Hike #1332; Sugar Notch/Ashley Loop
6/14/20 Sugar Notch and Ashley Loop with Jillane Becker, Dr. Michael Krejsa, Justin Gurbisz, Jennifer Tull, Joel Castus, Brittany Audrey, Robin Deitz, Craig Craig, Kirk Rohn, Diane Reider, Timothy Kovich, and Daniel Trump
This next hike would be the next in the series we had come back to working on featuring both the former Central Railroad of New Jersey and Lehigh Valley Railroads.
A view in Sugar Notch
I had been working on the series between the two railroad lines going back to the beginning of the group, and since the covid scare I’d begun revisiting the main lines. I went for years kind of stalled out at White Haven, and never hiked through on it north of there until all of this.
This series has been quite amenable to loops, which was exactly what we needed as this happened, and there are still more of them to do.
This time, I decided we would revisit Ashley Planes, and continue on the grades.
View on Sugar Notch Trail
First, we had hiked the Ashley Planes recently, but the problem was that there were two Ashley Plane #2 routes. The original plane was more gradual and went way out of the way from the other two, with a level track bed between. This one was taken out of service and replaced with the newer Ashley Plane #2, which had a 14% grade instead of the originals which only had about 9%. On the last trip, we did the later incarnation of the planes, and then did the Lehigh Valley grade to the east out through Laurel Run.
Along Sugar Notch Trail
We followed the 1866 roundabout route built by the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad to skip the inclined planes back to Ashley.
Similarly, the Lehigh Valley Railroad had its line through Solomon Gap and down around to Ashley by doing the same thing basically, but out beyond Warrior Run and back to Ashley. They eventually built their Mountain Cutoff, and this route became the “passenger main”, which is what we and most others refer to it as. We had seen it from afar on the previous hikes.
View on Sugar Notch Trail
This time, when we reached Mountain Top, we would take the Passenger Main back around and head around back to Ashley that way.
Of course, things didn’t go exactly as planned right from the start, but this was still a really great hike I feel.
I didn’t want to have an issue like last time with some weird parking situation. Parks are often closed due to the covid crap, so I wanted to be sure we could be a bit out of the way in a good spot. In looking, I discovered the Sugar Notch Trail.
culvert on Wilkes Barre and Hazleton Railway
This is an interesting area below what I believe was called the Hadley Breaker. This and the Maffat Breaker just to the east were old coal breakers associated with the nearby mines.
In the culvert
These breakers are long gone. I think one of them was gone since about 1883, but the land is still scarred from it. In fact, some of it was excavated away I believe much more recently.
Today, a lot of these lands have been taken over by the Earth Conservancy, a non profit organization who’s mission is to reclaim and reuse former coal lands in Luzerne County. It is they who manage the Sugar Notch trail, which goes up slope and comes back down on the east side of the town of Sugar Notch.
Old dam above the culvert in Sugar Notch
The town and physical place name of Sugar Notch is a gap in the Penobscot Mountain that had a plentiful amount of Sugar Maple trees. It became a coal mining town in the mid 1800s.
There are a couple of trails in the Sugar Notch system, but they are not particularly easy to follow. The main one is a sort of white blaze with a red slash through it. The western terminus is just west of the town of Sugar Notch, at the town cemetery where there is parking. The trail follows an old roadway uphill toward the breaker site.
Sugar Notch culvert under the interurban line
We hung out in the parking area for a bit for everyone to catch up, and I went over what the plan was for the hike.
I wanted to hike the Sugar Notch Trail for the start, then proceed with our other railroad loop.
We started walking uphill on the old woods road and reached the trail that was probably some kind of rail, associated with the breaker or something. It was black cinder dirt much of the way. I did not see the white and red blazes at this point, and I didn’t know what else to do, so we went to the left.
Double culvert under the W&E Railway
It was pretty well shaded at first, but that didn’t last very long. We were soon out in an open area without cover. There was a bit of a nice view to the north toward the Susquehanna River valley, which was pretty nice.
some sort of dam thing built into the rail culvert
We continued walking to the east a bit, and I knew we were farther down the slope than we should have been in order to follow the Sugar Notch Trail, but it was too late to go back. We were following paths used heavily by ATVs, so it’s not like we weren’t on anything interesting.
