Hike #1499; South Bethlehem Loop

Hike #1499; 8/7/22 South Bethlehem Loop with Stephen Argentina, Jack Lowry, Sarah Jones, Joe Pinto, Steve Sanbeg, Serious Sean Dougherty, Ela Ravin, Diane Reider, Professor John DiFiore, Jenny Tull, Robin Deitz, Jim "Mr. Buckett" Mathews, Anne M, Elizabeth Manner, Violet Chen, and Mike Piersa

I’d been doing the March on Musikfest hike annually since 2005, and even during the pandemic when it was canceled, I still did a hike there anyway, so it has been a tradition for 17 years. It is always well attended, and so I’m really obligated to do it.

There are plenty of trails, amazingly, all around the Bethlehem area that I have not yet incorporated into one of these hikes, so it’s not that big a deal for me to keep doing them.
The only problem that I have is that I’m so crazy on doing all of these series I’ve been working on, that my obligatory hikes end up getting in the way of doing more of them.

At this point, I can’t just get out to western Pennsylvania, and even though it would be easy to bring my son on them, his mom won’t have anything to do with the group.

As such, doing something like this is a great thing.
At some points, we barely even get to experience Musikfest when doing these hikes, so this time I allotted some time to make sure we at least walked through it. 

The hike would be a loop starting from the official Musikfest parking at Iqor in South Bethlehem, and it would include popular spots as well as the Walking Purchase Preserve, which has more trails than we’ll ever get around to completing all of.

We got everyone together after meeting at the Iquor, and started walking to the east pretty directly, up and along Rt 412 briefly, and then around the old Bethlehem Steel high house to the Wind Creek Casino, formerly known as The Sands.

We turned to the right beneath the parking garage, then to the left through the flower beds and such in the back. We continued on down a slope on the other side of the buildings heading west, and a lot of construction had been going on. 

Another tall building had recently been built that obscured the view of the old Bethlehem Steel stacks from the Minsi Trail Bridge.

We continued closer to the former Lehigh Valley Railroad tracks to the right than we used to be able to around the casino, but then turned to the south a bit more when we got closer to the Hoover Mason Trestle section of the steel structures.

We climbed up the steps to the Hoover Mason Trestle, and there were already lots of people up there or on their way up there. We had already begun singing songs and such as we walked. Jack had his signature carbon fiber acoustic guitar, and Serious Sean had his electric, and the good times were ramping up well.

Bethlehem has roots in the iron industry dating back to the first industrialization of the site in 1857 as the Saucona Iron Company. The name changed in 1861 and Bethlehem Iron Company operated on the site until 1899, when the owners of the company founded the Bethlehem Steel Company. Five years later, the Bethlehem Steel Corporation was founded to be the steel company's corporate parent.

The American Steel Industry faltered in the 1970s, and Bethlehem Steel ceased all metal production on this site in 1995. Bankruptcy was filed in 2001, and dissolution of the corporation took place in 2003.

The amazing views from the Hoover Mason trestles that were used by both broad and narrow gauge railroads to carry coke, limestone, and iron ore are no longer possible due to the major redevelopment of Bethlehem Steel as the Sands Casino, now Wind Creek Bethlehem, are hoped to be preserved.

 Fortunately, the Hoover Mason Trestles themselves are open to walkers to get up close and personal with the blast furnaces.

We followed them all the way to their west end and descended back to street level. We then headed to the south, near the Museum of Industrial History, and over Rt 412 to reach the former North Penn Branch of the Reading Railroad, also known as the Bethlehem Branch, now a greenway trail through the town.
I had been following this rail bed since long before it was a trail, and I remember rails being in place on most of it. It’s really odd to see it as a trail now.
Since the last time I’d done it, there had been more new stuff added along this. In the past, we’d come across playgrounds and oddities, but this time there was a sort of Asian themed pavilion and other stuff.

The trail ends at New Street, and construction was going on by a pedestrian bridge between buildings that had been constructed there. We went out to 3^rd Street, and I figured we had to figure out the best back street way of getting to the trail system I wanted to get to.

