Hike #1323; Bear Creek Branch Loop

Hike #1323; Bear Creek Branch Loop

5/2/20 Bear Creek Branch Loop with Jillane Becker, Justin Gurbisz, Jack Lowry, Sarah Jones, Diane Reider, Daniel Trump, Craig Craig, Russ Nelson, Ewa Wdzieczak-Smering, Joel Castus, Professor John DiFiore, Neil George, Dr. Michael Krejsa, and Brittany Audrey

This next hike was one that had been on the backburner for a long while now, since the Summer of 2017 when I first explored this like with Pete G. Wilcox.

The line is something people very easily forget about.
I had seen it on maps for years. Ever since my old friend Bode showed me some old maps, I saw it as this sort of spur above the Lehigh Gorge out to the middle of nowhere. It seemed sort of insignificant, but also fascinating that it would stretch out so far.
What really got me interested in it was the fact that we had discovered a railroad grade a few years back, way out in the middle of Pinchot State Forest. It looked like a grade, but I could find no maps showing such a thing on them. A guide to the Pinchot Trail called it an old lumber line.

Pond in game lands

Well, my interest was there. I figured this line had once connected with the Spring Brook Railroad, another logging line that went out along the Panther Creek and up toward Scranton.
When we walked that line, we could not find anything at all resembling a right of way leading to that grade on the Pinchot Trail.
It was then I realized that this must have been some of the lumber lines of Albert Lewis, who had the ice company and logging lines originating from the Lehigh Valley Railroad north of White Haven. Pete, James Quinn, and I went off to explore some of that.

Bear Creek Branch

The railroad and lands were all thanks to lumber man Albert Lewis. Lewis moved to the area from Maine and worked for the Lehigh Valley Railroad for years. He was drafted to serve in the Civil War, but paid another man $300 to take his place, and he followed in his father’s footsteps in the lumber industry. He acquired lands around present day Bear Creek Village, and partnered with the Stull family (who became in laws when two brothers married his sisters).

Bear Creek Branch

Lehigh Valley Railroad agreed to finance a railroad line from Bear Creek Junction to Moosehead in Lewis’s lands in the early 1880s, to Bear Creek Village.

Later, it was extended from that point to the Mountain Springs/Meadow Ponds area. Villages known as California and Beaupland were along the line. The latter was named for previous land owners from the early 1800s.
The lumber industry of Lewis faced some major set backs in the form of forest fires that destroyed everything in the Meadow Ponds area. The land and rail line remained in use until 1892 when it was deemed unsafe and was dismantled.

Bear Creek Branch

Lewis saw the decline of the lumber industry, but saw the prospect of ice industry in the ponds.

Bear Creek Branch

He rebuilt the old Lehigh Valley Railroad bed at narrower gauge, and began harvesting ice. There were two ice plants at Bear Creek Village, two more at the first Meadow Run Pond, and two more at the second. It was a thriving industry for quite some time.
Historic documentation says that Lewis also harvested ice at Penn Lake, but that’s probably the one to the southeast.
The Lewis operation at the sites to the east along the narrow gauge section operated only until about 1930, so I assume the railroad from Bear Creek Village out to those farther areas probably ceased operation about that time.

Craig gave me some 120 minute!!!

The last regular passenger train to use the line came through in 1930. For a time, a passenger car was simply hooked to freight trains, so some service continued. The station at Bear Creek Village finally closed in 1932. It was moved from its original site by the railroad in 1935, round the corner, and still stands today as a private residence.
The 1937-38 season were the last years the branch was used to haul cut ice.
Track was ripped up in the Spring of 1938 the remainder of the distance by Lehigh Valley Railroad.

Bear Creek Branch

We had gotten involved in exploring some of the Lewis logging interests earlier on, because the Harveys Lake area of PA, which had the Bowmans Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, started out as a Lewis logging line, and he sold to the larger railroad who updated it.
There are still a lot of mysteries surrounding this little branch that I don’t quite understand, the very things that made this particular hike perfect to do now.

The fact that this could be done as a loop makes little sense to me really; the Bear Creek Branch from Bear Creek Village to Beupland area is all a single line, but coming from the main line, there are two Bear Creek Branches.
The one section connects southeast of Moosehead Lake, and the other just west of Moosehead Lake. My best theory is that the original was probably the one further up to the west of Moosehead Lake, and that it had a rough grade to get down to Bear Creek Village.

