Hike #1321; Ashley and Laurel Run Loop

Hike #1321; Ashley and Laurel Run Loop

4/25/20 Ashley and Laurel Run Loop with Jillane Becker, Dr. Michael Krejsa, Daniel Trump, Craig Craig, Justin Gurbisz, Professor John DiFiore, Brittany Audrey, and Diane Reider

This next hike was one that I put off for a couple of reasons. For one, because it clearly involved walking through a section of a well populated town, and for two, because my good friend Dan Trump wanted to be there for it.

Ball field park

This next hike was a little bit of a milestone for me because I’d been hearing about doing the Ashley Planes for such a long time. It was also a sort of finale of the Central Railroad of New Jersey series for me to some extent. There’s still a lot more out there to do, but this one was a bit more substantial.
I reconsidered my previous feeling that it would be too sketchy to try to pull this off with a group after I looked over the mapping.
There was a long stretch of road walk at the very start that we would have to do, but I found that if we parked at the ball field park on Conyngham Street in Ashley, we’d be okay.

Old CNJ line in Ashley

This series has been a back and forth between the Central Railroad of New Jersey and the Lehigh Valley Railroad going back well over twenty years now.
The two lines were competitors all the way through, till both of them terminated on the Hudson Bay.
I worked my way east and covered both lines all the way to their respective waterfronts, and then west as parts of loops through the Lehigh Valley. I’d gotten as far as White Haven, and just never bothered to continue connecting to the north from there. I had been getting distracted by other things that keep me branching out everywhere.

On the rail bed

Then, along came the pandemic and turned everyone's’ world upside down.
The craziness has just continued day in and day out ever since the closure of parks. I said that it probably wouldn’t last more than two weeks, and it was coming up on a month since Governor Murphy closed down all of the state parks.
The entire thing has made little sense to me, and it’s turned into all sorts of fights. It’s totally against my nature the way that people are turning it into one way or the other, and it’s been really starting to bother me more than ever.

Ashley Breaker spur

It’s as if no one is allowed to be middle of the road. I am expected to choose my complete preconceived narrative and just stick by it blindly.
If I say anything about the management of this pandemic being at all farcical, I will be attacked and then lumped into the same category as anyone with a far fetched thought. I’m basically the same as the “flat earthers” or the like.
If I were to agree totally with lockdown and “shelter in place” orders, I’d be called a sheep and a disappointment, and be told I’m against our constitutional rights.

Former breaker location, now trailer park

There is literally no winning any of this. I’ve been vocal about how I feel about everything, and try to treat everyone’s opinions as valid, but the fear in the world turns everyone into a combative asshole; insulting, selfish, and cruel. They say I’m the selfish one for still hiking, and yet I have not once visited a regular grocery store or home depot or whatever.
On the other hand, I’ve dined in at a couple of eateries, at times at the insistence of the owners who have appreciated my business over the years.

Falls and Solomin Creek Viaduct site

I have, and continue to find myself in strange and uncomfortable situations where I see things contrary to how they are being presented to the general public, and part of management situations that appear to be prescribed to fail.
Everyone thinks they’re an expert on everything, and everyone questions even the most undeniable evidence I have to certain points.
My level of frustration with it has been through the roof. If I didn’t care about these things, I would just sit back and be able to enjoy the craziness of it all, less time in work, more time that I can do with whatever I want, but my brain doesn’t work that way.
With hopes that this lock down doesn’t last too much longer, we went for another loop that connected with two of the previous ones we had done on the two major railroad lines. This would be the third we’d done connecting in this area since the craziness began.

Rocks in the glen

The Central Railroad of New Jersey route from the start of this was the one that went up the Ashley Planes, a series of three inclined planes up through Solomon’s Gap, constructed in 1843 as part of the original Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad that brought coal from the valley over the mountain to the Lehigh Canal at Port Jenkins and White Haven.
The railroad was a subsidiary of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company that built the canal, but the canal was to be short lived in its upper division. A massive flood destroyed the Upper Division in 1862 and it was not rebuilt.

