Hike #1330; Lackawanna State Park to Scranton

Hike #1330; Lackawanna State Park to Scranton

6/6/20 Lackawanna State Park to Scranton with Daniel Trump, Justin Gurbisz, Brittany Audrey, Jennifer Bee, Jennifer Tull, Professor John DiFiore, Russ Nelson, Ewa Wdzieczak-Smering, Anne ?, Kirk Rohn, Red Sean Reardon, and Ronnie (Veronica DiVirgilio)

This next hike would be another point to point, this time in the area just to the north of Scranton PA.

Cole Road bridge

We had done a hike early on in the Covid scare that brought us from Nicholson on down to Clark’s Summit, but the problem here was that it did not connect with any of the hikes I had already done. I didn’t mind too much because it was close, and I could easily just fill in and do another one of them soon.
That’s what this hike was. There was a lot more stuff to see in the area, but I also wanted to somehow connect this hike with other stuff we had done in the Scranton area.

The upper end of Lackawanna Lake

The last time, we had left off with some of the old Lackawanna Railroad bed, which I thought was interesting enough to merit exploring once more, and extending from where we left off. We also really liked the Trolley Trail a bit further back.

The upper end of Lackawanna Lake

In the same area is Lackawanna State Park as well as other properties owned by the Countryside Conservancy, which maintains the Trolley Trail. With only some short road walking, we could connect the trails of these parks down to the Trolley Trail and then continue down to Scranton area.
The Lackawanna State Park also seemed to be a good option because it might provide some swimming opportunities since it was getting so hot out.

Abandoned road section

I chose the parking lot by the Staples on Viewmont Drive, basically on the border between Dickson City and Scranton, as the meeting point. I’d walked through this area before on a loop hike in the past, but there’s been a lot of construction and such in these past several years that made it seem like an almost totally new place.
I didn’t know where else to try to meet, but I knew I wanted to try to connect with some of my previous hikes. The Lackawanna Heritage Trail was just downhill from this point, and so that was pretty close.

From this point, Russ and Ewa wanted to cut out early, so we found a spot for them where we had finished the previous hike in Clark’s Summit. The rest of us shuttled to the start point which was a small lot at the northeast side of Lackawanna State Park, in the separate Ziegler Preserve which shares a connective trail system.
After I got Russ and Ewa situated with their car, I first found the wrong lot in the park, along the South Branch of the Tunkhannock Creek, but then made my way to where Dan brought the rest of them.

Stone walls

Google maps showed the road across from us, where I had acidentally gone first, as Cole Road. There was a group of mountain bikers in the lot of the Ziegler Preserve, and we walked across Wallsville Road over to the Cole Road, which was just a short distance down Wallsville Road to the west, and then headed down over the South Branch of the Tunkhannock Creek.
Once we passed the parking area and went across the creek, a trail went into the woods to the right. The bridge is the upper end of the Lackawanna Lake slack water in the creek.

Lackawanna Lake

The park is 1,445 acres according to some sources, but the official website claims 1,411. Lackawanna Lake is a whopping 199 acres of this.
The area of the park, and part of where the lake is today was once known as Prickly Ash Flats. After the original Native Americans, a few settlers came along the farm the area. The name “Lackawanna” means “the meeting of two streams” in the native language, and is probably a reference to the meeting of the Lackawanna River and the Susquehanna. The first turnpike to pass through the area was the Great Bend Turnpike in the 1820s.

Lackawanna Lake

When the highway went through, settler Ezra Wall built a stagecoach tavern in the area that is now the park. More buildings showed up, as well as sawmills, schools, and other dwellings, and the settlement was named Wallsville after the tavern owner.

An abandoned road, now Abington Trail

Eventually, the area was eyed up by the Lackawanna Railroad and a coal baron named Robert Moffat (for whom a breaker was named too) purchased it. The railroad wanted the land for steam engine boilers.
The railroad wanted the lake built because of high charges by existing water companies, but they lowered their rates when it was found that the railroad was building their own reservoir, and so the plan never went through as originally planned.
Moffat held the property until the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania took interest in it in the 1960s, when it was thought that every resident should live within 25 miles of a park.