Bear Creek Branch

Having a better graded, more gradual line between the main line and Bear Creek Village could be handy for heavily loaded rail cars. Perhaps the upper road was kept in service for the unloaded cars, and the southern was was for loaded cars heading out.
Either way, based on USGS maps, it is pretty clear that the northern branch was in service first, and then abandoned earlier. It was much more prone to flooding as well, from what we saw.

Bear Creek Branch

Today, the lands occupied by the former branch are in State Game Lands #119, The Nature Conservancy’s Harry and Mary Goeringer Preseve, Army Corps of Engineers lands, and the preserved lands of the New Pocono Land Trust.
The first three of these were pretty easy for access, but the New Pocono Land Trust is private land on which a conservation easement was purchased. Some of the PA official maps show that there is no public access to these lands, but the land trust website says that there is.

Bear Creek Branch

Reading through the site, I found that it said the boundary of the preserve was open for walking. I know at least a good portion of that boundary just happens to be the old railroad grade. We should be alright there I figured.
My original plan for this hike was to park where I had finished the previous hike with Pete and James, at the beautiful Bear Creek Falls, just a little south of Bear Creek Village along White Haven Road.
The problem with my original plan was that it would involve wading across the Bear Creek.

Bear Creek Branch

I knew if I planned to wade that creek right from the start, that would knock out a lot of the potential participants from this hike. I wanted to try to avoid it.

Bear Creek Branch

Further, we had had a lot of rain lately, and many of the rivers were swollen with abnormal currents that might make crossing such a stream quite a lot more difficult.
I studied the route and tried to find what would best suit the group.
I found parking at the Francis Walter Dam area at the intersection of White Haven Road and Walter Dam Road, which Google Maps had wrongly posted as “Walter Des Road”. I still couldn’t post stuff publicly, so invites were still going through text message.

Bear Creek Branch

From the parking area, a gravel road through state game lands property would lead us directly to the old railroad bed with barely any bonus miles. My plan was to go to the west following the grade to the southern of the two Bear Creek Junctions, then head north on the D&L Trail form where we had passed by a few weeks back. We would reach the northern Bear Creek Junction, and continue to Bear Creek Village and the junction with the other branch there. A hard right at that point would then take us right back to where we started.

Bear Creek Branch

There was a good amount of parking at the Walter Dam area as well, and we could walk in from the road as not to congregate there.
It was a good thing I planned it this way, because we ended up having a group of fifteen of us! I was not expecting such a big turnout, but I suppose everyone is getting pretty stir crazy being in their houses all the time. The weather forecast was pretty damn near perfect, and the route promised to be a pretty interesting one.

Bear Creek Branch

Jillane and I got up and headed to the start point, then arrived with about five minutes to spare. Unfortunately, others were having a hard time finding the same spot because of some of the bad directions on google maps. Joel ended up finding the right spot, but over forty five minutes late. I ended up giving him directions to meet up with us further on.
We headed from the parking area down the gravel road in State Game Lands #119, to a picnic bench alongside of a lovely little pond where there were a couple of people fishing.

Bear Creek Branch

The other people left as we began to gather.
Russ and Ewa showed up, and gifted me a wonderful new cell phone, still in the box, that is water proof and doubles as a new larger batter! I’m very happy to have this and it will come in quite handy!
Craig was the last one we were waiting on before Joel, and when he showed up I gathered everyone in a circle to go over some of the history of the Bear Creek Branch discussed above, before heading out. Craig gifted me a bottle of Dogfishhead 120 Minute IPA, a very strong and delicious, ridiculously hopped brew! It felt like Christmas!

DASH!

Once everyone was all together, we headed down the road, past the pretty pond, and then uphill into a small meadow area where they had a wooden pavilion.

Bear Creek Branch

Everyone was walking ahead of me, but I had to call them back.
The turn we needed to make was just a little further back, and I’m sure the Army Corps of Engineers messed up a lot of the land and the grade when they were planning for the dam. The woods road we were using pierced through the railroad fill to the point that it was almost unrecognizable. I only knew where to look because I was following it with my GPS.