We started getting closer to houses off to our left. It looked like a path might lead through, but we ended up almost in someone’s back yard, so we had to go back. A more prominent ATV path ended up leading us out to Riley Street.
Wilkes Barre and Hazleton Railway bed
We turned right and walked through this upper street in the settlement of Sugar Notch, and then turned left on Oak Street briefly. We then went right on Maple, and I was planning to go into the town cemetery and try to head back into the coal area from behind it, but then we decided to make the right turn up Freed Street to the corner where it becomes Maffet Street and try to cut into the former coal fields there.
This worked out very well, and I believe some of what we ended up walking initially was the former Maffet Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey.
Wilkes Barre and Hazleton Railway bed
It was out in this area that the Maffet Breaker used to exist. There were apparently two old mine tunnels down below us somewhere in this area, and the breaker above. We didn’t remain on the branch the entire time, but we headed out into another wide open, unshaded area.
We walked to the east further, and we soon saw a guy and his truck out in the middle of the most open area. We headed over toward him and greeted him as we planned on just walking by. We ended up striking up a good conversation.
some sort of dam spill thingy
I told him what we were doing, and he was rather impressed by it. I told him where we were going, and he started telling us about some sort of tunnel very close by.
“Oh yeah, it’s cool, and it’s right there...”
He pointed toward the woods a short distance away. I asked if it was just barely into the woods and how far, and he elaborated that it was very close. We then changed trajectory to see what he was talking about.
He told us that there was an old reservoir that was up there, but that they did away with it when they built Interstate 81, which is just a bit further up slope. I asked if it was for a colliery or breaker, anything coal related, and he said he thought it was just a drinking water reservoir.
We thanked him and headed up to the corner of the clearing and into the woods. The Sugar Notch Brook flowed out along the left of us, and we soon saw what he was referring to: a large double culvert made of stone on the left and concrete on the right.
We made our way to it, and started heading through the stone one.
Old reservoir site
The stone one was a bit narrower, and dry. The wider concrete one had a the creek flowing through it on the west side, but still had more than enough room to walk.
Once we got to the other side, the remnant of the dam was obvious. The middle section was completely busted out, and it was tied in to the culvert directly. An oblong protrusion in the edge of the culvert was a hollowed drop where gates could be put in to control the flow of water out fo the reservoir. The area where the water was once held back was now a weedy wetland.
The culvert
We climbed up the large fill, which I at first thought was directly related to the dam, but it was not.
This was the right of way of the old Wilkes Barre and Hazleton Railway, first of the third rail interurban lines that operated between the two namesake towns from 1903 until 1933.
Nicknamed “The Cannonball”, the line was not like most of the other interurban railways, which were typically just trolley lines. Although this was mostly passenger, it also saw a degree of frieght.
Naked???
The route even interchanged with the Central Railroad of New Jersey in Ashley. It had just shy of thirty miles of track, and no grade crossings whatsoever.
Wilkes Barre and Hazleton crossing
Prior to its completion, the connection to Hazleton was a fifty mile trip by way of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. The Wilkes Barre and Hazleton significantly shortened that.
Old coal lands
The line did pretty well until the completion of Route 309 made the trip substantially easier between the two towns. The line was abandoned soon after that.
Apparently, when it was constructed, only the stone culvert we went through was in place, and the concrete one was added later. It makes me wonder if this reservoir had anything to do with the railroad, because it was tied in so tightly to that grade. I can’t find much info on it.
We had been on this line once before, the first time we had hiked Ashley Planes.
View at Sugar Notch area
The rail line crossed over the planes and the Solomon Falls, and I said we would come back to follow it again in the near future. We would do that, but not much more than this little spot on this hike.
We checked out some of the drop gate area, and there was a ladder going down into it. Joel tried climbing down some of it, but the rungs were not secure in the cement well enough to make the climb, so he opted not to go down any further. Definitely a smart move.
View in Sugar Notch area
We continued our walk down down from the rail bed, and then through the larger concrete culvert back to the other side. We hopped across the bridge and continued downstream.
View in Sugar Notch area
We didn’t see the guy in the vehicle again, and we headed from the wide open field and then onto a sort of ridge area. It looked like a rail bed for a brief time, but then was obviously a natural ridge. We ended up off trail a bit, but there were not too many weeds.
