Hike #1457; Easton/Palmer Loop

Hike #1457; 11/24/21 Easton/Palmer Area Loop with Jennifer Tull, Kirk Rohn, Professor John DiFiore, Carolyn Gockel Gordon, and Everen

This next one would be a big loop around the Easton area with my son and my friends. I wanted to get some more stuff done before it got too cold to be able to take him out for the year.

I had started taking Ever to his doctors appointments during the week. I'd gone back to work already, but I still had more benefit time than I'd ever be able to use, so I was happy to take the time off to go hiking with him.

I planned this next one and posted it as a group hike so more of my friends would have an opportunity to meet Ev, which was great.

His mother was making most of his appointments in the afternoon because she doesn't do mornings, but I prefer mornings because it means the entire day is still new and I can put in a long hike with him.
He was doing regular physicals because he was premature, as well as physical therapy.

He was said to have something called Torticollis, where he turned his head more to one direction than the other.
I don't think it was that big a deal, but my benefits are good and it covered the physical therapy, so I was happy to take the day and spend it with him.
I would make the appointments any time between 7:30 and 8:30, whatever was available, and then head out to hike from there.
This time, I made it pretty close by in Easton. We'd meet at the former K Mart area lot over near the Wendy's and Taco Bell off of 25th Street to begin the loop.
John came along and brought his bike with him, so he'd do the entire hike on that.

I sometimes plan some of my trips around doing the then and now photos that I wanted to set up locally, and I had one I wanted to get at Iron Street to the southeast of us on the former Easton and Northern Railroad bed. So that would be out trajectory for the first part of this. 
The Lehigh Valley Railroad was the operator of the Easton and Northern line, which was built in the mid 1890s from the Lehigh Valley main line up to the Stockertown area where it met up with other lines including the Lackawanna and Lehigh and New England. It was in operation here until 1983.

I had been doing hike son this line since about 2002. I decided I would try to hike through on the entire thing, which was really enjoyable pretty much from the start. The part just north of where it crossed the Lehigh River was the only part that was really terrible bushwhacking.
Now, much of this line is a rail trail. The first bit of it was not trail at all when we first did it, just clear right of way, and there was a bridge over 25th Street by where the Walgreens is now.
That bridge was torn out shortly after that first hike I did on it, and after the Walgreens was built, a trail was put on it and extended around that building to William Penn Highway. 

Kermit Geary photo

From William Penn Highway, the section has been a trail for years, since even before my first group hike on it. The trail section went from there behind a shopping plaza, which has been totally reconstructed, but the trail seems the same. 

The trail heads south and crosses Freemansburg Ave, and then goes out to 25th Street again. Back in 2002, the trail ended right there, but now it goes through.
Some of the industries that used to stand to the north side of the trail just after that crossing are all gone. The buildings had sat abandoned for some time, and now it's all new stuff.
The trail continues out beneath 23rd Street, where the original concrete bridge with metal stanchions was replaced by a concrete culvert of smaller size. The trail only continus a short distance beyond this culvert, and ends at an access to Wilson Manor Apartments.

Fro here, I would have continued on the right of way ahead, but in normal situations we would climb down the slope when we got to the Iron Street Bridge. This time, I had the stroller and it'd be harder.

I think we went just a little farther on the right of way and then took a path out that brought us into Wilson Manor. Either way, we skirted the edge of the property and descended on grass heading more steeply down hill than the road would have taken us.

We got to Iron Street and turned to the right beneath the railroad bridge, which had a steel plate girder section, and otherwise a wooden superstructure made of huge timbers.
Many of these timbers today are rotten through the middles terribly. I'm afraid the  bridge, and probably the nearby Spring Street bridge to the east, will have to be demolished. That wood won't hold all that much longer and will certainly collapse under its own weight.
I set up my next then and now compilation, this time using an early 1970s photo by Kermit Geary of a Lehigh Valley Railroad train passing over the top. 

From this point, my route was to follow Iron Street uphill to the south, over the crest of the hill, and then straight ahead, downhill where it changes names to Glendon Hill Road.

The road is a pretty nice one which afforded us some views through the trees and along a cleared power line to the Lehigh River and beyond to Glendon and South Easton.
Once we got to the bottom of the hill, we turned to the right onto the former Central Railroad of New Jersey, which is now rehabilitated and is part of the D&L Trail to the west.

We started following that, from near the Old Glendon Bridge to beneath the New Glendon Bridge, then across Lehigh Drive and into Riverview Park. Here, we turned to the left from the rail bed through the park, across the grass and out to the paved trail that follows more closely to the Lehigh River.

This second paved path was originally the trolley track bed, though it is much lesser known than the other rail trail to the north. We followed this out to Chain Dam.