Bear Creek Branch

I headed back and into the woods just to the west of where we crossed, and sure enough found the old rail bed.
It was pretty overgrown here, and soon came to a major washout spot. We had to climb down or go around, but then on the other side there was a good ATV track that headed directly down to the railroad bed.
The route from here and for a long while ahead was pretty great. There was surprisingly not a lot of ATV use visible on any of this entire hike, but it was still pretty clear.

Bear Creek Branch

Justin and I early on discussed the very strange fact that not ten miles form here, ATVs overrun the areas, and in this area it appears that there is almost none of them at all.
We passed through a section of woods on a narrow path for a time, and then a driveway came in from the left of us and joined the rail bed.
We continued ahead on the driveway, which appears to be regularly used, but had no problems, nor did we see anyone driving on it at all.

Bear Creek Branch

I popped my 120 minute and felt relaxed immediately. I was so incredibly happy to be out and to see so many people genuinely having a good time.
Soon, we passed by a large garage type of building on the left, and the drivable road turned away from the railroad grade, which became a gated but pretty clear route.
We continued walking on that, which went through a cut and then onto a nice shelf. We then passed by a pretty wetland on the right, and a side road came down from the right.

Stream crossing

Two hunters wearing camoflauge and orange hats came walking down the road as we went by, rather surprised to see anyone there at all. They said hello as we went by, and I tried to hold back from laughing at their bewildered look.
We had a very nice long stretch of rail bed ahead, but it was not as cleared as what we had been on thus far. It had a lot of branches and such over it, but was still easily passable. We regrouped when we got to a small meadow clearing where the line turned to the right.

Pete's instruction

This was getting close to where things would get a little more complicated.
The hike would be very easy and have very little problem if not for the existence of the north/south Pennsylvania Turnpike. We would have to cross the four lanes of traffic twice during the course of this hike.
I figured that would be exactly what we’d do, but Pete filled me in the night before that there was a culvert that was large enough for him to ride his bicycle through, and it was very close to the southern end of the loop.
I considered doing this, and watched his video of him going through the thing with one of his friends, as well as on more of the Bear Creek Branch and other sections of other paths.
It’s entertaining to see, because he goes through so much crazy stuff with his bike that a lot of us wouldn’t consider on foot. It did give me an idea of what kind of stuff we would be coming across for this hike.
We continued to the right on the railroad bed through a small cut, with lots of Japanese Barberry, and then started to parallel the PA Turnpike more closely.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/5dlkx0q6ASk

Pete's video showing the culvert

Soon, the rail bed turned abruptly and was severed by the busy highway. It was up on a bit of a fill, so to cross we would have to go up and then down, which would be harder.

Another wet crossing

I knew already from having seen the Delaware River on the drive up that this culvert was going to be pretty badly flooded, worse that what I had seen in Pete’s video.
I decided I didn’t want to go to tht culvert, but there was a small pipe beneath the highway right about where the railroad would have crossed, and it was something we could get away with crawling through. Ewa went over to it and managed to get in. It was probably possible to get all the way through, but someone said it got more wet further on.

Former bridge site, Wright Creek

Dan went up to the edge of the highway.
This was not an easy dash across a couple lanes, wait, and then dash more. There was a four foot high barrier in the middle that would have to be scaled, then hurry to the other side. These barriers were right up against the fast lanes going both north and south. There was no room for error.
Dan dashed across first. For he and I, or anyone else that’s rather taller, getting across that would be no problem at all, but some others might have trouble.

Wright Creek crossing

It was apparent after a little time that the traffic was not too heavy. We could see cars coming from literally a mile away in the one direction, and then from pretty far away in the other. We could time this pretty well and get over.
We went for it, and everyone got across with pretty much no problem. It was actually kind of exciting.
I got a great photo of Justin dashing over after he tried sitting in the road for a few moments.

Wright Creek crossing

The other side was a very steep talus material we had to be careful on. I helped Jillane down, and Sarah fell even though Jack was helping her. Fortunately she didn’t get hurt too badly, just a little cut.
The rail bed was just to the north of where we descended. A very short walk led to the very obvious route, which had a sweeping turn to the north and then west in some scrubby undergrowth.
After a little bit, we came to a small stream crossing, where we could easily hop over.

Wright Creek crossing

This was a small tributary to the much larger Wright’s Creek. That was up next, and there was once a substantial bridge that carried the railroad over this.