We headed downhill gradually, and soon came to where South Preston Drive came into view. Part of this appears to be built on the former Central Railroad of NJ Maffet Breaker Branch right of way. We carefully made our way down and walked Preston to the east.
Preston gate
Beyond the gate, the road is apparently open to driving, but we didn’t see a single car. It took us down hill gradually, the the eastern trail head for the Sugar Notch Trail was on the right with a parking area. That was where I was originally intending to come out, but I think we followed a more interesting way anyway.
We continued down the road, which brought us beneath Route 29. We then curved around and intersected with South Main Street. We crossed here directly onto North Preston, which was far less used.
Along Preston
There were no signs saying North Preston, it was just easy to assume it was.
We went up slope here and the old Maffet Breaker Branch used to be parallel to the left I understand. When we leveled off, there was all sorts of junk everywhere. This is apparently the spot all of the locals come to dump shit. There were sofas and all kinds of garbage just laying on either side of the road. Apparently it’s a huge problem around the area.
Preston
Soon, we reached the active railroad crossing. This was the site of both the Central Railroad of New Jersey line as well as the Lehigh Valley Railroad original main, and later passenger main built in the 1860s. The two crossed one another at some point just to the west of there and I believe the active track is the grade of the former CNJ.
We followed this off to the right, and there was a parallel clear ATV path that might have been the Lehigh Valley line that we walked to stay more in the shade at first.
On Preston
We eventually had to get over on the tracks, and we followed them through some light woods. To the right, we could see the giant smoke stack that is one of few remnants of the Huber Breaker facility.
The Huber Breaker was one of the last of the big coal breakers to have existed. Most all of them have been demolished at this point. It was built in 1939 by the Blue Coal Corporation, which was a subsidiary of the Glen Alden Coal Company. Here, coal was washed and broken down to separate impurities.
Heading under 29
Slate was a big problem and tons of it would end up in the mix.
In its heyday, Huber Breaker produced seven thousand tons of anthracite coal per day. Before shipping, the coal was sprayed over with a blue dye for the company’s trademark name.
As coal fell out of favor as a power source, such breakers fell into disuse, and the Huber Breaker closed in 1979. It sat for decades, and there was a group trying to save it as an historic landmark, but they were outbid by a Philadelphia outfit that wanted it for scrap.
Approaching old Huber Breaker site
Demolition of the site was completed almost entirely in 2014. About two buildings and the stack are all that remains of the breaker site today, in poor condition.
Historic view of Huber Breaker
We walked the tracks toward the site, and reached a junction where the active track goes off to the left, toward Wilkes Barre, and an abandoned one goes into some light woods to the right. This was the start of the former Ashley rail yard, which was quite huge.
We continued on along the track and I noticed some sort of culvert, but continued through weeds. It started getting really badly overgrown, but tracks were still in place here.
Junk on Preston
My goal at this point was to try to find where the track went to the base of the Ashley Planes. I didn’t realize it at the time but I was slightly in the wrong spot. We ended up turning back toward the culvert thing, and Justin and others went to check it out more closely.
I was glad he did this, because it turned out to be awesome.
The Solomon Creek flows through here and passes under the entire rail yard. There were two side by side culverts in two separate sets to carry the creek that entire distance.
In the Ashley culvert
We walked through the first culvert a ways through. It was pretty dry in this first one. Water will only flow through it during times of heavy rains.
Former CNJ, right, and LV, left
Once on the other side, we were in the middle of the rail yard, but another set of culverts carried the creek under more tracks. Water flowed through both of the two culverts on that side. We switched sides of the creek, which was quite lovely and would have been a great swimming spot if we were not concerned with the smell of sulfur emanating from it.
We walked through the farther culvert, and the creek had eroded the concrete flood wide open, and cascaded through an amazing trench in the very middle.
North Preston Rd crossing
Toward the far end, we had to jump from shelf to shelf where the water was below. I was a bit concerned that it would not hold my weight as I was jumping.
Former LV grade
There was a lovely little cascade in the middle of this last culvert. Quite an interesting place.
We headed back the way we came, and then up to the track bed again. Someone had affixed a hose to use as a climbing rope on the edge of the culvert.
From here, we headed south into the former Huber Breaker site.