Chain Dam was originally built to provide slack water navigation on the Lehigh River for the Lehigh Canal. At that time, the first incarnation of the canal involved a chain ferry across the river where canal boats would switch from the south side to the north. The dam took its name for this, but the towpath was shifted and moved to the west onto an amusement park island later, and the original ferry was abandoned.
The dam that stands today is just barely downstream from the original dam. I went through the weeds and fond the north abutment of the original one a while back.

At this point, there is a lovely stone culvert beneath the former Jersey Central tracks, which was used by the trolley. We turned to the left here and the paved side trail continues rather steeply uphill and then comes out at Chain Dam Road.

The road is actually really very cool now; it is only one way, westbound, as the eastbound lane was cut off entirely to all but pedestrian (bike and foot) traffic. I had hiked this once before as part of a night hike not so long ago, and it ended up being great. I said on that hike that I needed to walk this road during the day because it was so nice, and so this ended up being that occasion.

While walking the road, there was a very handsome old stone house to the right side, which I think was probably the historic Coleman House. I am uncertain the original date of construction, but recognize at least 2 additions were made to the original one and a half story stone dwelling.
The original segment looks consistent with mid 1700s construction, while the more fine cut stone to the right was gaining prominence in the early 1800s. The brick segments are likely between 1880s and 1910s.
Again, this is assumption based on similarities to other area structures.

More views continued to the south during most the entire course of the road, and a little ways further down we came upon a spot we had stopped on a night hike a bit over a year before.
Kirk's friend "Bad Ass Andy" who lives on Chain Dam Road is on pretty much the only residential property on the south side of the road, and has the most amazingly eccentric stuff we've ever come across.
While blasted in the middle of the night, Andy took us for a ride on his "land yacht", a boat rigged up with wheels to ride on the road, and we also threw shuriken and played with a flame thrower.
The land yacht was parked on his property across the street from the house as well.

Throughout the entire course of the road, Southwood Drive and Greening Drive were the only two roads that connected with Chain Dam Road coming in from the north, with cliff slope to the left.

The D&L Trail on the old Jersey Central right of way was below the cliffs from here, but this road walk section was as nice as most any trail, so I was really glad that we chose to take this route during the daylight.
We continued from Bad Ass Andy's house along the slopes, and came to where Stones Crossing Road came in from the right, at the end of vehicle access on Chain Dam Road.
Ahead, abandoned road continues on down hill gradually, which is either the former alignment of Chain Dam Road or Stones Crossing Road. Whatever the case, it is a trail now and we continued down it.
The trail continued gradually to reach the Central Railroad of New Jersey spur that led up to the Easton and Northern line to the northeast.

This section too is now paved as a trail and has been for some time, from the Freemansburg boat launch near Rt 33 all the way to Wilson.
We followed the rail bed to the west and beneath Rt 33.
From there, the rail bed turned to the north and went parallel with Hope Road. This is named for Hope Lock on the Lehigh Canal just below, where the road terminated. 

We continued on the trail up beneath Rt 33 again, then out to an access onto Hope Road to the north.
Hope Road used to continue on more directly to the north, but it was realigned with the construction of Rt 33 and the on ramps to it.
We turned left when we got to Freemansburg Ave and followed it out to cross over Rt 33.

There weren't always good crosswalks in this area, so we were careful to make sure we had plenty of space to cross.
It seemed like there was inconsistency with where there were ramps and such for pedestrians, and where there was any striping or signage for where pedestrians could walk.

Once we were away from the southbound on ramp, there was grassy land to the left that was part of the hospital land, St. Luke's Anderson Campus. We turned into the grass and headed south.

We soon came out behind a small building with a paved access lane leading out to the big parking lots to the south.
We walked this and then began walking through the parking lots.
My next plan was to get to the trail system behind the Anderson Campus, which hardly anyone uses, but is actually pretty nice.
At the end of the first parking lot we crossed over more grass and headed to another lot, and from there to a trail around a pond and a little pavilion building of sorts. We took a break there because there was no wind, and there were garbage cans everywhere. It was a good spot to do a diaper change again.

Once that was all squared away, we headed onto the trail to the south, which was at first paved. To the south of this paved road, another trail broke off and went through open former farm fields.

The trail headed all the way to the southeast side of the fields, and turned to the right to the west along them.
I had hiked this before as part of a night hike as well, but it was just another of those trails I had never seen in the daylight before, so I really quite enjoyed it.
The trail continued to the west side of the field and then turned to the north, and shortly paralleled Cramers Lane.
The trail turned back to the right into the field where it went around a rather pointless loop, but we took a mowed entrance out to Cramers Lane where we began to follow that to the north, just as I had done on the night hike. The road doesn't really look public, but we didn't have any trouble.