Bear Creek Branch

This one couldn’t be done with a simple hop. We would have to wade it.
Everyone started taking their shoes off and heading over. There were very large rocks in the water that made the footing more difficult. I helped Jillane across, and then went back to help others.
I carried some packs and such, and then carried poles back over for others to use. Russ and Ewa were looking for another way across, but didn’t find anything good. There were no good roads nearby. We opted then to do a Fireman’s Carry.

Relaxing along Wright Creek

Russ and I locked harms in the Fireman’s Carry position, knelt down, and carried Ewa across without a problem. Four stable feet are very good for such things.

Bear Creek Branch

We got to the other side, and I told everyone not to put the shoes back on right away, because there was a smaller secondary crossing just after this one.
Everyone got across, and we were soon on the other side having a nice break.
Meanwhile, I had told Joel to park on Middleburg Road where the D&L Trail crosses, and to walk it north over the former CNJ tracks, and then out to the southern Bear Creek Junction. I knew that the end of it had the old concrete call booth from being there before.

Bear Creek Branch

By this point, Joel had reached the junction spot, and I told him to just wait there for us, that we would be coming out of the woods onto the D&L Trail right there.

Bear Creek Branch

By this time, we were well into the Harry and Mary Goeringer Preserve of The Nature Conservancy.
The preserve is named for the founders of the Penn lakes Community nearby in the 1930s. These lands were also reportedly used for ice harvesting, which explains some of why the railroad was down this way. The Nature Conservancy preserved the property in 2012, which is contiguous now with over 6,400 protected acres.

Bear Creek Branch

There was another branch to the south of this area, off of the Lehigh Valley main, which went over to Penn Lake, and then made a connection to the Central Railroad of NJ.

Bear Creek Branch

We got up and headed back over to the rail bed. The road just beyond Wright’s Creek was Hollenback Road, a dirt road. The right of way on the east side was very wet, but it was a gated and clear route on the other side.
We headed into a cut beyond the gate, and Jack began to play John Lennon’s “Child of Nature”, which was an earlier alternative lyric version of “Jealous Guy” from the Imagine album. I actually prefer “Child of Nature” to “Jealous Guy”, for the more positive lyric. I actually remember those lyrics better.

Bear Creek Branch

There’s always been an honesty about McCartney versus Lennon work to me, because Lennon would make claims about writing these songs at certain times, and then the early versions of them would come out later and prove those statements lies.

Bear Creek Branch

A lot of songs John Lennon had for his Imagine album were actually rehashes of songs he had written for the Beatles but never got around to releasing.
We sang through the song, and one of the verses was hard to try to remember, but we eventually got it.
We continued out of the cut, and then onto a low fill through interesting topography, and weaved off to the left a bit. Soon, we came to a small body of water on the right, beyond which I could see the Lehigh Valley Railroad main line.

Bear Creek Branch

Just before the pond, Russ pointed out that to the right there was what might have been a wye and a connection to the northbound Lehigh Valley main.
Dr. Mike also noticed something that appeared to be a railroad rail.
This ended up being a joint piece for rails, which was certainly an interesting find after so long.
I pointed out to Jillane how we could see the other Lehigh Valley right of way and reminded her of how we looked at this very spot a few weeks back from over there.

Bear Creek Branch

We continued over the fill, and there was the larger pond on the right, but a smaller wetland to the left. The Spring Peepers were making incredible sound coming from there.

Mike finds a rail joint

I was surprised to see that there were still railroad ties on place going across the causeway section. It might be some of the oldest railroad ties I’ve seen intact save for a few different spots I’ve found them from about 1913.
We left the causeway and entered a small cut in the woods, then reached the former junction site with the Lehigh Valley Railroad main line, just behind the concrete phone booth we had passed on the previous hike. I called out to Joel who should have been waiting there, and emerged apparently from the booth.

Bear Creek Branch

The Lehigh Valley Railroad main here was constructed in 1866, directly in competition with the adjacent Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad, which had been in place since 1841, and was owned by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company as a subsidiary.
The Lehigh Valley Railroad had been completed from Easton to Mauch Chunk (Jim Thorpe) in 1855, and was already competing with the Lehigh Coal and Navigation in that area.

