Hike #1375; Easton Area Loop

 

Hike #1375: 11/25/20 Easton Area Loop with Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell, Kirk Rohn, Jennifer Tull, John DiFiore, Dr. Michael Krejsa, Justin Gurbisz, and Scott "Tea Biscuit" Helbing

There is a saying that appropriately describes nights like this one : "Can't make this sh*t up".
Night hikes have always been a little madcap, as attempting one by nature already can be defined as such. But this one ended up somewhat above and beyond what we'd usually have.

Easton is always a great place to have the hikes, and this one was no exception.
I guess we must have just looped from the brewery and used that as a meeting point. I think I parked on street near there rather than back in the lot behind it there, although there was also a time that I chose to park down the road at a nearby grocery store for one of them up there around this time, but I'm not sure if that was this time.
We got some food and drink and hung out outside for just a bit. It's become customary to do a hike around Easton on a night around Thanksgiving, and it's always a really fun time. In fact, Kirk's first hike with us was just this particular hike a couple of years before. We kind of scared him after that first one so it took him a while before he came back out to join us again!

For this one, he wanted there to be a hike that we went by his friend Andys' place. He told me about the eccentricities of this guy that sounded like they'd be too fun to pass up, so I planned this.

As the first bit of awesome stuff for the evening, Weyerbacher was having a free turkey door prize, and Dr Mike won it! He already had a turkey he said, so he told Tea Biscuit he could have it.
We started the hike right from the brewery by walking out the back of it and into the Hay's Cemetery as we'd done different times before.
We headed across the cemetery and along its roads out to the northeast corner on the way down hill, and onto Iron Street. We followed that downhill from there to the west side of Mauch Chunk Park, which had a little trail section through it. We followed that east just a little bit, and then got to the apartments of condos known as Heritage Hills. The sidewalks through the development took us out to Canal Street where it closely parallels the former Lehigh Valley Railroad tracks.

My plan at this point was the same as usually when we wander down the hill: we would cross over the active railroad tracks, double tracked at that point, and simply step down to Lehigh Canal Lock #47, which used to lift boats 8.6 feet. It was also a double lock for opposing traffic, but only one of them remains uncovered, with the lock still in place and working.

The problem we had here was that there was a train parked on the near track, but nothing on the far.
I assumed right away that this train was probably there because it was waiting for another to go past. It was kind of quiet, and we had a ways to go. Rather than wait forever. I said we could just climb over the first one, which was just a flatbed car, and then scurry across the second track to get to the canal. There has always been a little trail across at this point and it only takes a couple of seconds to get over. We all started climbing over and most of the group got to the other side when a train appeared in the distance. We had to hurry out of there or we would be stuck waiting for the train. I can't remember totally, but I think a couple might have been stuck waiting.

Once we were all safe and able to continue, we made our way west on the canal.
I recall we went down from the towpath onto the paved parallel trail where it goes by some of the old ironworks ruins and such, but they had all been totally demolished recently. Not so long ago, we could crawl into some of the ruins, but there were a lot of homeless people taking shelter in the still covered sections, so the city knocked down what remained of them. I'm not happy about it because not only is it taking some shelter away from the homeless, it was rather pointless destruction of history along the old canal.

We followed the trail out to Hugh Moore Park and then turned to the right across the Old Glendon Bridge, now the route of the D&L Trail. We went only a short distance, and then turned to the right uphill on the side trail that came out to the Easton Children's Home property, which was originally the Firmstone Estate built in 1917.
We went by the building, and then headed uphill through grass into the ball fields of the Wilson Area Intermediate School. 
We crossed the field to the north, and then meandered some of the back streets to around Hillside Avenue and 25th Street. There, we got on the long abandoned Easton and Northern Railroad, which is now paved through as a trail.

We followed the rail bed to the west, and then north, over Freemansburg Ave and then across William Penn Highway where the Walgreens was built over it.
We continued on the trail there to the north, passed the old Dixie Cup Factory, and then turned to the left before Northampton Street to pay a visit to the Taco Bell. Kirk ordered a Steak Quasarito with extra steak, and so I ordered the exact same thing. I think Uncle Soup followed suit, and he treated all of us to the yums.