I tried to follow about where I thought the track to Solomon Gap would have been, but it got overgrown and went toward someone’s yard, so we headed out through the open breaker area instead.
Site of Huber Breaker
There was a large brick building straight ahead, so we walked off to it. We were able to walk through the thing, but there was really nothing left inside.
Ashley Yard junction
We exited the other side of this building, and then headed to another one that looked like it was a bit more done up. Someone had put a substantial amount of money into fixing the building up for a more modern use, and then someone trashed it. We could see newer wood work and wall stuff as we walked through.
We headed out the south entrance between some Cedar trees I think, and ended up in the parking lot for the Family Dollar store. We all made the corner to the left on Main Street.
Ashley Yard
Soon, we reached the former bridge site where the Main Street went over the track bed at the base of Ashley Plane #3. Everyone sat here for a break, except a few walked ahead into town because they wanted pizza, and there would be nothing else we would pass along the way.
While waiting, I tried to set up some then and now compilations on the Ashley Planes. I had some good old photos of the area, and I was pretty sure of where they were taken at this point. The only problem was the trees were now too leafed.
Ashley Yard
I climbed into the former railroad cut, and found where the bridge used to be. Some of the stone work of the bridge that had carried the road over the tracks was still in place.
An old switch in Ashley Yard
On the other side, it was very weedy but I still managed to get the shot.
I wasn’t really that hungry, so I didn’t go for the pizza, but I did decided to head over to Family Dollar to find a snack.
The problem here was that I’d forgot to bring a damned mask, so I couldn’t enter the store. I figured I would use a shirt or something, and I don’t remember what I’d decided on, but then I found a relatively new looking mask laying on the ground close to the store. I’m not really worried about any of it, so I grabbed it.
The culvert
I, by no means, have a death wish, but the level of fear right now often makes me want to just go against it completely. As of this writing, I still don’t believe much of what is going on. I know there’s a virus, and it seems like masks are just pushing the fear more. I’m just trying to live as normally as I can.
I ended up buying a dark chocolate bar of some sort, because it won’t melt as quickly, and some chips. It was far cooler on this hike than it had been in the previous days, but still warm enough for melting.
In the old Ashley Yard
We sat there for a little while longer, and realized that only a couple in the entire group were at the pizza place. We opted to just move ahead because the others would walk around a different way anyway to avoid going through water.
Ashley Yard
I didn’t know quite what to expect here, but I knew that we could get beneath Interstate 81 without getting wet as per the Lehigh Coal and Navigation book by David Barber.
Next to the former bridge site, we walked south on Planes Avenue, which paralleled the lower end of Plane 3. When we passed a few houses, we cut into the woods to the left to try to trace the route of the plane. We found it shortly, and there was a somewhat clear enough to walk path on it, and we started heading gradually uphill.
Culvert under Ashley Yard
We continued uphill and eventually it got to be just too overgrown to continue. We bushwhacked slightly downhill and reached the Solomon Creek.
Culvert under Ashley Yard
There were hopping stones across here into a little park type place located off of the end of Davis Street. We were able to walk along the creek a bit here, and then wade in and over it just ahead to reach the giant angled arch culvert that carries it beneath Interstate 81.
This was a really cool culvert, and the left side of it had a walkway through it. It was just perfect. The water was so shallow going through the middle that a lot of us chose to just walk in that anyway. There were some no trespassing signs, but no one around to see us go through it anyway.
Tunnel thing
Once we came out the other side, we walked up along Solomon Creek a bit more and soon reached the Solomon Falls.
There is a giant pipe coming across the pool at the bottom that was placed to provide water for the Huber Breaker below.
The Wilkes Barre and Hazleton Railway (1903-1933) which we had been along just a little earlier, used to cross the Solomon Viaduct just at the top of these falls. The abutments for that bridge still remain today. There are two sections of falls with pools below each.
Solomon Falls historic view with the rail bridge
A group of kids were at the second falls, and making their way back by edging their way along the pipe toward the lower falls. Justin and I climbed up to that area.
The upper Solomon Falls
It’s a fun spot to jump off of the giant pipe into the pool below. I got a couple of shots that somewhat worked for one of my then and now compilations here.
Big culvert
Even though it was freezing cold, and not really a time that I felt it necessary to swim, I jumped in anyway. I got an excellent shot of Joel jumping off of the pipe as well.