Bear Creek Branch

The Lehigh Valley purchased other lines which brought them closer to White Haven, and then constructed their own line from White Haven to Wilkes Barre where they purchased the North Branch Canal, part of the Pennsylvania Canal system.

The Lehigh Valley main is visible here

These moves all made Lehigh Valley Railroad into a super power. The parallel Lehigh and Susquehanna was taken over by the Central Railroad of New Jersey in 1871.

Wet stuff with peepers

By that time, the Lehigh Valley Railroad and Central Railroad of New Jersey had become fierce competitors all the way from the coal fields to the Hudson River. Both paralleled each other, often times side by side, all the way along. I had been doing loop hikes on these two routes for the past twenty years, and pretty much did the last loop hike in that series, maybe second to last, the previous weekend. It was absolutely great, and it looked like this one was going to be another great one to follow it.

Along the Bear Creek Lehigh Valley line with ties!

We took a little break at the junction spot because there was a good picnic table, and it seemed like the right thing to do at that moment.

We chatted for a while, about whatever was going on, and it was a nice time, but then Diane pointed out that Russ and Ewa had left us. They turned right to follow the Lehigh Valley main line to the north.
I figured we ought to catch up with them, because we just didn’t know what we would come across up that way.
We all started walking up and around the corner, and soon skirted some private homes and such to the right.
This section of trail was pretty clear and more heavily used, but we only saw a couple of cyclists go by while on it.
I found out a little bit later that one of the cyclists that went by us was Metrotrails fan Jim Merring, who sent me a message later that night asking if our group was hiking the D&L Trail between Moosehead Lake and Mountain Top!
The rail bed bent around to the right, and then paralleled Webster and Webster Road before crossing it.
I caught up with Russ and Ewa and talked to them about the trail. Russ was surprised about the mile markers on it and asked how far it went. He was surprised you could get to Philly.

Bear Creek Branch

People don’t tend to look at it as the one through route because it’s not necessarily canal or rail trail the entire way. Sixty miles from Bristol to Easton is Delaware Canal.

Bear Creek Branch

It then follows Lehigh Canal, then the Jersey Central line, then the canal again, then Lehigh Valley line, and sometimes its own independent route.
He talked about he and Ewa going out and bicycling it sometime in the near future. I highly recommend the route.
We continued over the road crossing, and held everyone back for a moment to go over the history there. The crossing was actually another industrial spur line, but not associated with or even connecting with the Bear Creek Branch.

Pond view looking at LV main line

The obvious right of way went up hill as a farm road with a gate over it and no trespassing signs now. There were concrete bases for an overhead signal at this point.

Bear Creek Branch

The railroad spur went a little over a mile to the northeast where it served an ocre mill, which had something to do with an additive used in paints. When I was here last, I thought this was the northern Bear Creek Junction, but found out later that it was a bit further up, and I had gone by it without even seeing it.
Next to the ocre mill spur, Russ also noticed a man hole cover, and went over to it for a closer look.
He was able to lift the lid right off of the thing, and we were surprised to see shelves.

Phone booth!

I don’t know what this one was, but it was pretty cool regardless. Brittany came over, and then climbed right down into the crazy thing, but didn’t get wet.

Bear Creek Branch

We pushed ahead from here, turned a corner, and there was the interesting rock overhangs on the right side, where we had stopped for a break the last time we passed through.
We took another brief side trip to check it out again before moving on.
A little further beyond that, the Creasy Creek was parallel with us to the right, and it soon became the very large southern end of the Moosehead Lake, which has a large beaver lodge out in the middle of it.

Bear Creek Branch

We continued through the rock cut here, and the outflow from the main Moosehead Lake was on the left side, of a great deal of volume to be passing through so closely to the trail.
We continued ahead, past a nice bench, and a great view over the lake.
Jack was playing all through this time, and I recall we did The Beatles “It’s Only Love” from the HELP! album, as well as some other stuff.

Former Lehigh Valley Railroad main

Jack started playing some other stuff that was fun, starting with Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”. We sang through the song, and Jack must have realized some similar chords.