In Solomon's Gap

Instead, the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad was extended south to Mauch Chunk (today Jim Thorpe), below which the Lehigh Canal remained well into the 1900s. The railroad was further extended to Easton and the connection was made to Phillipsburg NJ. By 1871, the Lehigh and Susquehanna was leased and operated by the Central Railroad of New Jersey.
The Lehigh Valley Railroad came along as a competitor soon after, parallel with the L&S and the CNJ the entire main line length. It’s always been a pretty good opportunity for loop hikes.

Crazy rock

I never know quite what to expect these days with the hikes.
I figured the valley around Ashley would be like many of the other places in that region, less afraid of the virus scare, and more stuff open.
To my great surprise, when we pulled up on the ball fields on Conyngham Street, they were all taped off closed with caution tape. I immediately started seeing members of our group parking on street in the areas nearby. I pulled up on all of them and told them to start walking to a hidden spot within the park, and I would find a spot and meet them.

Rock fun

Professor John was the last one to pull up, and we all headed out toward the park.
Jillane and I went in different ways, right around the caution tape, and a lady walking a dog ignored it as well and walked on in at the end of the road.
The part of this hike I was nervous about was pretty much only the first part because we would be so visible. Fortunately it all went well.
We gathered together in the park and talked about what we would be doing. The back woods of the ball fields were actually part of the CNJ right of way built in 1866.

Solomons Gap

Another track was constructed from the top of the Ashley Planes as a “down route”, while heavy loaded cars were pulled up the planes. The bridges that carried the line under the major highways there were all still in place, and we could literally walk out of the woods into the park, and finish the loop. It seemed like a great plan.
The Lehigh Valley Railroad built a similar track out that way directly parallel with the CNJ also, in 1888. The two ran side by side at the top, so there was no need to walk both of them. From Mountain Top, we had already walked both into Solomon’s Gap.

Nice falls in Solomons Gap

Last time, we turned around when we got right into Solomon’s Gap, and turned from the still active former Jersey Central tracks, now operated by Blue Mountain, Reading, and Northern.

Solomon's Gap

At that point, the Lehigh Valley grade is just above, and we turned back for our loop on that right of way, most of which in this area is now the D&L Trail Black Diamond section.
The Lehigh Valley Railroad was known as the Path of the Black Diamond, meaning coal, which is why it was named such.
East of Mountain Top, the Lehigh Valley line remains abandoned only as far as the settlement of Laurel Run. There, there was always an interchange, but the Blue Mountain, Reading, and Northern shifts over to follow the Lehigh Valley line to the east.

Falls in Solomon's Gap

The former CNJ line continues abandoned to the east, and then weaves back to the north and west to reach Ashley at the base of the planes, and site of the coal breakers and mines.

Solomon Creek Viaduct site

From the ball field lot, I figured we would walk along the back and try to find any paths that might lead out to the railroad right of way.
We skirted a ball field back stop and soon found a path that went into the woods. It soon led out to the CNJ main line right of way. That split ahead in a short distance, and we kept to the left.
This I thought was the main route out to the Ashley Planes, but it turned out to actually be a spur track to the Ashley #6 Breaker. There was a tram of sorts that broke off of this and went uphill to the southeast to the Ashley #6 Colliery.

Wilkes Barre and Hazleton Railway Solomon Creek Viaduct

We continued through a bit of a cut there, and then emerged behind a trailer park, which was probably some sort of works associated with the breaker years ago.

Cut at the base of Solomon's Gap

We walked out from here onto Hazleton Street, where we turned to the left to head out of town. This was the most exposed we would be during the entire course of the hike. I just wanted to get this part done with quickly.

Cut on Plane 3

We passed beneath Interstate 81 and then entered a large cut. Hazleton Street used to continue a different way before 81 was completed. Above us to the right were the sites of the Ashley #6 Colliery, and the Ashley #6 New Slope.
We continued walking uphill and around a corner to reach Rt 309.
At the intersection with Rt 309 was the former right of way of a connecting track of the Wilkes Barre and Hazleton Railway. This was a third rail interurban railway, like a trolley, only it carried freight and such as well, and made connection with the Central Railroad of NJ by way of this track spur.