Along Lackawanna Lake

The land was acquired and work on the park began in 1968. The park was officially opened in 1972. I would imagine this probably coincides with some of the Water Bond Act stuff that went on in New Jersey at the same time.
The first trail we followed was known as the Abington Trail. It was a little muddy and obviously heavily used by mountain bikers, but overall quite nice. From time to time, it was obvious that this trail followed the earlier route of a road that had existed before the reservoir was completed.

Old house site ruin

The trail weaved slightly up and down hills, and at one point, when the trail went up, we passed the foundation pit of an old house. There were no historic markers saying anything of what these places were or who lived in them, but it was interesting to see.
The tributary that feeds the lake was once known as State’s Creek before it was a branch of the Tunkhannock. White’s Creek feeds into the reservoir on the north side, another Tunkhannock Creek on the northwest, and Kennedy Creek on the south side.

Old house ruin

We continued on the shore, on Lakeshore Trail when Abington Trail turned away from the reservoir to the left. We eventually came to the inlet of Kennedy Creek, and the trail turned left up along it through a lovely grove of Eastern Hemlocks.
We continued upstream on the creek until a trail eventually broke over to the right to cross it on a nice footbridge. It was insanely hot at this point and I just had to get in the water. Several of us went and laid in the creek for a bit to cool off before moving on.

Along Kennedy Creek

On the other side was the Ranger Trail, which went up and down the creek, so we followed it through the woods downstream and back toward the short of the lake again. We weaved around a corner on this, and then curved around toward Rt 524 and 407.
Red Sean and Ronnie were to meet up with us in this area, so I told them to park near the bridge and head across to the south side. We could see them walking just as we came out of the woods on a connecting path from the Ranger Trail to the road.

At Kennedy Creek

Russ pulled out a map, I think Open Street Map, that showed the trails better than the state park map I was using on my phone. It showed that a trail broke away from Ranger Trail and entered a “tunnel” beneath Rt 407. This sounded too interesting to pass up.

Crossing Kennedy Creek

We followed the trail directly across Rt 547, Kennedy Road, and then parallel with Rt 407 through the woods, and along some very lovely old stone rows through the woods a bit, and that side trail broke off to the right. It was probably intended to be a drainage culvert because it was a little wet, but served the double purpose of a pedestrian tunnel.
Red Sean picked flowers from the trail and placed them in his beard.
Once we passed beneath the tunnel under 407, we reached a picnic area, lake outlook, and South Shore Road which accesses a boat launch area. We crossed this toward the water.

Along Kennedy Creek

A grassy path cut to the left parallel with the water, and we followed it until we eventually came back to the South Shore Road. The road was lightly used, so we just started walking that to the south toward the boat launch where there were open restrooms.
We took a little break here, and then moved just a little further down the road to where Abington Trail crossed. The trail led across States Creek, and then to an intersection with Snowflake Trail and Frost Hollow Trail. We kept to the left on this for a bit.

Old stone rows

After a short bit, another trail broke off to the left. In this area, we were leaving Lackawanna State Park and entering the Quarry Ridge Preserve of the Countryside Conservancy.
The thirty acre parcel adjoins the state park land and the trail leaves that land a short distance in.
We walked the trail on a pleasant side slope ahead, and Russ and Ewa took a shortcut and went uphill a bit more directly without taking the weaving route. I think our way was a little less steep, but definitely more distance.

A giant White Pine on Ranger Trail

Quarry Ridge Preserve was saved in 2000, and I didn’t see any particular quarry remnants in it, but there were definitely some stones as we started to ascend on switchbacks.
Before the climb, there was an abandoned building off to the left, probably still just barely on state park land. Of course, we had to leave the trail to go see it.
It was a section of trail that was on a long boardwalk puncheon, which was quite nice.
I’m not sure what the building was, but didn’t appear to be a home of any kind.

Stone rows on Ranger Trail

We all went inside and peeked around, then moved on along the trail. This took us uphill for a ways, and eventually back around to the more direct trail through the preserve.