I decided that a brief left and then a right on Broadway would give us the best option.

We headed uphill a bit, and then there was a Wendy’s on the left, CVS on the right. It was super hot out, so we took a break here, and a lot of us sort of bummed around in CVS for probably far longer than was necessary. I was already having a pretty good time.

I got some snacks and such there, and we continued up Broadway from there.
Joe was talking to me about his time being there, having gone to Lehigh University, which was a major party school. I attended a few really great ones there back in the mid 2000s that were awesome. In fact, parties were going on in multiple dorms during multiple nights, or rather apartments, and we could just wander around through them.

Joe talked about all the trips he had made while there, to the different establishments he’d frequent and everything. This must have been more of a blast from the past for him than it ever could have been for me.

We continued uphill on Broadway for a lot longer than I’d wanted to in such an open area, and turned to the right along Bishopthorpe Street I think it was in order to reach the Saint Luke’s University Hospital. Behind the campus was an entrance to the Walking Purchase Preserve I had first used many years ago coming from the west.

I couldn’t remember exactly where we’d come out, but I was confident we would find it.

We headed into a pretty large parking area behind the hospital, and walked all the way to the end of it looking for where the trail would go in. I was surprised that it wasn’t immediately obvious. I thought for sure this was where we had come out.
We went back along the edge of the lot, because I thought I saw an obscure trail, but told myself that could not have been it.

It turns out the obscure trail that I had seen was it, but I didn’t quite recognize it at first. We had to bushwhack up a little bit, and soon got to the trail I was looking for. A tree had fallen over the trail that connected to the hospital property, and so people hadn’t been using it and it got overgrown.

We immediately came upon impressive big trees once we got into the woods, and the main trail system was incredibly well maintained.
There is an official map of the preserve that really isn’t very accurate to compare with google maps, which don’t show the trail system really at all, and then the Trailforks website, which seems to show it more correctly. I had an idea of following a very long route through the preserve looping through, but doing the longest possible route through this would put us very far over fifteen miles. I had to again amend my plan to make it work for what we were trying to do.

The first main clear trail we were on was the Upper Orange. We turned left and climbed on that a bit.

A yellow trail went further up to the left as we continued, and I original thought to follow that, but we chose against that this time and continued onto Upper Red Trail, which took us farther to the west.
This lasted for a good long while, and was quite nice.
It is possible we might have been on the Lower Red earlier and I didn’t realize it. Somehow we got screwed around out there, took on a really interesting section of trails that had tight switchbacks and amazing rock work, and then ended up traveling back to the east, rather closely parallel with a power line. 

This couldn’t be right.
I had to stop everyone, and then we had to bushwhack up to the power line clearing.

John was keeping mileage, and I think Sean had an app that showed it pretty well too. Whatever was going on, some of the trails were just not matching up.
We got up to the power line and then just turned right to follow that west. It was taking us in the direction we needed to go for sure, and was a much easier and wider walk. It wasn’t too terribly sunny because there was some shade from the trees on the left.

The red trail eventually crossed over the power line and continued up to the left, but we were not going to follow that. We went down and direction to Cardinal Ave, a nice unpaved road that runs through the middle of the preserve down to the Lehigh River.

Just a little bit north of the power line, there is another trail that parallels Cardinal and heads down toward the river closely parallel with it. We turned here.

The trail is actually called Spanky Trail (I shit you not). We followed Spanky Trail down along a nice slope to reach the parking area at the intersection of Constitution Drive and Cardinal Drive.

We hung out at the bottom for a little bit, and pretty soon a train came by on the former Lehigh Valley Railroad tracks. These were in many cases double high containers on flat bed cars.

This train had been going west, and we hung around at this site singing some songs, then before we knew it another eastbound Norfolk Southern train was passing by us.

After the train went by, we turned right onto the closed portion Constitution Drive, which crosses the railroad at grade ahead and leads to a gated section. The road used to continue on through to South Bethlehem and changes to Riverside Drive on the other side.