The cut on Plane 3

The Wilkes Barre and Hazleton was nicknamed “The Cannonball”. It operated between the two namesake cities from 1903 to 1933. It was about thirty miles in length, and shortened previous trips between Wilkes Barre and Hazleton by twenty miles.
The line was successful until the development of Route 309, which significantly hurt the traffic. Profits stopped in 1922, and the decline began. Two accidents occurred the year of abandonment, which probably helped justify it. The abandonment drew protests from regular riders, but to no avail.

Plane 3 cut

The Wilkes Barre and Hazleton is one I eventually hope to try to hike. It’s significant in history as the first electric line to use a guarded third rail, which became the standard in such lines to guard against snow and such.
We continued out walk to the right on 309, toward the 81 underpass. To the left of the highway was the Ashley #6 Old Slope, and about where the highway bridge is now is the former site of the Ashley #6 Tunnel. It’s amazing that so little remains of this mining operation today. I watched closely going by for any signs of remnants.

Coming out of the cut

I was ahead of the rest of the group by a ways. I walked under the 81 bridge on the highway, and there was a bunch of construction stuff going on at the underpass.

Solomon Creek

We continued through there, then through a bit of a rock cut on the highway. Just beyond that, the Bentley’s Internacianal facility was on the right.
There was a huge parking area here, and I didn’t notice any signs, but I also didn’t want to try to chance having everyone park there to do the Ashley Planes. It would have been the most convenient spot for the beginning, but the spot I chose was the most convenient for the end by far. We were less obvious where we ended up using.
We turned right into the parking lot, and went down to the left out of sight to regroup.

Plane 3 cut

Once we were all there, we had to figure out where these rail beds were.
We were on or close to the Wilkes Barre and Hazleton Railway, which got much obliterated both by improvements to Rt 309 and the I-81 construction. Possibly also the restaurant place there.
The CNJ line went up through Solomon’s Gap in this area as well but it was torn up and disturbed too much to see exactly where it was. Somewhere behind the Bentley’s Internacional place was the base of Plane 3 of the Ashley Planes. It appears that the lower end of the planes was destroyed.

Looking up to Plane 3 from Ashley

We continued walking down slope on a path from behind the building, and we spotted the cut on Plane 3 above us to the left through the trees. The lower end of the grade was destroyed.

Bridge on Plane 3

We did not yet know that this cut was part of Plane 3. I thought it might have been the Wilkes Barre and Hazleton at the time. We continued ahead to the sound of rushing water.

Plane 3 bridge

As we approached the sound, we were treated to the view of an outstanding waterfall dropping steeply into a pool below a rocky crag and an overhanging precipice. Within the falls was a metal pipe angled down and outward. This was reportedly the pipe used to feed the Ashley Huber Breaker much further down hill on the west side of Ashley.
The breaker was one of the last of the more modern coal breakers that came about after the turn of the century. It seems like a lot of them were taken out of service in the 1880s in favor of more modern ones.

Plane 3 bridge

There was a historical society trying to save the remnants of this breaker, but it ended up getting destroyed anyway. The last one of this kind was the St. Nicholas breaker taken down also within the last few years. Little remnants of these things are always interesting.

On Plane 3

Above the falls were the stone abutments and piers to the Solomon Creek Viaduct, which carried the Wilkes Barre and Hazleton Railway high over the falls. Most of the structures on that line were made of concrete, but the piers here were among the few cut stone ones on the line.
Justin climbed out to the rock at the end of the cliff and stood up on it for a photo opportunity. I’m used to seeing him climb crazy things, but this one was particularly frightening to see. My hands sweat just watching him do it.