Because of the pandemic crap, Taco Bell was still not offering inside dining, and we couldn't even order inside. They set up a window outside form which we could order. At least there was that.
We had our food, and then continued on our way. I came up with a bit of a route that would be a rehash of some of the stuff I'd done in the past from here.
We crossed 25th Street from the Taco Bell area after crossing the lots, and then reached the north end of the property of the Easton Area High School, closely parallel with the on ramp and Rt 22. There is a good grassy path in a section of woods that follows parallel with the highway.
This route took us out to Greenwood Ave. We crossed and then continued a short distance on Charlotte Ave.
Justin and I had previously continued parallel with 22 here and had some guy in a shirt and tie follow us for a while like he was going to scold us, but we walked too fast. He eventually tucked tail and went back to his office a failure.
This time, at the end of the road, we cut slightly to the right and over open fields out to the ball fields behind St Jane Frances Church. We just remained in the ball fields out to Nulton Avenue in a new development, and at that road there is a paved trail called Laubach Lane that leads directly out to Bethman Road. We turned left here and started following it to the south.
Kirk couldn't figure out what I was doing or planning, and he started saying somehow in this area that maybe he should text Andy that we wouldn't be coming, because we were so far out of the way. I assured him that I knew what we were doing, and we would get there.

After a little ways down Bethman, we reached the Northampton Country Club and walked directly across the green to the right.
We were able to follow this west all the way out across Chipman Road and continued on the golf course on that side.
At this point, we were veering a little too close to the club house building, and so we had to adjust to the north just a bit. We then came out to Country Club Road where we turned to the left for just a bit. We then reached William Penn Highway.

From here, we went directly into a parking area across from the intersection, but then went right into somewhat recently plowed down fields.
I had originally intended to follow some roads from this point, but it was so dark and no one would see us, so I figured we would just stay in the fields for a bit.
We stayed in the fields somewhat parallel with Hope Road to the south. The road doesn't follow exactly its historic course, as it was more of a straight line down to the Lehigh River and Canal, but development on Rt 33 and Freemansburg Road forced it to be moved. The road was so named for Hope or Hopeville along the river, associated with "Hope Lock" on the Lehigh Canal, also known as Lock #46.

When Hope Road turned a bit, we stayed in the fields, went around some sort of industrial building to the right, and then climbed a slope between evergreens and such planted on a berm behind the Lowes Home Improvement Center.
This was an oddball area for us, as we gazed off from the fields and the berms, there was a purple hue on the thick clouds above us.
It didn't look right, but it definitely sort of looked like some sort of natural phenomenon. 
We looked at it and tried guessing what it was for quite a while, but to no avail.

We turned right to go around the Lowes, and then cut directly through the parking lot to the southeast toward the new intersection with Hope Road and Freemansburg Road.

We had to do a brief turn to the left on Freemansburg Road, and then to the right on Hope Road in order to continue. We then went onto the entrance road to a satellite hospital property to get to the former Central Railroad of New Jersey branch that connected from the main line to the Easton and Northern. We turned right on that and headed gradually down.

We passed under Rt 33, parallel with Hope Road but at a higher level, followed along a shelf, and then passed beneath Rt 33 again at the large bridge over the Lehigh River. Just a little after that, a side trail breaks off to the left and climbs uphill a bit away from the railroad bed. We turned here.
This took us out to the intersection of Chain Dam Road and Stones Crossing Road. The trail was probably once a continuation of Chain Dam Road.
From this point, it was actually a pretty cool spot where they had made the road one way only traffic. The former eastbound land was now striped for pedestrian and bicycle use only. 

There were literally almost no cars on this road at all. It was high above the river, and barely any leaves, so we had ambiant lights from the distance as we walked.
The road mostly followed the cliff top, and most homes were on the left side. Several of them were stately, historic homes.
Only a few homes during the course of the road were on the right side, and one of them was Kirk's friend, Bad Ass Andy.
Andy is a very interesting character, and when we showed up he was wearing a full captain's uniform and hat. His house had scaffolding and some roof work was currently underway. In the yard was the most peculiar boat we'd ever seen.