Red Sean and flowers

The trail reached a power line crossing near the top of a little hill which afforded us a bit of a view back to Lackawanna Lake. We then passed through a pretty open meadow section followed by more woods with lovely old flat stone walls. Soon, we joined up with the other shorter trail again where Russ and Ewa were.
For a brief time, there was only one trail passing through the woods but they soon split in two again. This time, the longer route was to the right instead of the left, so most of us turned to the right, and more of the group chose to do the shorter one this time and followed Russ and Ewa.
We passed through openings in stone walls, and the terrain leveled off quite a bit more. This upper trail went to the edge of a bit of a field where we had a little bit of a view, but nothing particularly cool. This trail then made a very gradual descent back to where Russ and Ewa were on the other trail.
Around this area, the trail left Quarry Ridge and entered the Meadowsweet Preserve, another Countryside Conservancy preserve, 59 acres acquired in 2001.

Tunnel under 407

The trail split again in this area, and we took to the lower one to the left. This kind of went down slightly and then back up on a weird switchback. I recall this one was never out of sight from the other one, and going the way we went kind of ended up being totally pointless and misleading.
We continued to the south, and there was one more spot where trails split off that I seem to recall we got messed up on again, but it didn’t matter because both of them took us back out to a parking area on Lily Lake Road.

States Creek inlet

This was probably the crappiest part of the hike next, the road walk section, which only had one section of reprieve with park until the trolley trail.
We had to walk Lily Lake Road downhill to the east, which wasn’t all that bad since it wasn’t super busy. Then, we had to turn right on Abington Road, which was much busier without a very good shoulder to walk on. I tried to power through the section as best I could and stay in the shade of prances wherever possible. We passed by Linair Road I think it was, and then soon came to the entrance to the Waverly municipal park, a paved access road.

On the old building

The access road went downhill slightly, then curved to the left toward some buildings. We continues straigh through the grass and to the right where we had some shade under the trees. This area to the right remained mowed when the road turned, and was part of a frisbee golf trail.
We continued to the northwest side of this park, and then turned to the left along a slope with several trees planted on it, and the disc golf stations dispersed throughout.
I’m pretty sure two bodies of water above us in the center of the park area are the village of Waverly’s sewage treatment plant.
We continued on the cleared route with some pretty clouds above us and then reached a wooded section of trail ahead. The trail weaved out to the south and west a bit, and then went uphill within view of the poop ponds. When we came to the park clearing and close to the parking areas, there was a slight clearing to the right we turned in to. This was a sort of abandoned cul de sac where Cole Street continues out of Waverly and was apparently planned to have more houses on it, but never came to be.

A boardwalk trail into Quarry Ridge Preserve

We had to push through one mess of weeds and then reached the cul de sac, and followed it out to town. We then made a right turn out to Clinton Street.

Abandoned

We made a stop at the Waverly General Store and sat on the porch or otherwise across the street in a little park setting. Some of us ordered some drinks and snacks. It was quite a wait because everyone was waiting for something they ordered, so most of us chose not to get anything more than a little drink.
I felt bad for the girl working there, because they all have to wear masks in all of this heat, and their jobs are so much harder than they would be normally. I thought things would be easier since we were in PA.

When everyone was about ready to go, rather than just walk the roads, I had a plan to follow lands through the elementary school and community house across the street from the store.
This was a charming little community aside from the virus stuff.
The area was settled by people who came down from Connecticut by way of the Warrior’s Path, and the original name of the community was Abington Center. When it was established as a separate borough in 1853, the name was changed.

Quarry Ridge Preserve

There was already in existence a settlement known as Abington just outside of Philadelphia, and that didn’t work when post offices were set up, so the name was changed to Waverly after Sir Walter Scott’s Waverly Novels which were very popular at the time.
We headed across the street and reached the lovely Waverly Community House building, which was much more of an interesting building than I had anticipated it would be.

Waverly Community House

The Waverly Community House, completed in 1919, was constructed as a memorial to Henry Belin Junior by his wife Margaretta E. Belin.

Quarry Ridge Preserve

The building was dedicated to Abington Township in 1920, and new wings were added in 1927 in memory of Margaretta E. Belin by her children.