Solomon Creek

I headed away from the falls here, and Dr. Mike and I continued over toward the cut through which Plane 3 passed. Dan and others had already climbed to the top on the Wilkes Barre and Hazletown Railway bed to look down into it. That line crossed directly over the cut by way of another bridge.
There was a little bit of water in the cut, but overall it was pretty easy to pass through.
We started hiking up through the deep cut, and on the other side came to a beautiful little area with cascades on the Solomon Creek and lots of boulders and such. A driveway went up on the opposite side.

Solomon Creek culvert

We walked a little ahead out of the cut, and there was a former bridge site with stone abutments. We were still on the plane at this time.

Plane 3

I still thought this was a regular section of right of way, because it didn’t strike me as all that steep. Dan assured me that this should be it, because it was in fact not all that steep. The planes were about three thousand feet long, except the second one was rebuilt at five thousand feet.
Plane 3, which was the first one we were going up, 5.7%.
We had to climb down the abutments, step across the creek, and then climb back up the other side. It seemed like the main flow of the creek used to be on that other side.

Some old sleeper stones on Plane 3?

Once on the other side, the very light grading of the this plane led me to believe we were not on it. There was the driveway across the creek climbing more steeply, so I went to look.

Approaching the top of Plane 3

I had to turn back around and head down to a place I could cross the brook. I think at one time it was only on the other side, or that it had flow on both sides of the plane.
Once I got across using a log for some help, and got on the driveway, I realized that this was probably not the plane. From afar, the grade looked like it definitely was something like that, but when I got on it, it wasn’t quite straight enough to have been the correct place. I climbed back down and started following Solomon Brook parallel.

Ruins at the top of Plane 3

As I walked up stream, I came to where it passed beneath the plane by way of an old stone culvert. I was able to step around some rocks and get over to the edge of it, then climb back up to the plane.
I just caught the rear of the group who had stopped to photograph the culvert, and we headed further uphill. I was surprised to see some kind of sleeper stones still in place that were probably there to anchor the ties of the original plane back when it was first developed.

Ruins at the top of Plane 3

The access road that had been following the planes for a while turned off to the left and continued below the engine house and workings. We continued into the overgrown area.

Old cable pits

The cable pits at the top of the plane are concrete lined, because these remained in service some say until the 1950s. There were older cable pits adjacent to the newer ones that prove that the arrangement at the top of the planes had changed at some point. There were also several old building ruins throughout the area.
Supposedly the earliest construction of planes at this site was 1837-38. The through route wasn’t completed until a few years later.
The lifting process worked on the same principles as a ski lift or rollercoaster with a latch system so no roll back occurred.
Pusher cars called barneys were used during these movements, which would take a limited number of cars up or down at a time. Even when the track was completed in 1866 to bypass these planes, they were still used to move frieght both up and down hill.

Top of Plane 3

I’m not sure the use for every structure we saw. There were quite a few up there.
There was a large building of sorts that had a sort of concrete roof close to the access road.

Old cable pits in view

The top level of that thing had collapsed probably under its own weight, and so Justin and brittany were climbing on top of it. Justin managed to climb all the way to the end of one of them.
Further over from the cable pits, there were foundations of a building as well as a long corridor with an arch at the one end. I figured it might have been for movement of water to the boilers of the engine, but I’m not sure.
There was another building up beyond this one on the slope, but I’m not sure if that was it or not. I can’t find much on the mechanics of how it worked.

Ruins at Plane 3

The rails at the top of the plane went on either side of the cable pits, and traveled over the top of the engine house by way of a bridge structure. This was probably not the original one.

Ruins atop Plane 3

On the other side of the engine house, the woods road access returned to the railroad grade again. I was surprised somewhat to see some railroad ties still in place at the level beyond the end of the plane here.
We continued ahead from here, and soon started to see the concrete cable pits appearing on the right at the base of Plane 2.
This area is a bit interesting because there are actually two incarnations of Plane 2. Straight ahead, the most recently used route goes on up the slope, but the original alignment turns off to the right from the base and makes a more gradual ascent.
The original Plane 2 was only an 8.6% grade to the top, because at the time of construction, that was pretty much the best they could do. From up there, cars would switch back and then ride on a level, on the shelf of the mountain, and then reach the base of Plane #1. As they improved, the plane was rebuilt.