Lehigh Valley line

Right out of “Stand By Me”, he went into Sam Cooke’s “Wonderful World”, a beautiful song released in 1960 with the theme that neither knowledge nor education can dictate feelings.
I had not heard the song in years, and I don’t think I’ve ever even tried to sing it except for along with the radio, but was very happy to hear it.
I’ve always been a Sam Cooke fan, and mentioned how that particular song came out at a time that Sam Cooke left his record company, and his previous one released it after.

You can see Bear Creek Branch beyond the water here

It was an interesting thing on how Sam Cooke was then forced to compete with his own single recording, released after his departure.

Lehigh Valley main

The bringing up of that song out of the middle of nowhere naturally spurred some nice musical conversation about stuff we like, and went right into Sam Cooke’s follow up stuff, and the song “Cupid” released in 1961. Jack played some of that as well, which I think also has some similar chords.
The conversation continued to other earlier Sam Cooke things, and brought the conversation full circle back to John Lennon, because Lennon had covered and segued two Sam Cooke songs in 1975.

Brittany in the manhole

“Bring It On Home To Me” was another big hit, and the first featured vocal on a record I think of Lou Rawles, who basically duets with Cooke on the song.

On Lennon’s 1975 “Rock and Roll” album, he covers that and “Send Me Some Lovin” which has very similar chords and came our around the same time by Cooke, as well as “Stand By Me”.
We continued on from here past the end of Moosehead Lake, and I knew we had to start looking for the original Bear Creek Junction.
I had totally missed it before, and nearly did this time, but I think Dan was he one to point out the southern end of the wye.

Rock shelter

There was a wooden fence on the left of the Lehigh Valley main where ATVs had been coming in, and another fence blocking the Bear Creek Branch connection.

Rock overhang

The earlier maps of Luzerne County seem to agree that this junction was in fact the original Bear Creek Junction used by the Lehgih Valley Railroad to reach Bear Creek Village.
We paused here and let the rest of the group catch up with us to see the junction site.
The branch made use of the valley of the Little Nescopeck Creek, which flows out of State Game Lands #119 to the north of this point.
There is a wetland along the stream below this junction point to the west just a bit.
Once everyone was together, we turned to start following the grade into deeper woods.
The rail bed was very nice, and skirted the creek for a while going up stream through a forest of white pine.
Eventually, a small tributary to the Little Nescopeck Creek broke off to the right, and the railroad bed turned to follow it, and gained some elevation as we continued into more open height of land.

Justin on the rock

The rail bed must have been more recently used as a management road because it got much wider from the young growth of trees. Occasionally it had water on the treadway.

Beaver dam

We eventually came out of some of the water and gained more elevation. The right of way went from being rocky and muddy to being grassy after a small stream crossing.

Moosehead Lake

Soon, we came to a very clear area with a wide road that looked like a utility clearing.
This was actually Hollenback Road, the same road we had crossed earlier, only it’s gated and accesses the game lands as well as Pinchot State Forest. I have a plan to get back to the area and do a big loop on those lands depending on how crazy things get with the virus stuff. I’m trying to keep tabs on places we can continue to go and be in the middle of nowhere, and this place is certainly among the best of them I think.

Looking at the southbound connection of the main line and Bear Creek Branch, junction site.

We sat down and had a little break at the intersection, and it seemed like the appropriate place for a lunch stop.
It was bright and sunny in this spot, and things had been going very well.
On the other side of Hollenback Road, the right of way became much wider, like a road.
We continued on, and I think we reached the height of the land, because it felt like we started going down a bit.

View of Bear Creek Branch, southbound wye

The rail bed remained a two track dirt road for a bit, and had some big puddles in it, but then the road turned up slope to the let sharply, and the railroad bed went to the right into the trees.
Soon, we came to a former bridge site, where three old railroad rails made up the base of the bridge that was probably a truck bridge in days after the abandonment of the railroad. This was another crossing of Wright Creek, the same we crossed a little earlier in the day, only much further upstream. It was also quite a bit smaller up here.

Bridge crossing

The creek crossing was not particularly an easy one. I went down to the place where ATVs are occasionally going across and helped Jillane across there.

Bridge crossing

Others crossed on the rails. I was able to do it easily, and went back and forth across three times.
Jack decided to walk right through the water with his boots, then lifted his legs up to let them spill out like pitchers, which was quite funny.
Beyond the bridge, the right of way remained grassy and pretty or a while, and then some springs came along and flowed right in the path. They remained for a while, which made walking around it a little annoying, but never too bad.