We took the road north to the intersection with Star Drive, and in the past we continued straight ahead on the abandonment of the rest of the road, but I think this time because I had the stroller, we went over to University Drive to the west to cross over Freemansburg Ave.
On the other side, there was the Chipotle Mexican Grill, and we decided to stop in there for our lunch.
I had wanted to use a burger place that we'd used in the past just to the west, but I think they had since closed down.
Once we were done eating, we went west over Madison Blvd, and continued parallel with Freemansburg Ave until we got to beyond the next access road to parking lots.

Just behind the next food concession places, there was a paved trail that turned to the north. It followed planted lines of trees between the retail stuff and retention ponds to the east, and new residential developments to the west.
The trail continues on to the Bethlehem Township Community Center, and Bethlehem Township Municipal Park, then continues north.
I think we just continued north along the right side of the parks, and then one of the paved trails turned to the right to come out on a road called Baglyos Circle. We followed the road back out to Emrick Blvd, and then cut into a park directly across the street from there. We then turned right behind businesses and through their rear parking lots heading to the south.

This didn't quite go as well as I thought it might. We headed south behind buildings parallel with Emrick, but one of them eventually had a fence separating between the different properties, so we had to go back out to Emrick again to head south.

The last one was the most complicated. The Courtyard Marriott and Ruby Tuesdays were close together, and I figured we would just be able to follow mowed areas from this right on back to Freemansburg Ave and head east, but it was fenced off pretty badly.

The rest of the group could get over or around it pretty easily. John had his bike but he still managed to get through some sort of weird way. I turned back around and went all the way around by the Ruby Tuesdays. I didn't want to take any chances trying to lift the stroller up with Ev if I didn't have to.

We got back to Freemansburg Ave, and turned to the east again. 
Jillane was already texting me and angry that I wasn't done hiking with the baby yet. Ev seemed to be enjoying it pretty well, and I was happy to be out, but I didn't want to cause any more problems, so we went for a more direct route back. At this point, we'd hit more than enough miles to do what I was planning this time.

We turned left into a development when we got to Ohio Street and headed north for a bit, then turned right when we reached Penacook Drive. We followed that to Hodle Avenue.

Almost directly across this intersection and slightly to the left was an access trail to the former Central Railroad of New Jersey line to Wilson that we had followed earlier.
We followed that north and east past Chetwin Terrace Park, over Sheridan Drive, and over Stones Crossing Road. It was all through residential areas, and then skirted Fairview Park to the right.
Somehow the group either got way ahead of me or I got way behind them at this point, and I went down into Fairview Park, I think because I wanted to do another diaper change and was taking advantage of the trash cans.

From there, I continued across Mine Lane Road, and then Greenwood Ave and Milford Street. Beyond that point, the railroad bed used to go to the right a bit, but the trail continues up a bit higher along some industrial properties. The trail now connects on a slope down to the Easton and Northern line again, while the actual junction used to be just down to the south.
We continued back north to cross the William Penn Highway again, where we had been earlier, skirted the side of the Walgreens, and then came to the crossing of 25th Street again.

I looked around at possibilities to set up some then and now compilations at this point, using my own photos I had taken while hiking this in 2002.

I had one of the group hiking toward the bridge that once went over 25th Street, and others walking the right of way parallel with the old Dixie Cup Factory that still stands parallel with the trail.
I fell behind some of the group trying to get modern versions of these shots, but at that point we were so close to the end point that it really mattered none. We were basically finished.

I got one shot looking toward the former bridge site, but I didn't have my older shot to refer to for it, so I ended up taking mine horizontally when my original one was vertical.

Now that it's been twenty years since I got all of those photos back in early 2002, it's tempting to go back and do then and nows of all of my stuff. When I hit twenty years, it's more worth it to do all of them.

Still, there are so many other more historic photos to emulate, and I have more than one thousand of them set up as it is.
When we got over by the Taco Bell, we descended from the railraod bed, and most of the others were already waiting for me in the lot I suppose to make sure I made it back alright.
I was so glad that the group was able to make it out again, but wish I could have had a bigger showing. I can't really expect too much for a week day. Carolyn got to meet the baby for the first time, so that was good. Still, I have so many friends that have never met him yet and it had already been so long, and he'd done so much hiking with me.
There are so many hikes I want to do with Ev while he is still in the stroller.
It just happens that the entire Great Allegheny Passage is strollerable, as is the entire Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and that's what I have reached when it comes to all of the big hikes I have planned. Unfortunately his mother is not supportive of me bringing him out with the group, and so I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of time we could share together.

I really want Ev to meet people and be used to them, not end up some sort of hermit or afraid of engaging with anyone. I feel it's something I was very lucky to have with my grandfather, learning to articulate and speak authentically to people around, just like he always does with his clients. 

I hope that it is something that Ev will be able to pick up from me, and that it will help to forge a life that is fulfilling and full of love and happiness.