Ruins at the top of Plane 3

The newer plane 2 was 5000 feet long, and had a grade of 14.6%, which was certainly much more than what we had just done on plane 3. It was visibly a lot steeper.

Ruins atop Plane 3

We walked over by the old plane and headed down to have a closer look. Part of the Solomon Brook branched off under New Plane 2 and utilized a lovely stone arch culvert. It had angled stone work on the downstream end that looked to have been constructed like that intentionally, which is very atypical.
We climbed back up, and then began the ascent of Plane 2. Jillane went ahead and got a head start on it, but the rest of us checked out the next culvert underpass, just a little bit up the plane. This might have been the predecessor to present day Rt 309.

Bottom of new Plane 2

This would have been an earlier carriage road. These routes made use of passages such as Solomon Gap, the same as the railroad, only through a much more circuitous and therefore treacherous route.
We went down and checked out this nice old stone underpass also, then started to head up the plane once more.
The route went through some cuts and fills, and it was obviously driven pretty often. A lot of garbage had been dumped along it.

Old Plane 2

While walking up, we were looking at stuff laying around. At this point I found an old bolt that was probably part of the mechanisms. I also found what was probably a cable reel piece.

ruins

We continued up to a point where the power house area would have been, or at least close to it. The plane had been dug away quite a lot, and a side road went off to the right. It was somewhere in this area that the level track came back in from the top of Old Plane 2.
From here, the main gravel access road went up to Rt 309 roughly where the plane was, but a lot of the top of it had been completely obliterated or eroded away. We hit 309, and then turned right to follow the shoulder of the highway a short distance to the south.

Solomon Creek branch underpass

After only a short bit, we came upon the base of Plane 1 just along the edge of the highway. This one, like plane 3, was 3,000 feet long. The grade on it is 9.3%.

New Plane 2

The alignment of this plane had changed from the original only at the end. The original would have somehow gone across the Solomon Creek and then made its way to the level at the top of old plane 2, but this was aligned at the top with the new one.
The concrete cable pits were well visible at the base of this one as well, hidden right along the highway. We simply stepped over the guide rails and down to the pits to start tracing the route up hill. Dan pointed out where we could see the dip in the guide area for when the barney cars would go down hill, and trains could continue on level to the next plane.

I think this was top of Plane 2

We made our way along the base, and then started the climb up on the other side. The creek passed beneath us by way of a newer culvert as I recall, and had some nice cascades on the left. One looked like a waterfall, but it turned out to be a small dam.

Cable pits at the base of plane 1

We continued through a much less clear route than the previous two planes, and then came upon another site where it crossed the creek.

The bridge was missing on this one, but we were able to turn off to the left and cross on two I-beams and a pipe without too much difficulty.
Once we were across, we approached Rt 309, which had been rehabilitated in much more recent years and destroyed some of the grading. Not that long ago, I understand some of the infrastructure including old bridges that carried the tracks under the road were still in place, but now they were gone.
We climbed up to the road, and only had to cross over the northbound lanes.

Cable pits

The southbound ones could be traversed by way of a giant pipe tunnel placed beneath, which led out to South Lehigh Street. This road used to go straight on through to a grade crossing over the 1866 CNJ line around the mountain, but that is now closed off further up.
While in the culvert I started singing the Styx song “The Best of Times” because the lyric seemed appropriate for the times.
“The headlines read these are the worst time times, I do believe it’s true...when people lock their doors, and hide inside, rumor has it it’s the end of paradise...”
Craig chimed in that that album was the first he had ever purchased!
Once everyone was through, we could see the plane come in to view to the left away from the road again. It had a large stone retaining wall bordering the east side of it.
We all climbed on down into the deep cut it passed through, and made our way up avoiding the muck and swampiness as best we could.