We hung out here a little while and waited for the others who had walked from town to show up. They walked up to the Bentley’s Internacional on Old Hazleton Street where we had come in last time to reach the site.
Craig climbed to the top of the falls while we swam and climbed around. Justin took my phone for me while I jumped off of the pipe into the lower falls.
Solomon Falls
Some of the others headed up the hill to the left, and we all climbed up.
We kept to the right of the Solomon Gap cut that the Ashley Plane 1 passed through, and instead remained closer to the creek. Soon, we reached another pool where some of the others were waiting or us. Brittany had jumped in super fast not realizing how cold it was, and was shivering on the edge.
We continued up Plane 3 from here, which is not a bad grade, only 5.7%. We continued to the top, and the ruins at the top of the plane were barely visible under the new foliage all around. We wouldn’t have even known any of it was there save for a bit along the clear path if we hadn’t come up this way a month earlier.
We passed along the brief level between planes 1 and 2, and New Plane 2 continued straight ahead. This one replaced the older one and is the steepest of the three, at 14.6% grade. Old plane 2 went off to the right of there.
Joel jumping at Solomon Falls
Old Plane 2 is much longer and less steep than new plane 2 and had a long level at the top of it that extended out to plane 1, which woul have been somewhat rerouted.
Old Plane 2
Old plane 2 only had a grade of 8.6%.
We walked up it easily at first, but then came to a power line clearing. ATVs clearly use the power line and then a road off to the left, but the plane straight ahead was pretty badly overgrown. We still remained on it, and had to go over some fallen trees and such. Eventually, the woods road/ATV path came back in from the left and the plane route was easy again, but then it shifted away once more. The plane ahead remained a bit clearer however.
Old engine house at the top of old plane 2
Soon, we reached the top of old plane 2, and we could immediately see foundations and such. What we saw first was only a teaser for the amazing stone work of the engine house ahead.
Dry laid stone engine house
The Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company that built the original planes in the 1830s was known for the skilled dry laid stone construction. There was no mortar in any of this amazing work, and it’s holding up incredibly well.
We walked all around the site, and entered the engine pit from the far side where it was easy enough to walk in. There was a cut away on the west side for either drainage or access of some sort. The engine originally employed to power the planes must have been enormous.
Garter Snake eating a toad
We continued from here to the east along the grade between the planes. It was pretty easy to walk, but not very well traveled. It was surprising to me that there were pretty much no ATV tracks in this entire section. We passed another foundation, and then what was probably a reservoir site to the right, which would have been for the engine.
Rock shelter
We continued along the path, and then came across a Garter Snake on the right of way, eating a toad! I had never seen such a thing before, as the toad was more than three times the thickness of the snake’s head. The toad was still quite alive and looking rather annoyed, while the entire rear of it was in the snake’s mouth. It’ll certainly take that snake a very long time to consume such a large toad, and I would imagine it is open to predators during that time. It was quite a sight.
We continued on ahead through a cut, and when we reached the other side we knew why ATVs are not traveling this way.
The old bridge site
There was a large missing bridge site with a deep chasm. More dry laid stone made up the abutments, but it looked very hard to climb down. Joel went down and did it anyway, but the rest of us figured we’d better try to go around. At first, we were looking at going uphill, but there were cliffs, no trail, and it might have been very far out of the way. I opted instead to go to the other side of the cut and climb down, then come up through the chasm itself. I put my phone service back on (I usually leave it in Airplane mode) to let Jillane know what we were doing. She had opted to take a shortcut and follow new plane 2 because it was much more direct, and she made it to plane 1 where she was waiting at the Lehigh Street underpass.
Old rail car wheel in the slope
We climbed steeply down, and I happened upon a broken old rail car wheel. There must at one time have been a derailment and it wasn’t worth trying to lug the heavy wheel back uphill. We then descended steeply into the chasm. The cliffs extended farther downstream than I had anticipated.
It turns out, there were natural rock shelters all under these cliffs, and we soon found ourselves walking through them. This was actually a really cool place to explore. It might be a good one to search for arrowheads. It really is in the middle of nowhere.
We worked our way uphill, and soon reached the bridge site. It was a steep climb back up to the grade, but we managed it.