We crossed the tracks and continued on the old road to the east for a bit. It wasn’t very long until there was the first good spot to descend and go for a dip in the Lehigh. It was so hot out, we needed it badly, so we took advantage of the spot.

We hung out here for a good while, and I went all the way across the Lehigh and back.

When we finally moved on from this site, we continued on the woods road to the east a little bit. We then descended by way of a side path we had used when we hiked this section a couple of years back. 

On that trip, we had found a jeep crashed down along the Lehigh in the flood plain, and Lerch climbed through the busted windshield like the vehicle was giving birth to him.
This time, there was no sign of the jeep. I don’t know if someone went and got it out, or if it just washed down the Lehigh the next time there was a flood. We did find one shell of a vehicle with barely anything left, but it didn’t look like it could have been a jeep.

We made our way out to a very nice little sandy spot with some shade, and a sort of stony beach where we decided to take a dip again. The river was shallow for farther out from this spot, so we hung out here for a while as well.

While there, a utility vehicle was coming by and making tall splashes. Many in the group were really annoyed by the behavior, but they didn’t keep it up for long. After we started walking ahead, they took over the spot where we were hanging out.

We continued along the paths beside the river for a bit. I don’t think I’d ever followed all of these before. They went up and down a bit on undulating terrain between the flood plain and the old road atop the hill. Eventually we just came back up to the old road again where we turned left.

We continued out along that for a bit, and I was already getting too hot again. I looked for a spot to get back down and take a dip one more time, and the rest of the group was getting really far ahead of me.
I eventually found one more steep spot down, so I went and immersed myself one last time by myself, then climbed back up to continue on the road.

We went out around a gate and followed the paved Riverside Drive beside the former Lehigh Valley Railroad tracks to the east, then crossed those tracks at grade before heading back into South Bethlehem.

We paused briefly under the Hill to Hill Bridge, and I pointed out where the Pacific Hotel used to stand. The Reading Railroad Bethlehem Branch crossed the Lehigh on a bridge that is still active there, and the hotel stood directly beneath where the bridge is, and to the right was the former site of the Bethlehem Covered Bridge.
The covered bridge needed constant repairs, so it was replaced by the current Hill to Hill Bridge in 1924. The celebration of the opening of the bridge also marked the combining of the municipalities of Bethlehem and South Bethlehem to form the City of Bethlehem.
The bridge was unlike any other in America, with eleven access points. Those points were cut down when Route 378 was constructed.

Some of the group decided to walk directly back to the cars at this point.

We continued ahead just a bit, and we could see rails partially buried in the dirt and such, and a cross track from a once busy area. One of these tracks was reportedly a foundry siding for John Nash, President of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, to park his business car, the Black Diamond.

We continued from here to the east a bit more, and we would head over toward Lehigh Pizza to have a good late lunch stop.
Lehigh Pizza has really good pizza for being outside of New Jersey. They always have some interesting slices that are high quality, and they have some strong good beers often in their refrigerators.

This time, unfortunately they didn’t have anything in particular that interested me. So, instead, I got a Four Loco for the first time in a while.

The people behind the register told me I could get the Four Loco but I would not be allowed to drink that in the establishment. I could drink most anything else besides that.
I agreed to it and sat down, then when no one was around looking, I poured the entire Four Loco into a water bottle that they wouldn’t notice and drank it from that.

While we sat in the place, Mike Piersa got in touch with me about meeting up with us for a tour. He was just getting done with his shift at the National Museum of Industrial History, and had a lot of stuff he could point out to him. I was elated to hear he would be coming out to join us, and so we waited for him to arrive.

I had two sausage, pepper, and onion slices, and one margarita slice, all which were awesome. I felt all pregnant man fat though at the end of this.

Mike showed up pretty soon, and I turned over most of the rest of the hike to him.

Mike dropped some really sad news to us right of the bat. Directly across from Lehigh Pizza were some old brick buildings that were constructed in 1885, and they are to meet the wrecking ball within the next three years for a new development of South Bethlehem area.
We walked around the corner to the right, and Mike had us stop and gather there next. This location was The Banana Factory, originally produce wholesaler D. Theodoredis & Sons banana warehouse and headquarters. The factory was redeveloped for the Artsquest initiative early on, and was an early local example of repurposing older existing infrastructure.