Underpass at 309

We ended up coming to South Lehigh Street again soon, when we got to where a bridge used to carry the plane over the road. We climbed down and up, and there was a pretty cascade coming out of a giant pipe here.
On the other side, the plane was somewhat overgrown, but still pretty easily passable.
We continued uphill on this stretch, which went onto a higher fill with larger drops on either side of us. I noticed this grade on the previous hike where we were up on the slopes of the CNJ and LV grades beyond.

Climbing Plane 1

At the time, I wasn’t sure this was it, but this proved it.
We continued a bit further, and came to the engine house near the top. I descended to the left of the plane grade, and through some old stone ruins. The track went over the top of the engine pit, which I climbed over to. This one for some reason appeared larger to me than the previous one. The others all went off to the right where I went left and ended up closer to Rt 309. They ended up over closer to the cable pits than I did, and I had to climb up the other way to see them.

Pits atop Plane 1

I had thought 309 would overtake the plane ruins, but it didn’t. From here, we could just walk a little bit ahead on the highway, and then the rail grade turned back off to the left and passed through a cut. This bit of it I think serves as a driveway coming off of 309, but it used to have a grade crossing over near the big cut at Mountain Top.

CNJ grade at the top of Plane 1

We continued walking from the cut to just about the point where it used to join the still active Blue Mountain, Reading, and Northern line. We had already been to this point on the previous loop trip.
I was ahead, and turned left to follow the tracks only for a short distance. This was the former CNJ 1866 bypass which travels some twelve miles out and around back to Ashley.
An ATV rode down the tracks toward us and went to a private property to the right behind a house, but I kept walking through a small cut in shelf, then to an ATV path that went up to the right. This led directly to the old 1888 Lehigh Valley Railroad freight line.

View in Solomon Gap

I waited part way up to be seen when the others caught up so they could make their way up to me.
At this point, we would cover a short distance of the LV grade we had on the previous trip up here, and then continue on the rail line curving from the north to the east.

LV grade

Just ahead, there was a great view over Solomon Gap, where we could see across the valley to another former Lehigh Valley line on the other side, which was the old passenger main. I didn’t know what this was the last time I was up, but some rail fan colleagues informed me since then.
Around the view point, we stopped for a little lunch break. We had already seen a lot by this point, and things were going pretty well.

LV grade above the CNJ

After our break, we continued to the east following the LV grade. I had some really nice discussions with Craig about growing up and the quirkiness of our families which was quite nice.
We passed through another monstrous cut, and most of the time could see the old CNJ line below us to the left. The two lines are much more closely parallel through this stretch than on the previous sections, which was why I didn’t feel it necessary to hike both of them.

Approaching Laurel Run

The right of way was a wide double track width, but the treadway was original cinder. I much prefer it when it’s like this over the crushed stone aggregate. It’s so much easier on the feet.
We passed through another big cut at the only point we really moved away from the later CNJ line. We then came back together with it again.
This was a long section, but very relaxing. We came up upon a group of guys riding ATVs.

Laurel Run tower

Some went by us, but some were parked on the right side of the trail. I had had with me a bottle of Blithering Idiot that Craig brought me, as well as a bottle of Makers Mark that Mark had given me when I went to his house a couple of nights before for dinner. With one in each hand, I said to one of the guys “Hey, ATVs aren’t allowed on this trail”, attempting to make a ridiculous joke because I had two open bottles of booze clearly on me. The guy said in a very serious tone “Uh, we’re not on the trail…”. I laughed and said “This is coming from the guy with two bottles of booze in his hands”. The guy kind of got the joke at that point and then laughed.

Approaching Laurel RUn

This entire section isn’t really official yet because nothing has been done to it. If it weren’t for the ATVs, it would not be open at all. There really weren’t many, nor did they bother me.
In a little bit, the grade we were following descended to the level of the active tracks. This was the Laurel Run interchange. The junction was there for a long while, but the trail, when complete, will switch sides from the Lehigh Valley line to the CNJ line. For the little stretch ahead, we had to walk the tracks.