Meadowsweet Preserve

Further expansions occurred for the benefit of the community, which has been operated lovingly as a non profit since 1981.
We went right through the center of the place, down some steps, and then over to Church Street. There was a lovely church across the street from here, but when I look for info on when it was built, actually nothing really comes up.
We continued down Church Street a little bit and soon reached the Waverly elementary school. We turned left and walked around the building through the grass.

A view in Quarry Ridge Preserve with some of Lackawanna Lake

We came out at a line of trees on Waverly Road where we turned to the left. This was the other part of the worst part of the entire hike, walking the busy road west.

Interestingly growing tree and stone row in Quarry Ridge Preserve

The road was lined with more nice stone walls and such like what we saw in the preserves before, but it was just too busy. There was an old house on the left that I was concerned might be torn down in the near future because there were machines out.

Meadowsweet Preserve

We continued downhill on the road and eventually crossed over the tracks of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad’s Clark’s Summit-Halstead Cutoff, which was completed in 1915. This was the major rerouting project to take place directly after the New Jersey cutoff I’ve spent so many years hiking.

Old stone rows at Meadowsweet

The original route through the area was built in 1853, and had a much steeper climb to Clark’s Summit, as well as more curves. When the Cutoff was completed, most of the original railroad route became a highway known as Lackawanna Trail, today part of Route 6.
We had focused on some of that route the last time out, a well as the Tunkhannock Viaduct in Nicholson to the north. This time, we would end up doing a little of the main line, but not just yet. The next stretch required heading down to Glenburn.

Waverly disc golf trail

We continued downhill until we reached the port where the Trolley Trail crossed the road. We turned left to follow it to the south.
This line was part of the “Trolley Fever” that struck America in the early days of the twentieth century. These light, third rail interurban passenger lines started appearing everywhere, and the Scranton area was no exception.
The Trolley Trail was originally the Scranton, Montrose, and Binghampton Railway, founded in 1904. It was originally intended to stretch to Binghampton, but that never came to be.

Along the disc golf thingy

Construction started in 1906, and the first operation was in 1907. Service at that time terminated in Factoryville.

Clouds in the park

A branch line began service to Lake Winola (where Dan lives) in 1908, was extended to Nicholson in 1912, and finally to its terminus in Montrose in 1915.
By that time, there was bigger competition in the Lackawanna Railroad. After the turn of the century, William Truesdale took over as President of that railroad and began the mass of improvement projects, straightening the line, and replacing the old stone structures with concrete. The Clarks Summit-Halstead Cutoff would be a big competitor.

Abandoned Cole Street cul de sac

In fact, the improvements on the Lackawanna knocked out several competitors over the next thirty years.
The trolley line completed its route to Montrose in 1915, simultaneously with the completion of the cutoff.
When the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania purchased the old double track Lackawanna Railroad bed and opened it up as a motor highway in 1922, it too badly hurt the trolley.

Cole cul de sac

By 1930, they were ready to call it quits. During the course of the year, service was scaled back, some replaced by buses, from Montrose. It was nearly done for in 1931, but December of that year, the employees formed a Co Op and started operating to Factoryville again.
When the highway started doing work on the highway in 1932, it required that the track be move, but the cooperative could not afford the improvements. Highway work cut off the track, which ended twenty five years of service abruptly.

Cole cul de sac

The trolley line locally was known as the Northern Electric line, or simply the Northern Electric. We had followed it closely from Nicholson to Clarks Summit on the last visit.

Red Sean feeding Justin

We followed the trolley bed to the south for a bit, which was rather open at first, but eventually became nicer and more shaded.
From Waverly Road, we continued south toward Ackerly Road, but the trail turns off of the trolley bed just before that. It leads straight to a parking area on Waterford Road, but we had to turn right to cross Ackerly Road and descending into the Abington little league field area.
There was once a very long trestle that carried the Northern Electric across the valley of the Ackerly Creek just a little bit beyond. The north abutment was very obvious as well as a pier.

Church in Waverly

We descended a bit further, and Russ and I found one of the bases to a pier that held the trestle up as well.
From here, the trail turns hard to the right along the edge of the little league field, and then reaches an abandoned road bridge, which would have been once a road that connected from the field area up to the Old State Road. We took a nice break here and I laid in the water under the bridge to cool off. There were not nearly enough places to jump in the water on this hike I think.

