Hike #413; Phillipsburg to Bethlehem Riverfusion

5/3/9 Lower Lehigh Canal; Phillipsburg to Bethlehem/Illicks Mill Riverfusion with Jillane Becker, Kyle Zalinsky, Amanda Rosanblatt, Jim "Mr. Buckett" Mathews, Eric Pace, and DJ Ray Cordts.

This hike was a really excellent time on a familiar route, but with some amazing experiences that we'd hold onto forever.
Unfortunately, the original journal for this hike was also lost to facebook, and so I have to rewrite.

The entire hike came about because Jillane had seen that Bethlehem PA was having an event called Riverfusion to help benefit the Illicks Mill, an historic mill on the Monocacy Creek that needed restoration.
She asked me if I had a hike that would be good to get us to the event.
I absolutely love the lower Lehigh Canal route, and I wanted to try to better follow the original route of it along the way, so I figured a way of doing it.
Jillane had wanted to go to Riverfusion because the headliner was State Radio, a band she listened to all the time. I dug the music, and was getting to like it more as I listened to it.
Little did I realize at the time that I'd been listening to lead singer Chad Urmston when I was in high school. We'd play all sorts of music in my art classes and have turns every day playing stuff we liked. I got introduced to a lot of different music at the time, and one of the bands that was played was Dispatch.

I really liked two of the songs in particular, and found out later I liked the entire album. "Two Coins" sung by Pete Heimbold was the top one I knew, followed by probably their biggest hit "The General" which Chad wrote and sang.
When I planned this out, I figured I was just doing it because it was something more for Jillane that I'd just also enjoy doing. I ended up absolutely loving it.
We met in Bethlehem at one of the grocery store lots I believe it was near the Martin Tower. We then shuttled back to Phillipsburg where we parked at the big lot near the Northampton Street free bridge.
We started out by walking down the boat launch ramp under the free bridge, and then along the Delaware River toward the Morris Canal arch, which was the western terminus of the canal. Boats would go down Inclined Plane #11 west into slack water provided by the Delaware River and a wooden dam, and could be towed between the Delaware and Lehigh Canals on the other side.

The path along the river was clear and nice, not too badly grown in since it was still early in the season.
We checked out the canal arch and the views of the river from there, passed beneath the bridges formerly of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and Central Railroad of New Jersey, then climbed to the left on the route where Plane 11 used to go into Delaware River Park.
I think we probably checked out the signal bridge over there as well, because I always do, but I don't have any photos of it from this time.
I did get one of a two header engine on the active former CNJ bridge, one painted in Conrail colors, the other in Norfolk Southern. It was near the end of the time we'd still see Conrail painted stuff.
We made our way to the abandoned former Lehigh Valley Railroad bridge and carefully started crossing. The walkway between the double tracks is in alright shape after a hundred or so feet on.

Everyone carefully went across, and then on the other side, had to hop over a pretty dangerous drop to get over to good land.
Once over there, we had to climb down a steep slope to the northern terminus of the Delaware Canal, and southern terminus of the Lehigh Canal. From there, most of the hike would be following as closely as we could the Lehigh Canal westbound.
We started following the first part which was just slack water along the Lehigh River provided by the first dam at the forks. We passed beneath Rt 611 and then came out to the Outlet Lock. That was an unnumbered lock that replaced a couple of locks that had been built over during the construction of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. 
From that point, just a little walking led to the next double lock that was at the start of Hugh Moore Park. There were some ruins in the area including a vault building and foundations.

We made our way onto the canal towpath from here heading west, which is watered and kept looking pretty much as it always had. Hugh Moore Park in season offers canal boat rides.

Below the towpath to the right were stone and concrete ruins, the remains of the old Glendon Ironworks and other things.
We continued on the towpath until we got to right next to the Old Glendon Bridge, a through truss structure over the Lehigh Canal, and another section over the Lehigh River. We turned to the right off of the towpath here to cross the bridge because there is no way across where the canal actually crossed in its last incarnation.
Once on the other side of the bridge, we climbed to the abandoned right of way of the Central Railroad of New Jersey main line, built as the Lehigh and Susquehanna, and then leased to the CNJ.
It was not formal trail at this point yet, just a cinder and ballast ATV path heading through the woods to the west. There was an abandoned trailer we checked out in this section heading toward the park along the river.