Jack spilling his shoes!

Joel was picking up little rocks for a while that looked quite strange. They were blue in color, but had a bubbly look in the bottom indicating that they were involved in some kind of smelting. I’d never seen any with this type of blue color in our area before.
Slag is usually a mix of metal oxides and silicon dioxide, and color and texture all has to do with the smelting process. The blue slag is usually from a mix of blue glass and other chemicals, known commonly as Leland Blue. This comes from Leland, Michigan where there is a ton of it.

The bridge crossing

During the iron smelting process, this can happen in blue, or even shades of purple or green as it cools. When the impurities all re-solidify, it can create some interesting slag for sure.

Bear Creek Branch

Of course, we were closer to coal country than to iron, but the Lehigh Valley Railroad was right next to the Bethlehem Iron company, and there were also some mills over in the valley around Scranton. My best guess as to Joel’s discovery is that this material was used as a ballast on the railroad, brought in from elsewhere, maybe even from Bethlehem. Since the discovery was made on the older right of way of the two branches, it would have been in the days of the Bethlehem Iron company, as Bethlehem Steel did not come into existence until about the turn of the century.

Hello?

We were walking parallel with the PA Turnpike again for a bit, heading sort of north. We had been in this situation before. Soon enough, we came to where the right of way went across all four lanes of traffic. Again, this was a section with a four-foot-high barrier between lanes, and there was no other way across. The nearest way would have been a long walk to the north or south. It was better to just dash across.
This one actually had a better line of sight than the previous one, and we didn’t have to climb up or down a slope on either side to do it.

When parks are closed, you party in the Turnpike

We hurried over, hopped the wall, and still had time to spare on the other side. Of course, we had to use this time for a photo opportunity of all of us laying in the road and such.

Bear Creek Branch

The railroad bed on the other side was wide and grassy, and appeared to be mowed. We were still on state game lands for a bit, and we had a few railroad ties still in place.
There were “no trespassing” signs to the left and right soon, and “no hunting signs” going straight ahead, but I figure this must be the section accessible through New Pocono Land Trust.
The property was preserved through the North Branch Land Trust as a conservation easement of about five square miles, or 3,015 acres.

Bear Creek Branch

It’s the largest tract preserved by the organization to date.
The Pennsylvania public lands maps show this section of the right of way being private, but that all of the land on either side was the conservation easement.

Bear Creek Branch

I would assume walking the railroad bed through here was allowed. We had no problem anyway.
The route was a grassy, easy walk for quite a while, and it came to near a pond out in the middle of nowhere where there is a private home. We could not see the pond at all, but we were close to it as per the aerials I was following.
Soon, the driveway road that accessed that property came in from the left and joined the railroad bed ahead. It became an easy, small gravel road.

We pushed ahead, and the gravel road section went on for a while, on a high shelf. We were now descending at a rather rapid rate, but still under 3% grade.

Evidence of ties

It would still certainly be a hard haul for a train. This is probably why the lower route was created.
Eventually, the driveway turned off to the right in a sort of switchback, and the railroad bed continued ahead as a narrower path.
We soon passed through a beautiful forest of hemlocks up on the high shelf, and then came to a stream crossing where there was a lovely waterfall up slope to the right. Some of us couldn’t resist taking the side trip up to view it more closely.

Through the hemlocks...

We continued past another gate, and then got to another road clearing. It was not often used, but it obliterated a section of the right of way.

Falls

I looked ahead, and it was still good and well graded beyond, but went right along the edge of someone’s yard, and I could see the guy out working in it.
Looking at the aerials, the section of the right of way goes pretty much right along yards all the way to the former junction site with the other Bear Creek Branch just a little bit ahead. It was prudent to turn right on the disused old road, down to that other branch a little bit early.
We reached the other right of way, now a woods road, and there was a large building that was I think some sort of pumping station just to the south, on the edge of the right of way.
Russ and Ewa wanted to do an early out, and because the Bear Creek Village itself was just ahead, they could wait to be picked up there.
We opted to walk with them out the road, called Railroad Lane because it’s mostly right on the rail bed. It took us through one pedestal gate made of brick, with some no trespassing signs on it. Some of the group was following me, and I told them it’s probably best to go back and be on the other side of that, in case the conservation easement doesn’t reach this far.