Old building on Waverly Road

After our break, we headed along the trail to the left from the bridge site, and back up to the old trolley bed.
Just before reaching the trolley bed, there was an old building on the left. It looked like it must have been some kind of jail or something because it had a barred from door to it. I still don’t know what it was.
We turned right on the Trolley Trail and started heading to the south. This was a nice shaded section, with some nice shade. There were also culverts for animal underpasses.

Stone row on Waverly Road

We continued along and gained some elevation, and the height of the land, probably the highest point on the trolley line, became evident. Somewhere in this area, there was a couple coming at us on bicycles. They said something to us, and I don’t remember quite what it was, but it ended up being Pete G. Wilcox and Kellie Kegan!
They were riding the trolley line in the other direction, and we hadn’t seen them in like a billion years, so this was a great meeting. We ended up getting our group shot in this area so they could be in it.

Clarks Summit Halstead Cutoff

We said our goodbyes and continued along the Trolley Trail to the south. I tried to set up a then and now compilation as best I could, but I was not totally sure of where the exact spot was. I think I’m close to it if not right on.
The trail eventually came to an end at Old State Road beside the Clarks Summit-Halstead Cutoff on the left, and straight ahead the Lackawanna Trail/Rt 6 came in. Ahead, Rt 5 doesn’t follow the rail bed anymore.

Russ is elated to find trolley piers

We crossed Rt 6 at the end of the Trolley Trail and cut across a parking lot to reach Old Lackawanna Trail, which is originally the main road and before that the Lackawanna main line. We simply walked along the road through this stretch for a while, and there were some remnants of railroad ties and such in the yards along the right side as we headed south. We watched for any of these remnants, and there was a surprising amount I didn’t recall seeing the previous time we had gone through here.

Pete and Kellie

There was a beer distributer up ahead on the right in a little mall, and I wandered on over to have a look inside.
I happened to find a bourbon barrel aged beer called Dragon’s Milk I had been wanting to try for some time, and this was the right occasion to go for it.
I came out with some of it, and we continued on the road, which is still on the railroad bed at this point. We followed this south to Winola Road.

Trolley Trail

At that point, the railroad bed continues ahead, just barely uphill from the Halstead Cutoff. We continued to walk across a parking area, and then into a swath of trees.

Northern Electric line

A path continued on the right of way at this point.
We pushed on through, and then came to another opening where we passed along another parking lot. Just ahead, the old Lackawanna Railroad station still stands, and has been added onto to some degree I believe.
This station I understand remained in service after the cutoff was completed because it was only just barely uphill from the newer route.
The line started out as the Leggett’s Gap Railroad to connect from Scranton to Great Bend in the 1830s. It was dormant for many years, but the line opened up through between the points in 1851. It was reorganized as the Lackawanna and Western Railroad. The lines that I’ve been walking for years to the south was the Delaware and Cobb’s Gap Railroad, which reached the Delaware Water Gap in 1853. The two were consolidated to form the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad. The Warren Railroad in New Jersey became the next bit. As the anthracite industry grew, so did the railroad, which served both freight and passenger needs.

Trolley Trail

This little stub we were walking by the station remained in service after the 1915 cutoff completion apparently to get up to the station more easily, and probably to some businesses.
We continued past the station, and then into the woods on a very good wide trail. This took us out beneath Grove Street. We continued on the right of way further from here, on a good shelf directly above the cutoff line and passed beneath Knapp Road. One of these underpasses had a huge HAM thing written on the wall I had to pose for a photo with.
I had wanted to climb up to the street here to take some new photos from the same location that I had two historic ones, but the problem was there were too many leaves and it wouldn’t really look like anything. I decided I would have to go back to try to emulate it in leafless seasons.
This was an important point ahead for the realignments of the rail lines.

The original main line

The right of way we were following was the original main line to a point, but by 1915 it was aligned to join the cutoff straight ahead. The main used to cross to the other side.