CNJ grade above Laurel Run

We passed by a parked train on the right, and Justin climbed a signal tower.
We approached the underpass of Laurel Run Road, and when we looked back there were people from one of the close adjacent houses that had come up to the railroad to see what was going on. Dan looked back and waved, then yelled hello.

CNJ grade

People really aren’t used to hikers coming through that much yet since the trail is still in development here. The little town of Laurel Run was incorporated in 1881, shortly after the railroad came along. It was another “mine patch” community, located around the Red Ash Mine.
The site had a station and certainly grew when the interchange showed up.
In 1915, there was a mine fire in the Red Ash Mine, which destroyed much of the original town. This area above might not have been all of it.

Washout at Seven Tubs Natural Area

The fire claimed a lot of buildings, and it took until 1974 supposedly to extinguish it, however it appears that some of it is still burning strong we would later find out.

View near Seven Tubs

We passed beneath the culvert, and on the other side, a path led over to the CNJ grade on the way back toward Ashley.
There were a couple of other hikers walking toward us, continuing toward Mountain Top. These would be the only other people we would see actually hiking on this trail all day.
The stream known as the Laurel Run was directly beside us to the right, and it continued to lose elevation as we were parallel with it.
Because I had been wanting to hike the Ashley Planes for so long, and I’d read the chapter in the David Barber Lehigh book countless times, I considered it a momentous enough occasion to break out a bottle of Weyerbacher Blasphemy.

Large cut near Seven Tubs

The bottles I’d aged another year were a sort of fluke, which made them even better than any previous year’s versions of it (It’s Belgian style quadruple ale aged for a year in whiskey barrels).
Since Dr. Mike is another connoisseur of good beers, I told him to hold back and try some. I’m pretty sure everyone else on the hike had tried it at some point except for him from previous times. I wanted to be sure he got his pour before I contaminated it and no one would want to touch it.

Blasphemy!

We moved on ahead, and the rail bed became more of a very steep shelf. Down below us, we could see one of the parking areas for Seven Tubs Natural Area, another popular park I had yet to incorporate into any of my hikes. The rail bed is part of it, but sort of inaccessible from below. We could see people walking along Laurel Run below, but none were ever up on the rail bed.
At one point, as we shifted from east to north, there was a good view to the north.

Fossils!

When the rail bed started shifting from the north to the west again, we went through another very large rock cut.
The rail bed remained pretty good for a bit, but when we got to an area shown on maps as “Mountain Park”, it got to be pretty tough to follow.
The obvious grade was gone. A wider gravel road went off to the right, away from the rail bed, but the entire area was too disturbed to find any of it ahead.
We continued off trail through woods, amid countless young white birch trees looking for some kind of remnants. Sometimes we thought we had found it, and other times it was not obvious at all. At one point, we came to a large mined out area, and there was part of a fill that looked like a rail bed, but it just dead ended. I figure they must have excavated it.

The rail bed

It’s possible that a lot of the land that was plowed under might have been some of the mine fire damaged bit, where we wouldn’t find anything like the rail bed still intact.
We wandered around a lot at times trying to find the right way, and at some point Diane pointed out that there were fossils in the flat exposed rocks we were walking on. They looked somewhat like tree bark and such.
At one point, there was a place where there was a small stream that would have passed under the grade. We had to walk down and up, but we could see there was a grade remnant where it certainly would have gone over a culvert.

View of the 82 ramp area

This was the type of thing we had to look for to trace through this area. Soon after that, we went uphill a bit more unnaturally than I thought we would, and it turned out it was because an interchange lane for Interstate 80 obliterated some of the grade.

The rail bed

We had to go up and around, and then back down the other side where we found the right of way again.
We walked further ahead, but somehow lost the grade once again. The maps were showing we ended up a bit too far to the south again. When we got to where there was a good connecting road going back down we took it.
In doing this, we did not expect that we were going to find an underground mine fire, burning hotter than any of the stuff we’d seen at Centralia.

