Hike #460; Cresco to Tobyhanna

 Hike #460 12/27/9

12/27/9 Cresco to Tobyhanna with Jillane Becker, Kyle Zalinsky, Amanda Rosenblatt, Jason Kumpas, Brad Baesic, and Jim Delotto

Group shot near Paradise Creek

Sadly, the original journal entry to this hike was lost to the fire...if anyone has a copy please let me know!

For this, my next section north of the old Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad's main line, I added a little bit of extra stuff for interest. Despite how boring I thought this hike would be, we actually had a really great time.

We began in Cresco, at the train station where we'd been on two previous hikes. The last one took us along the Lackawanna line between here and Devil's Hole Road. This time, we'd take a bit of a side trip to explore some adjacent land. Jason Kumpus showed up with Krispy Kreme donuts and hats for everyone! 

Krispy Kreme Jason

We walked along the tracks briefly, and then had a dog follow us for a bit. We thought he wouldn't leave us alone until we finally turned left off of the tracks.

Walking the old Lackawanna Main Line from Cresco PA

Our next section was a bit of a bushwhack. We went through a lesser used south portion to State Game Lands 221. It got pretty swampy, but there were enough rocks for us all to cross on.

South end of the swampy State Game Lands 221

We made our way to the back of an unoccupied house on a loop road called Paradise Lane which led out to Koerners Road. We turned right here, and were soon joined by Jim DeLotto who had been late to meet, but instead parked his car nearby to meet up with us. This road took us across Devil's Hole Creek, then out to Devil's Hole Road. To the left, there were a few abandoned buildings we of course had to check out. Some of the group checked a bit of them out previously on the last Devil's Hole hike, but not extensively. This time we looked at the old camp looking buildings, but nothing really worthwhile. The next building was much cooler, an old house where the back wall was totally opened and it was badly deteriorating. I know Jillane found something cool in that one but I don't remember what. I think there was another building too, in bad shape but not quite as bad, and it was very dark inside so we had to use our lights.

After we'd checked out the buildings which may have at one time been part of Ceasar's Paradise Stream Resort, we headed across Devil's Hole Road onto a woods road which went into the Paradise Creek preserve.

Jillane in the Paradise Creek preserve

 This lesser known property would take us above the stream on a woods road and then cut back to Devil's Hole Road at a parking lot right by the railroad tracks where I needed to pick them up from where I'd left off on the previous hike.

Hiking near Devil's Hole

We got on the tracks and headed around some hard curves, also collected some insulators. Jillane walked on the rails while holding onto me. I remember Brad got something interesting from the house and carried it all day but I don't remember what!

Walking the former Lackawanna Main Line

After crossing over Rt 940 we headed around another bend and saw where the current railroad alignment broke away to the left from the earlier one. The later alignment went as a shelf around "The Knob" while the original one followed a cut. We walked through the abandoned cut, which was really cool, and stopped to knock out some ice formations. As we reached the other side we found interesting scrawlings on the rocks to the right dated back to as far as the late 1800s, and one of them read "Paradise Tunnel Watchmen".

Scrawling at the former site of Paradise Tunnel

I immediately assumed that this site must have once been a tunnel but it was blased out. Sure enough, research later proved that originally this was the site of Paradise Tunnel. It was blasted out due to maintenance issues, but then even with the tunnel gone there was still a problem with falling rocks so the tracks were realigned around the cut altogether.

We followed the abandonment to the next section of active tracks.

In Paradise Cut, Mt Pocono PA

 Soon, we reached the base of "The Knob". A small road went around this spot above, and it was known for it's fantastic view. I of course had to climb up. Soon, almost everyone else followed me to the top. I guess only Jillane stayed below. The view was really nice, but some were only getting to the top by the time I was back down. We ended up having a longer break here, then headed along the tracks to Mount Pocono and a bridge over Rt 611.

Bridge in Mt Pocono PA

At the bridge, we turned away from the tracks and followed Rt 611 into town looking for a place to eat. We found it in this little casino theatre lunch place. It was full of all sorts of happy colors, a train riding around the building, little gambling machines (you pay, get tickets when you win that buy you a piece of junk prize). We played with all of the stuff there and had a good lunch. Jillane and I had a machine draw a picture of us.

While we were eating, we tried to get the waittress to turn the speed of the train up, and she wouldn't so Kyle went and did it. When it looked like ti was ready to derail, he got up and turned it back down.

Lunch break, Mt Pocono PA

After leaving the neat little restaurant, we headed south back toward the tracks. On the way we stopped in a little store to get snacks or drinks or something, and some large black woman was screaming at the asian clerk. I remember it being strange to see different cultures in a back woods area in the poconos, let alone a crazy argument. The poor clerk was almost in tears. Amanda bought a porn magazine that came with some DVDs that they looked at and laughed while we walked along the tracks heading north.

We passed through a rail yard and then Kyle and I climbed on some rail cars. We then reached Pocono Summit connecting us with another previous hike we'd done. From here we continued north across Pocono Summit Lake on a causeway. It was beautiful as the sun was setting over this area.

We had a long straight section ahead that was really getting pretty boring. It seemed like forever we could see the underpass beneath Rt 611 but we just weren't getting closer. After getting under it, it got better as we went along what was called Mill Pond #1 in Tobyhanna, and then saw a nice Christmas Tree lit up on the left side of the tracks. We soon reached the old Tobyhanna Tower and station. Our cars were parked up the road to the left at a church where we'd gotten permission to be.

Brad had somehow lost his phone and camera near Mt Pocono, at a bridge site, and he amazingly remembered about where he'd lost it. I believe I shuttled the drivers back to the beginning and Delotto and was it Jason Kumpas went back to help him find it...and amazingly he did!  Oh what a lucky man he was!

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