GAG

Across and at an angle from the bridge overpass, the cut for the original main line can be easily seen, somewhat overgrown.
My plan was to follow this line.
This section was kept in service after the 1915 Clark's Summit-Halstead Cutoff was completed as a slow track for trains coming off the Keyser Valley Branch, which connected in from the west.
A concrete culvert was built to carry the original main beneath the new main a bit further on, and keep the original in service as a single track rather than the double that it used to be. We had checked this out a bit the previous hike.

1914 photo by Watson B. Bunnell of Keyser Valley Branch, original main

Justin and I went over into that cut first, and Russ and Ewa followed us through a bit. Pretty soon, Red Sean and Kirk were in there was well.

The same view as Bunnell's photo today

We soon passed the spot where we had cut away on the previous hike. On that one, we followed that other right of way down to the active tracks, then cut left at the culvert.

Original Lackawanna

From there, we previously went out to the parking lots and businesses, but this time we stayed on the right of way underneath.
On the other side of the culvert underpass, it started getting a bit more overgrown. There were a lot of those pretty flocks flowers that grow this time of year, but then some other more abrasive stuff.
Eventually, Russ and Ewa cut back uphill onto the active track line. Only Red Sean, Kirk, and I remained on the original main line moving on up ahead.

Original Lackawanna main

I suppose I can’t blame anyone else for not wanting to go through the crazy bushwhacking we had just done, but I was rather enjoying it....sickly I suppose.
Eventually, the abandonment came back out to the active tracks again, after passing beneath the PA Turnpike bridge and through a very nice cut.
By the time we emerged on the tracks, the others had already cut off to the left to head somewhere to get food. I had been really hungry before, so it was frustrating that I wasn’t going to get anything.

Clarks Summit Station

At this point, I was far too far up the slope to be able to easily get back down to the roads where everyone else was. I didn’t know what way they would go from there anyway.

Original Lackawanna main

My thought had been we would follow this branch and then head down through a cemetery, or maybe the tracks, then use a creek underpass to get under the highway and such. A secondary plan was to go further south and connect with the Lackawanna Heritage Trail, but none of the ways I had been planning was what Red Sean, Kirk, and I did.
We just kept walking the tracks. The Dragon’s Milk was so good and I was feeling pretty happy, so we just kept on walking. We came to Oak Street, but I missed the turn off.

The station

We were parallel with Rt 11 but that was far too busy to climb on down to. We then crossed Keyser Avenue but I for some reason didn’t try to turn down here either. I don’t know what exactly I was thinking, but I know I got into a long conversation with Red Sean that probably had me sidetracked.
Eventually, I realized we had gone far too far, and the next street to make our way down on was Theodore, which had a reasonable place to descend and then an underpass beneath Rt 11 we could take to get to the south. We also got some rather splendid views from the railroad tracks over the Lackawanna River valley.

Historic image of the Clarks Summit Station, and new and old routes by Watson B. Bunnell

We headed downhill gradually through a town area, and reached an intersection. We turned to the right and then left again on Green Ridge Street which led to Lackawanna River.

Dragon's Milk

The Scranton Branch of the New York, Ontario, and Western Railroad used to run on the west side of the river, but there is a berm that makes a great trail on the east side that was my plan to use. The Lackawanna Heritage Trail is not yet complete in this area, but it is likely it will use the berm.
We turned left on the berm and followed it in a pleasant section along the river ahead. The little trail ended up at East Market Street where we turned right away from the river a bit.

Original Lackawanna line

We pushed on ahead here, and the former Delaware and Hudson Railroad culvert was straight ahead. We turned to the left to parallel that line on a side street, and then left through some weeds to head toward the fill it was on.

Keyser Valley Branch, original main line

There were sections of track down below the still active main line in this area. The Green Ridge Yard was originally in this area, and tracks broke off of both this and the O&W line we had paralleled earlier to this side of the Lackawanna River in order to access the Van Storch Breaker. Apparently nothing remains of this today.
We made our way onto the tracks and continued to walk to the north on them for a bit. We eventually reached the Dean Street Bridge, which carried the railroad over the Lackawanna.

The double track through truss bridge looked similar to others I had crossed on the former D&H line further to the north of this location.