Financial hardship is being blamed for the near constant demolition of historic infrastructure, in favor of new construction, and this is the latest example. 

Some 6 buildings, the oldest being the previously mentioned 1885 buildings, are to be demolished under new development and expansion plan associated with the Artsquest Banana Factory area.

We weaved around the buildings that were to be demolished so that we could see them at different angles and photograph them most adequately.
One of the big problems with redevelopment plans like this, favoring full reconstruction over re-purpose, is the architects and engineers and such. In many cases, these architects get a percentage of the final cost of construction. This is one of the reasons we have the term “build a temple to the architect”. 

They’ll make the most expensive monstrosity they can get away with to bring in more money. If they were refurbishing something that was already standing, they don’t get a fraction of that cost because most of the bones of the infrastructure are already there.

On our way out and around the site, we went to have a look inside the former Alloy & Tool Steel Division Annex of Bethlehem Steel. Today, it serves as apartments with a unique and creatively repurposed common area, complete with an ore car on display to the right as we walked in.
Mike had a good plan setting up the little tour like this, first showing us all of the buildings that were planned to be demolished, and then a building that was not only not being demolished, but was creatively repurposed in a useful and respectful way.

From here, we headed over the former North Penn Division rail bed, and I quickly took a few photos that might match ones I took myself at the site before the tracks were removed from 2007 or so.

We then walked up and across the Hill to Hill Bridge. I noticed the high temperature on the marquee for Fritch Fuel and Heating company, and tried to get a similar shot to one I had gotten on the first March on Musikfest hike when it read 100 degrees. This time, it was only 89.
We did get to walking through a bit of Musikfest this time on the route, so we actually did get there this time.

We continued to the right from the other side of the bridge and into Old Bethlehem where Mike pointed out some historic structures. Along the way we passed by the Old Chapel in old Moravian downtown Bethlehem Pa, built in 1751.

The chapel was replaced by a newer one in 1806, but the Moravian community was not one of waste; the old chapel was left standing for other uses.

We meandered on through toward the former Central Railroad of New Jersey station, which is now a restaurant called the Wood Match, and there are usually bands playing there and food served that doesn’t require tickets or anything.

We continued across the abandoned tracks east of the station and then over the foot bridge across the Lehigh Canal, adjacent to the Monocacy Creek Aqueduct and Lock 42, which lifted boats 8.2 feet when the canal was in service.

I have, for years, swam in the aqueduct, and so I jumped in it this time as well. I spent a good amount of time in there, and Mike hung out with us for a bit. Jack and Sarah were there, and Jack was jamming with someone above with the guitar.

We eventually got out and continued on the canal towpath to the east. While we walked, I think Poison had taken the stage across the river at the Steel Stage. 

We could hear them playing as we walked.
Jack and Sarah were the only ones to join me for this bit, but they still wanted to hang out at the fest a bit. I said good night to them, and continued walking the towpath alone.

Everyone else had cut back to the cars either this way or on the south side of the river, or were hanging out at the fest.

It was quiet other than hearing some very audible Poison classics echo over the Lehigh.
I soon reached the Minsi Trail Bridge, and began climbing the stairs to reach the pedestrian walkway back across. I was in a hurry to get home to see my son, when Jillane texted me not to bother, that they were not home.
I felt immediately drained and defeated, and I draped my arms over the edge of the bridge and laid my head down right there. I must have fallen asleep there for a while.

When I finally did wake up, it had gotten a bit darker. I moved across the bridge and turned left on the other side along 412 to get back to Iqor to close out my day.

It was really fun, but by the time the end of them comes along, reality sets in and something doesn’t sit well with me, except for the times I have my son with me.
It's a trip what different feelings come about being a parent.
It’s a strange feeling of being relieved it is over, not wanting to drive home, but also like I missed something else important. I could have brought him with me, but that would also have brought on another argument I wanted to avoid.
I do hope that this conflict comes to a close and I can fully enjoy these times again.