Bear Creek Lake

The others went back, and Russ, Ewa, Dan, and I continued ahead. I think we might have had a couple of others.

An aerial view of Bear Creek Village

Soon, we reached the junction point. It was on the left, and it was barely recognizable because the descending grade of the right of way we were just on had been excavated away almost completely. Unless you knew it was there, and knew what you were looking for, you wouldn’t recognize it.
We reached the point where the lines came together, and there must have been a bridge here at one time to carry the railroad over the Bear Creek itself, quite a large brook at this point.
Rt 115 was directly ahead, and we walked out to the bridge, where we could see the lovely dam and Bear Creek Lake. I pointed out to Russ and Ewa on the right bank where the railroad station used to stand, and then told them where they could find it.
The station was relocated just over onto Cove Road around the corner in 1935 where it’s still a private residence. The station site is now just a grassy knoll.

Historic image of Bear Creek Station

From here, we left Russ and Ewa, and headed back onto the grade. I was very happy to reach this point because it formally connected us with the previous hike I had done with Pete and James up there. I would now be able to say I pretty much walked the entire Bear Creek Branch by the time we finished this.
We walked along the lovely creek and through the gate and brick stanchions, and a driveway went to the right. Just ahead, we reached the building along the creek, to the left of the grade.

Bear Creek Station

Some of the group had climbed down on the edge of it and above the creek.
There were some safety zone signs beyond, but nothing more saying to stay out. The grade was improved, and easy to walk on a terrific shelf above the creek. We passed through a gate, and then a bridge for a driveway came across the Bear Creek on the left. The driveway paralleled the railroad bed a short bit, and then ascended to join it. The rail bed and driveway coincided for a while, and then a driveway went off to the right.

Wet rail bed

I told everyone that from this point to the end, I figured the grade would become less and less used, and that it should be all easy out from here.
This turned out to be true, thankfully, so no one would come back and give me shit for it later!
Neil and I had one more beer for the relaxing long stretch to the end and talked about work stuff, scheduling, and things we’d like to do. He would be great working for the state if we can get him in somewhere.

Along Bear Creek

We crossed several little tributaries, one of which was very large. Since this was used more recently as driveway access and such, and remained active after abandonment of the higher elevation branch to the north, this one was probably maintained much better and until a later date.

Former junction site

We remained above the Bear Creek, which continued to drop elevation, and then eventually flowed into the slack water of the Francis Walter Reservoir.

The Bear Creek had gone around a big bend and we remained just up the shelf above it, and then White Haven Road came into view below us a bit. We paralleled this for the rest of the way, although we would get out of the way from it a bit more.
The right of way remained a black cinder dirt for quite a while, and the shelf started to open up with better views of the reservoir. This was really the best weekend to be doing this hike, because it was warmer, the understory was starting to green up to keep the size of our group rather hidden, but the canopy of trees was only just starting to bud, allowing us to see the water from this higher elevation.

A pretty little stream...

I think the only problem with all of this is that so many of us ended up with sunburn!
We passed through yet another gate on the shelf section, beyond which the railroad bed was pretty much just grass and very pleasant for walking. We shifted from heading south to west, and had one last section that felt very secluded before getting back to the area where we were parked.
We could see the pond we were parked near in the distance as we approached, and then came to the point where the right of way was purged. A path led us down to the right, and then onto the road where we simply headed back to the cars.

Above the reservoir

Dan took Joel back to his car at Middleburg Road, and Jillane and I went to pick up Russ and Ewa at the Bear Creek Village. Jillane saw a bear along Bear Creek during the ride.

Along the reservoir

I pulled over to show Russ and Ewa the Bear Creek Falls on the way back through.
We said our goodbyes at the end, and some of us headed over to the Wawa up the road to hang out and have some food for a bit.
This was a really nice time. It’s sad that we can’t get together for dinner after the hikes the way we always used to, but this was a great substitute. The temperature was nice, and we just sat on the curbs talking, laughing, and eating for over an hour. It almost felt like a sort of after school activity, relaxing and reflecting.

Pond at the end

I couldn’t imagine a better way to spend a day like this, having great times with great people.
We covered close to eighteen miles I believe, but I wasn’t even ready for the day to be over yet.

HAM