We continued on the grade to the east, and eventually came to the Solomon Brook, where the track would have crossed to the grade of the original base of plane 1. Here, we turned to the right on another grade, which was lower than where new plane 2 was. The original plane 1 must have gone down slope a bit farther than the last incarnation did in order to meet new plane 2.
Old reservoir site
The grade we were on was probably that old alignment of old plane 1. We soon made our way uphill to the left and reached the engine house I believe for the top of new plane 2.
Power house ruin
It was a concrete structure we kind of missed the previous time. We climbed around it, and then reached the base of plane 1. We walked along the barney pits (where the cables were run, and the “barneys” were affixed to rail cars to pull them up) and continued up plane 1, which had a grade of about 9.3%.
The base of plane 1 is right next to Rt 309, but amazingly didn’t obliterate it. The highway moved away from the plane ahead, and we started gradually climbing.
Bottom of Plane 1
I had seen a nice old stone dam and cascade along the old plane alignment below, and there is another on the left as we headed uphill. After a cut, there was a place where the plane crossed over Solomon Creek. There’s a utility pipe next to the bridge site, which we used to cross, and then climbed up to Rt 309 where it covered over part of the plane.
309 was widened in more recent years, which obstructed much of this, but the northbound is the original road route, because abutments of the original bridge over the plane are visible beyond the pipe that carries Lehigh Street beneath it now.
Former bridge site
Jillane was waiting for us under the bridge in the shade, and we took a little break here. I set up a couple more than and now compilations while we waited.
From here, we headed up Lehigh Street instead of bushwhacking the plane itself to the left. We’d already done that previously anyway. We climbed up to the grade of the plane when we reached the bridge site where it crossed Lehigh Street.
Pretty soon, we were at the top of the plane at the engine house ruins. We looked around here for a bit and I set up more than and now stuff before moving on.
Top of plane 1
This one too is right along the edge of Rt 309, and is amazingly untouched. There was an effort to preserve all of this as a national historic site, but it fell through and a lot of the land went to state game lands, while a lot I think is still private.
Penobscot Cut
Everyone went ahead of me through a rock cut and down toward the former grade crossing and junction site, where the Ashley Planes joined with the other CNJ track built in 1866 in the roundabout route to Ashley.
We continued across the grade crossing and up Sterling Street to reach the old Lehigh Valley main line grade, which is now part of the D&L Trail in this area, an turned right.
This was a nice shady walk for a bit, and led us out to the Mountain Top Trailhead for the D&L Trail at the intersection of Lehigh Street and Rt 437.
LV passenger main
The original Lehigh Valley line, later the passenger main, used to break off at a wye there and went through the property of what is now the fire department. It then crossed the Penobscot Cut over the CNJ line, followed by Rt 309.
We walked over to the cut site, and we could see the concrete abutment of where the LV line used to cross. Previously, we thought stone abutments we saw were part of it, but that turns out to be the predecessor to Rt 437 crossing site.
We turned right on Rt 309 and reached where the railroad had crossed. Only the west side abutment was partially there. It looked like most of it had been blasted away, but some of it was still visible. I climbed up to the right of way, which was much ripped up there, while the others went around and got on a road that could be walked in. I went through the yard of a business and the right of way then became Brown Street. Everyone seemed to catch up, and we soon reached the parking area for State Game Lands 207.
View from the rail bed
There was a grade going off to the left, which I believe was shown as Heslop Road, but it almost looked like it was once a rail spur. I’m not sure on that and can’t find anything on it.
Just ahead, there was a gate and the former Lehigh Valley Railroad grade is in perfect shape and used as a trail. We started following it to the north and west.
On the LV line
At some point, Justin found this weird pink pimp had that he wore for the remainder of the hike.
We followed the grade, and passed by an awesome view of Wilkes Barre to the north at a power line cut.
The section was very secluded, until we started to get closer to Interstate 81. Then, things start to get a little more confusing on this line.
I had used my anthracite railroad kmz file on google earth to figure out where we were going, and I found that the Lehigh Valley line was severed twice by the highway, but it ran in the median between the north and southbound lanes for a while. I wanted to try to walk this.
When the highway appeared, the ATV path moved upslope to the left, but we continued downslope to the right to the edge of the highway. Tim didn’t want to dash across, but I assured him it would be alright. It was only the north/eastbound lane and very easy to get over. Pretty soon, after a bit of walking the highway, we found the grade in the median. It was more overgrown, but railroad ties were still in place on this bit.