Mine fire area

We saw smoke emanating from the rocks, and bummed around here for a bit checking it out.
Everyone always makes this huge deal about Centralia, but the mine fire under the abandoned highway there has subsided quite a lot. This one here was still pretty strong.
We did see a couple of other people walking through here, which I suppose could have been considered hikers, but they were I think probably more sightseers. This really doesn’t come across like a hiking destination.

Checking out the mine fires

A guy said to us that there were more smoke plumes coming up further down, but we would have to check that out next time.
We continued downhill from there, and soon reached the rail bed again to head west.
In not too long, we came to the little settlement that to the north is shown as Georgetown, and to the south is shown as Laurel Run. Maybe part of the original town was to the south of here had to be moved.
Whatever the name of this part was, we passed a busted old car filled with sticks, and then crossed Northampton Street. On the other of the road, the rail bed was like a public park with mowed grass and greater width.

Da group

I got a group photo in this section. It was a pretty nice area for it. We then moved on ahead adjacent to some homes through the town, and then on to a hauling road or something behind a business. We crossed another coal road ahead, and then had to pass through a more disturbed area ahead.

Big concrete blocks near the village

The right of way became apparent again pretty soon, and we moved through more disturbed areas, through a good cut and along shelves.
After a bit, we came to a very open area where there were probably at least thirty of the same utility ATVs all gathered together.
It was large group of people having a good time, drinking and partying. We walked right up on them and around the ATVs. I paused and told one of the guys who greeted us warmly that it was nice to see people living normally and out having a good time. He gave me a fist bump, and offered me a beer.

ATV party photo by Jillane

I think it was a Coors Light. I reached into my jacket to reveal that I was drinking the Weyerbacher Blasphemy and said “Thanks, but I already have better stuff! He laughed and fist bumped me again”.

It turns out, all of these people were off duty corrections officers and their wives! One of the ladies went up to Jillane, telling her how beautiful she is, and saying that she just has to take pictures of her. She had her sit on a rock out in the clearing, and asked for her phone to take pictures of her. Fortunately, she didn’t run off with it!
At this point, we were getting a bit closer to the end. I figured we would be able to walk right on through without a major issue, but the railroad bed went ahead into the Allan Industries property. That blocked us from being able to get beneath the former railroad underpass on Rt 309 on ramp and eastbound Interstate 81 just ahead.

Rail ties still in place

The guy we chatted with gave directions on how we would be able to get out and across the on ramp, and then back down to the railroad bed.

Rail ties still in place

We said goodbye to them all, and continued on the right of way ahead. We cut over to the right on another path, and soon all of the riders came by us on the trail. We went to the right and then crossed over the highway, and they all crossed just barely to the west of where we were.
Pretty soon, we descended to the rail bed again, and made our way out beneath Rt 309.
We continued along the right of way, and all of the ties were still in place through here.

Goofing around

Since it was an area not disturbed by coal mining as much as the other spots, I suppose they didn’t have to plow them under.
We soon passed beneath I-81 westbound, and goofed off with some graffiti. There was already covid19 graffiti written on the walls. Once on the other side, there was an ATV path that took us back down away from the railroad grade to the right, and into the ball field park where we had started out.
We agreed to meet at the Taco Bell just down the road for an outdoor parking lot dinner for the close of the day.

81 underpass

Even though we can’t go to restaurants and dine in after the hikes like we’re accustomed to, it was nice to be able to gather and chat for a bit at the end.
This had been a particularly great hike for me, with a whole lot of stuff to see. Justin even said this was in his top five favorite hikes we have ever done.
It's kind of sad that we can’t just continue with the groups into some of the more suburban areas and explore more of these grades currently, but hopefully these things will start to die down a bit.

Graffiti of the times

I’ve been predicting all along that people, slowly, will start to ask questions and begin returning to normal, and it seems like Pennsylvania is already well on their way there.
The positive experience of this hike left me feeling much better about the days to come for sure.

Fini

HAM