The boat was a "land yacht"; Andy had affixed wheels on the boat, as well as a rather low power engine so that the thing would drive on the road!
I'd heard about the guy before, and in fact Tea Biscuit was apparently talking to him at the gas station with the boat one time while he was fueling up.
I must at this point reiterate that we were all in very high spirits and had started this hike off at Weyerbacher. That party did not in any way end when we left the brewery.
As such, when Andy asked us if we'd like to go for a ride on the Land Yacht, there was an enthusiastic, unanimous YES.

We all were able to climb aboard the thing, still drinking, and completely enamored with the fact that we were driving down the road we had just walked on a boat. It was just so odd.
This was not nearly the end of this crazy fun.
Andy piloted the boat back into the driveway, we all got out, and then he decided he was going to do a demonstration of his flame thrower.
It was rather obviously a home made contraption. He fueled it up, and we went across the street to begin burning off his grass. 

Several of us got the opportunity to play with the flame thrower, which was admittedly pretty fun when I tried it.
I particularly loved watching Uncle Soup have fun with it. His age really never matters, nor does anyone's. He's just one of us having a great time, and I hope that when I'm pushing 80 years old that I'm still able to have such fun, out late at night and having the time of my life.
When everyone had had their fill of crazy flame thrower fun, it still wasn't over. Bad Ass Andy came out with throwing stars. Shuriken, a sharp martial arts throwing weapon, and told us we could throw them at his barn.

So, we stood in the street and were taking turns throwing the stars at the doors. The doors obviously faced this before, and there were holes in it where you could see the light inside. I wondered if this kind of thing could continue to where eventually we're throwing stuff into the building.
Andy warned us that we would probably have bloody hands before we got done throwing these things. I think he may have made them himself.
Sure enough, myself and I don't know who else had bloody hands from throwing these things.
This was just such a madcap thing, and Andy didn't have anything else like that after to pull out.

He half jokingly made a comment that we could all go up and start tearing off the old shingles from his roof for his reroofing project. We were all so bombed that Sean said later that he was thinking "That sounds like a good idea...".
It's certainly a good idea that we did not engage in such activity or some of us would likely have ended up dead!
Kirk, by this time, was completely bombed beyond the ability to walk, and so we left him in the care of Bad Ass Andy.
No one seemed to think that was a bad idea at the time either, although sober we might have questioned ourselves (Kirk ended up being fine, and he was still doing the hike the next day, as he commented on the photos I'd posted "I'm still on this hike now" because he walked back to his truck).

We eventually were on our way out of there and heading further down Chain Dam Road.

When we reached the end of Chain Dam Road at Southwood Drive, we turned hard to the right and followed the paved trail steeply down toward the Lehigh River to Chain Dam, where the fish ladder is.
This is so named because there was a chain ferry to carry canal boats across the slack water behind the dam. This went on from 1829 until the 1840s when the canal towpath route was changed to upstream a bit.
The path also passes beneath the stone culvert of the Central Railroad of New Jersey. Rather than go through, we climbed up the culvert edge here and began following the railroad bed to the west.

We continued along the rail bed until the D&L Trail turned away from it and back across the Old Glendon Bridge. We were tired, but felt pretty great.

On the other side, we got back on the Lehigh Canal towpath and began heading toward where we started. I thought that we might have shuttled from Phillipsburg for this one, but I think we just started from Weyerbacher. I don't remember going back up the hill because it was so late probably, but I do remember Tea Biscuit cutting away from us earlier and decided to walk all the way home by way of Glendon when we got there instead of following our route. Maybe we all went over the New Glendon Bridge and then went up.
Whatever the case, it was just a crazy fun night. The kind of night that makes us feel alive and like everything is worthwhile. The kind where we get up in the morning and say "No one would believe this", but we lived it, and we're truly the lucky ones.