LV grade in the middle of the 81 median
We followed this for a bit, and then came to a slanted rock slope where the right of way was again cut away for the south/westbound lanes of traffic. This was a bit tougher to get down, but a lot of fun. There was also a great view to the north.
LV grade in the 81 median
We managed to slide carefully down the rocks, and some of the group went through the weeds to the east of there. Once we were down, we dashed across traffic again, and then walked the shoulder for a bit of time. There is a cut across for police and PENNDOT people to get through, and it was in this area I knew that the grade crosses the highway. I started looking for the rail bed to the north, but we were having trouble finding it. We walked back and forth up the highway for longer than I’d wanted to, and eventually we just bushwhacked down a bit. We did find it, very nice and clear.
Climbin down the slope
Somewhere in this area there was a station site known as Slocum.
We had taken quite a long time on this hike by this point. It didn’t seem that we’d be able to do the entire loop I’d intended before dark. I had wanted to whip around the entire Lehigh Valley grade and go to where the Newport Station used to be, but we just wouldn’t have the time. Instead, we decided at some point that we should cut down to that other grade earlier near the area of Warrior Run, and then head back to do another trip.
The group near Warrior Run on the LV grade
This would actually work out pretty favorably I felt.
I didn’t think about it when we were crossing the highway, but the Wilkes Barre and Hazleton Railway actually passed through the Penobscot Tunnel directly below where the Lehigh Valley line crossed the highway. The east portal of that tunnel is covered over by the highway, but the west is accessible.
The LV line
I figured for a future loop, we could try to follow the Wilkes Barre and Hazleton from the area of Ashley, and then simply switch to the Lehigh Valley line when we got to where the former entered the tunnel, with only a bit of off trail between.
We could then finish the Lehigh Valley grade all the way to Ashley, and visit Concrete City on the way, which was some of what I wanted to do this time.
Happy with the new idea, we all followed Dan down the earliest possible ATV path that went to the right.
What was a clear path ended up petering out. We came to a galvanized rail and no trespassing signs in the middle of nowhere, and we ended up having to go off trail and downhill to the left.
The old DLW breaker branch at the end
Our trajectory was to hit Tomko Ave in Warrior Gap and then take an easy route back to Sugar Notch Trail.
This ended up not being such an easy traverse. The weeds got thicker as we lost elevation, and there were some wetlands. We all kind of started splitting up trying to find the best way through to the road, in a limited amount of wooded space between private homes. I pulled my phone GPS out and started trying to head toward the road.
Eventually, we all made it out of there, but it was a rough go at it.
Historic image of Warrior Run Colliery
We turned right on Tomko, and started heading through the actual gap. The road name changed to Holly Street after an intersection from the right.
Historic image of the Sugar Notch Breaker
Ahead, we were passing through more coal lands. To the left was the former Warrior Run slopes. Just before we reached the first intersection at Slope Street, the branch of the Lehigh Valley passenger line we had been following terminated at the former site of the Warrior Run Colliery.
Truesdale Breaker
We turned to the right on Slope Street, which went through a neighborhood and then angled uphill to the left a bit. Before the next house on the right, as we headed north further into town, there was an ATV path going off to the right with a cleared area on the right of that. This was an old coal area I knew, and it actually led right back to the woods near the Sugar Notch Trail where we started it looked perfect.
This actually turned out to be an old branch of the Lackawanna Railroad that went out to serve the Hadley Breaker. It broke away from the same branch that served the Truesdale Breaker to the west, which was once the world’s largest coal breaker.
Justin gave his hat away
We skirted this open area, and then got into the woods. More of these grades were probably once rail grades, but I don’t have them shown anywhere as such. Eventually, we reached where we had turned in the morning, and went downhill to the left to get back to the cemetery in Sugar Notch. Justin took his pimp hat and brought it over to the big crucifix, and put it on Jesus’s head.
From here, most of us went over to the nearest Taco Bell to have a Taco Bell parking lot party again. Most places are not yet open indoors, and so this has sort of become the norm lately. It was a nice time anyway, and I always enjoy our times sitting in the parking lot and talking about life.
HAM
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