D&H Dean Street Bridge

We pushed on ahead, and then came to the bridge abutments where the O&W line crossed the D&H. Beyond here, we entered a cut, and eventually came to a trio of bridges over the D&H line overhead, which were in place to serve the now gone Marvine Breaker.
I had never seen the Marvine Breaker intact I don’t think. The site was recently cleared even the first time I had ever been there, but it’s interesting that the breaker bridges over the active tracks were left in place.

Marvine Breaker bridges

I figured this would be a good spot for us to climb back up and start heading back to the north to get to the parking lot where we’d started.
We started up the steep slope of the cut to the left and my old friend Tara called me to BS while I was in this area. I took the call briefly but let her know I was climbing up a slope. Everything was alright and I was almost to the top. The last bit was a stack of old tires to the top of the breaker bridge, which I would climb like a ladder. I started climbing.

The O&W bridge crossing site

Just as I was reaching for the top or close to the top tire with my left hand, my grip slipped off and I starting the lean backwards. Once this happens and I started leaning too hard, I could not catch and recover. I was going down. I’d done this climb before with no problem, but the slip of the hand was just too quick to catch.
I hit the ground and somersaulted backwards. I can’t remember much from there in the tumble. I seem to recall either Red Sean or Kirk stating “well, I guess that’s about as gracefully as you could do that...”.

Marvine Breaker bridge

I lost my phone in the slope during the fall, probably out of my pocket during a somersault. Fortunately, searching the slope I was able to find it.
My memory from this point is very swiss cheesed. I had felt fine until this point.
I did manage to climb back up, and got up to the Marvine Breaker bridge, and then took a photo of it. At about that time, as I was ready to either take another photo or look at my maps, my phone apparently started doing a “covid19 update” that I could not stop.

Old O&W pier

I tried shutting down the service to Airplane Mode and such, but it wouldn’t work. I tried turning the phone off and back onto stop it, but it was almost out of power.
The problem here was that it stopped all other applications and I needed to use my maps to get back to the car. Every time I tried to use it, it was bogged down.
It got more and more frustrating as the phone ran low on power. I had by this point plugged it in to my external battery to charge, but the update that it was running took too much battery. I couldn’t put it back on airplane mode again (it wouldn’t let me), and the phone kept shutting down.

O&W bridge site

I’ve already been so angry about the impositions regarding the virus, and this was just worse. I remember yelling at the phone or something, and Kirk bringing up the maps on his phone to guide us back. We must have started walking back, but by this point I do not remember any of it.
We must have walked Greenbush Street or something. That leads up to Rockwell Avenue, where we turned right, and I vaguely remember getting to the abandoned bridge over Route 6 that basically leads back to where we were parked.

Rockwell Ave bridge

The group was waiting for us at the lot, and I only have vague memory of hollering about how angry I was at the entire covid crap and how it infiltrated my phone. I actually couldn’t even get the phone to turn back on until the next morning at some point. I could not find what the covid update was initially, but when I went on my facebook page while using the app, the Metrotrails page now had a covid19 toolbar along with all of the other ones, only it was more prominently displayed. It’s super annoying and I refuse to click on it to seven see what kind of crap is in it.

Old building in Scranton area

I don’t remember getting into any car. Someone ended up going back and getting my van from the start. I don’t know where I was. I was told everyone went to Sheetz and was trying to get me to eat cheese balls but couldn’t. I was passed out.
I’ve drank way more than this on previous outings and had no problem, but this one was a complete blackout, which is probably because of hitting my head or something in the fall at the Marvine Breaker. I don’t remember anything about switching any cars.

D&H bridge

Justin drove my van home, and parked it on my side street.
Someone told me I puked five times during the trip home, which is also something that really never happens with me. But it is also a symptom of a concussion.
I don’t remember getting into my house or going to bed or anything. The next morning I had no hangover headache or anything, but I was incredibly dizzy and couldn’t walk straight for quite a while.
By the next day, everything seemed pretty much better, but I definitely wasn’t right all day Sunday.
Overall it was a great hike, and I still like to focus on the good aspects of it.
For me, by overshooting the ending point of the hike, we connected down to the Lackawanna River to a place I remembered very vividly from previous hikes, so I definitely feel the connection between the events. That’s usually what’s most important to me in completion.
I’m pretty sure most of the group was happy with the hike despite some craziness.