We continued along the nice shaded section beneath the New Glendon Bridge, and then came out to a road crossing and the park area where there is a basebally field and a police shooting range.
The Jersey Central Railroad grade ahead from this point is a paved trail all the way to the boat launch near the Rt 33 bridge, but I didn't want to take that this time.
Instead, we turned to the left down the road a bit. We may actually have walked the road parallel with the railroad bed for a bit farther, I just don't remember for sure what we did. I know we went into that trailer is all.
Either way, we soon reached the other paved trail closer to the river, which was the old trolley right of way. This led us closer to the river and then out to the Chain Dam.
Chain Dam is originally a Lehigh Canal dam. The original dam site is some fifty or more feet upstream from where the current dam is, which has a fish ladder. The trolley bed turns to the right and passes under the Jersey Central by way of a stone culvert underpass, and is still trail there.
The Chain Dam was named for the chain ferry that originally existed for the Lehigh Canal. Canal boats on the south side of the river were ferried with mules on board to the north side.

A towpath followed along the river from that point until the next guard lock where the canal beside the river resumed.
This was only used until the canal was upgraded, and then a towpath was built above Chain Dam on the south side, and a towpath bridge crossed over to Island Park. Boats were towed beside the island that once had an amusement park on it, and then crossed another causeway bridge over to the north side of the river near where the present boat launch to the west is now.
This time, I wanted to see what remained of the original towpath along the river instead of following the rail bed above. The later towpath is mostly inaccessible today out on the island.
We continued into the woods beyond the dam, and at the time the route was incredibly nice and clear.

Aside for an occasional tree down along the way, we couldn't really ask for much better.
A short distance after we got on the Lehigh Canal, I took my shoes off. I ended up doing more of this hike barefoot than I'd done on any before or since. My feet were getting pretty tough, and so it didn't bother most the entire way. I suppose I probably also was walking a bit slower too, which certainly everyone appreciated.
There was a little bit of rip rap rock left from that original towpath along the edge of the trail, which supported it along the river. That was the most of the remnants we saw in the stretch.
This trail eventually disappeared entirely. We had to climb then steeply to the right up to the former Jersey Central Railroad bed again, which was still paved at this point, and continue to the west. We passed by the former junction with the branch that went up toward 25th Street to connect with the Easton and Northern line, and then reached the Freemansburg Boat Launch.

The boat launch is not actually in Freemansburg. It's actually a long ways from it. We still had quite a walk to get to that point.
We continued from there down the ramp to the boat launch, and then onto the towpath, which resumed along some slack water. Good rip rap rock lined the edges of the towpath along the river at this point, and there are several excellent rope swings into the river here.
I probably took a dip here, but I know that the group took turns playing on the rope swing here either way.
The canal started to form just ahead of here, in from the river, and we passed beneath the Rt 33 bridge that had only been built some ten or so years before. We then came out to Hope Road which leads beneath the Jersey Central line to the right to the Bethlehem Boating Club property. There's a lovely stone arch for the railroad overpass.

The canal towpath switches sides from the right to the left here, and we passed the ruins of the Hope Lock.
There was originally a lock house just to the right of the lock here, but when the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad was first built, the lock house was relocated uphill just a bit on the other side of the tracks. Today, there are two houses up there, one lived in and one not, and I'm not entirely sure which one was the lock house and which wasn't. Both are very old. It's possible that each served as a lock house at one time or another.
We continued from here along the towpath, which was a nice natural surface path heading into a ver secluded segment.
I always really liked this area because despite it being sandwiched between Easton and Bethlehem, hit has this illusion of seclusion just as if we were deep in the Lehigh Gorge.

After a while on this stretch, we came to the next former lock site, known as the Republic Lock, and took another little break.
The lock house for this one was still standing in ruins, with two walls extant.

The next time we'd be out that way it would deteriorate a lot more until eventually the one open window area on the side of it collapsed entirely.
We continued from here along a long stretch of towpath through really pleasant woods.

To the right and up the slope, the former Jersey Central line was often in view on the shelf. I'd walked that once, but it was so rough I've no plan on trying to walk through on it again.

As we got closer to Freemansburg, there is a beautiful deep section of the Lehigh River, and a great rope swing off into it.
We stopped here for a good break to take a dip. 
Only DJ Ray, Kyle, and I were really interested in going in, but we did several jumps into the river.
It was pretty cold, and the scars on my legs from the Morris Canal hike in 2008 where I fell through the floor of the Lock House at Morris Canal Lock 4W were looking like they were glowing.
We moved on from here and warmed back up, and soon reached historic Freemansburg lock site.
The lock house, the bypass flume, and a barn building site are all still there, and it's quite a beautiful area.
A causeway goes over the canal that was put in after abandonment, and beyond that the canal is watered and authentic looking.
The section is in fact so nice that it was used in the old movie "The Farmer Takes a Wife".

