands #119. We reached that point, and were doing so well on time, I decided we would go for our second turn around point not a mile further ahead.
The second point was a trail that went up slope along a stream known as Conety Run.
We got to where the tracks crossed that stream, and there was a little path heading up to Tunnel Road. There was state game land parking there with a couple of cars, and a good trail that continued up along Conety Run through the woods.

Moosehead Lake

We crossed quickly and made our way up.
Soon, the culvert that carried Conety Run beneath the former Lehigh Valley Railroad came into view, and we reached the track bed, now Black Diamond Trail.

Along a bit of Moosehead Lake

There were quite a few people along the path, as well as nice picnic benches and such. It was a nice and relaxing place to be. There were several other people using the trail, all friendly and waving.
We took a good long break at the original spot where I was planning to come up. Many in the group laid down and possibly even fell asleep. It was a gradual down from here, and overall would be easy.
Jack was playing his carbon fiber guitar all day, and broke out into several songs we sang.

Rock shelter!

The first one I remember of the day was “The Letter” which was a big hit for both The Box Tops and for Joe Cocker. He was also playing a lot of stuff by Bill Withers, who had just recently passed away, including “Ain’t No Sunshine” and “Lean On Me”.

Rock shelter

The trail was rather common looking and just relaxing for a while. There was a bit of a view to the west through the trees, but that soon disappeared as we shifted to walking more east.
We walked right by the other Bear Creek Junction and I didn’t even notice it. I had been looking at the aerial images, but not the old maps. When we passed it, I thought for sure it was further ahead.
Soon, we came to Moosehead Lake, a lovely lake to the right side of the rail bed. There were some nice waterfront views here, and when we got to another nice spot for a break, we stopped to enjoy the view.
We eventually got moving again, and it was cool to see the outflow of the lake directly beside the railroad bed. Soon, to the left, there was another body of water to the left, I guess another part of Moosehead Lake. This one had a large beaver lodge out in it, and a lot more vegetation. I was expecting to see the other Bear Creek Junction on the other side, but didn’t really see anything right away.

D&L Trail

We moved on to the south from here, and there were some lovely rock outcroppings and overhangs to the right we had to stop and check out.

Junction with the spur to the ocre mill

We crossed the Creasy Creek on a fill, and soon after crossed a road that leads to a house I guess to the left. There was another house on the right. There’s not much of that development back there, so it’s odd when we come across it.
Just then, there was another railroad bed coming in from the left. I was certain this was the Bear Creek Junction, because it was well graded and very obviously a rail grade.
To my surprise, it had nothing to do with the Bear Creek Branch, and was actually another branch I had not yet known about.

call box

The point we were standing, as per old maps, was called Moosehead, and the branch followed a Webster and Webster Road as maps called it to serve an Ocre Mill out in the forest. I think that was one of the things used to make paints.
This rail grade was fenced off at the lower end, so I was trying to figure out how we would get on it next time, but now it turns out we don’t need to do that at all to follow the Bear Creek Branch.
We continued down the line, and then passed a lovely swamp wetland on the left. I spotted what I believed to be another right of way on the other side of it.
Beyond the swamp, there was one of the old phone booths, repainted with white and yellow, on the left. This was only the second time I’d seen an old railroad phone booth restored in such a way. The other was on the Lehigh Valley line down near Walnutport PA. Just beyond this call box, we found the other Bear Creek Junction. It was a very obvious grade with a clear path following it away from the main trail.

Bear Creek Branch of Lehigh Valley RR

It’s looking like it’s going to be a great hike to get out and do that section, I just have to figure out parking and such. It might be a really good one to do during all of these closures and such.
Further, there are tons of other trails that connect with the previous section in the New Pocono Land Trust land holdings like this one here: https://natlands.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BearCreekBrochMap-2018-02-website.pdf
We continued along the rail bed south and it didn’t seem to take long before we were crossing back over the former CNJ tracks on the pedestrian bridge we had seen earlier in the deep cut. We weaved around a large farm property and crossed their access lane, and saw several more people walking. Soon, we came to Middleburg Road again.

Bear Creek Junction site

The D&L Trail turns left and we could see down the road where we had turned off of the CNJ line before. This time though, we continued straight on the old Lehigh Valley line, which was not included in the trail here.
There were some branches down and such, but people obviously do use it somewhat. It took us through a little cut, and then out to the active tracks where they cut over to pick up the CNJ line.
We cut across and then down to the old CNJ line again, and doubled onto a little bit of what we had done earlier in the day.

Going back over the cut

We soon passed where we had climbed up from the old canal, and followed the CNJ grade back to the parking lot where we started.
I paused everyone at the sign we had started at, and everyone took off.

LV line where it's not trail

Jillane and I walked from there for a little bonus mileage into White Haven. We followed a side road and then picked up the track bed again which is now parking lots in town. The last time I was up, I didn’t walk that last block back because we had stopped for food and ice cream, so I wanted that formality of connecting that.
We stopped for some pizza at a little place there, and then walked back to the lot. Jillane didn’t feel like walking across the Lehigh Bridge, so I’ll do that as part of another thing in the future.
I really loved getting out to this area, and I knew I would have to go and explore it very soon.

White Haven

HAM