When the movie came out in the thirties, the section was one of the most authentic looking segments of canal, and it was used to represent the Erie Canal in the picture.

We continued along the towpath through Freemansburg, and then passed beneath the bridge that crosses the Lehigh.
After that, the canal becomes a bit more silted in. Still full of water, but it doesn't always look as it did during the time of operation.
Views of Bethlehem Steel across the Lehigh to our right were prominent as we made our way toward Bethlehem. We then passe beneath the Minsi Trail bridge high above with some really good views of Bethlehem Steel.
We soon passed beneath the Fahy Bridge, which is much closer to downtown Bethlehem, and then reached the Sand Island foot bridge to Sand Island Park. The trail sort of ends just ahead at the Monocacy Creek where there was an aqueduct. There is still an aqueduct, but it's a narrow small thing without a towpath. We turned to the right here to come out on the old Jersey Central tracks.

From this point, we'd leave the Lehigh Canal and have to start heading up the Monococy Creek to get to Riverfusion.
We followed the tracks for a bit, and then turned to the right on them before the Hill to Hill Bridge. which was getting a serious paint job when we went by.
The tracks to the north were the former Bethlehem Branch of the Lehigh and New England, one of the few sections of the former LNE to still be active today.
We followed them up to the north parallel with the Monocacy Creek, and then cut to the left to pick up the Monocacy Creek Greenway. There is a very nice long boardwalk on that, which leads quite a ways upstream.
The trail crosses a small tributary next to another old rail spur bridge, and then another branch of the Lehigh and New England breaks off to the left. It meanders through some really nice woods and then passes by the historic Burnside Plantation, which dates back to some of the early Moravian roots of Bethlehem PA.
The whole area was once an exclusive Moravian settlement.
The trail skirts some willows, and then crosses Schoenersville Road.
I'd not been much on the section north of there yet, but it was very nice and pleasant.

We crossed the tracks on the trail, reached a parking area on Illick's Mill Road, and then reached the event. We had to pay to get into it, and so we went to the line and Jillane and I paid.

Kyle and Amanda got looked over, and so they went in without paying. Amanda realized that and made Kyle go back out to pay for it. I can't blame them, it was a pretty good cause.

We had hurried because we wanted to make it to the show on time, but then we had to wait a little while before anyone went on anyway.
It was disappointing that Mr. Buckett, Eric, and DJ Ray didn't stay for the show, because they really missed out on something outstanding. I think they went somewhere else.
The opening band was actually really good, but I don't recall who they were.
After they were off, it was only a while before State Radio came on.
The show was lively and they did all of the songs I was expecting from what Jillane had been playing, stuff from the 2006 album "Us Against the Crown". I'm not sure who the drummer was at that time, but the mainstay bassist Chuck Fay was on point and everything sounded awesome.
The show continued apparently past the time that it was supposed to end, but everyone wanted more.

Despite the fact that whoever was in charge signaled them to stop, they kept on playing anyway.
It only got more awesome when they shut down all of electric to the band. Chad just wasn't having it, and was brought an acoustic guitar.
He walked out into the crowd to the very front of the stage where everyone could hear him better. Jillane and I found ourselves almost face to face with Chad as he went into some of his greatest acoustic numbers, including Jillane's favorite "Indian Moon". Chuck Fay stood off to the side in the back, grinning, and came up to the mic at some point and said "He could do this stuff all night!".
None of us would have minded!
Eventually, they did have to turn in, and I think they shut the lights off on him.
The band thanked the crowd and disappeared into the dark, while the audience was ushered off of the premises. We were in no hurry to move on out and let the crowd go ahead of us.

As we started moving, we walked by the stage and saw Chad loading up equipment by himself. Public was already told to move along, and I was apprehensive to say hi, but Kyle, bless his soul, went up to him and said "Hey Chad!" and we all went over to talk to him.

He was every bit as nice and gracious as he comes across in video.
I was blown away by the show and told him I hoped they went far with their music, not realizing fully how far he'd been with his previous band until a little later.
In our brief conversation, I told him we'd hiked seventeen miles to his show to which he responded "You gotta be fuckin kidding me!".
When I met him again years later, we were talking and I showed him the group picture. He laughed and said it looked like it was taken in the 80s.
We said goodbye and walked from Illicks Mill uphill and out to Schoenersville Road. I think we must have been parked at the Westgate Mall just a little ways up the road from there.
The day was great, the night was great, and we'd end up seeing Chad perform at least nine times including this night, each time special in its own way, but this one was really something.