2/28/10 Northampton to Schnecksville with Jillane Becker, Chris "Cupcake" Kroschinski, Eric Pace, Kyle Zalinsky, and Amanda Rosenblatt.
Yes, Chris is indeed wearing a skirt. Regarding the sign, don't ask, I don't know.
Some party pics...
Buckettfest 2010
Buckettfest 2010
At Buckettfest 2010
Strong like el burro fuerte
Buckettfest 2010
Buckettfest 2010
Paige wrestles men to the ground and sits on them
Mr. Buckett ALMOST gets a kiss.
My next hike would be following Buckettfest #3 at Jim "Mr. Buckett" Mathews' house in Bethlehem PA. Another crazy party as always, we expected to have a good turnout for the hike, but this was not to be.
Surprisingly, from the party crew, the only one up and ready to go besides Jillane and I was Chris "Cupcake" Kroschinski, by far the most enebriated of anyone at the party the night before! Also, Eric Pace, and Amanda Rosenblatt were ready to join, in addition to Kyle Zalinsky despite the fact that after partying he had to go into his job at Newhardt's Pharmacy in Northampton early to do inventory. In retrospect, the reason he may have "needed" to be there, sadly, was probably to manipulate inventory for the drugs he had been taking from the place.
We used Newhardt's as the meeting point for the hike, after spotting my car at the end point, Lehigh Carbon Community College. Jillane, Cupcake, Amanda, as well as Shelly Janes who helped us spot the cars but could'nt hike, went in to visit Kyle who was just getting off of work. We got to meet some of Kyle's co workers, guys up front, a lady named Romaine in the back (1,2). We got together outside, and I got in trouble for peeing behind a dumpster and some lady saw me. Oh well.
We walked down the street to the former CNJ railroad tracks to the former Ironton Railroad trestle over the Lehigh. We all crossed except Eric who decided to take the road bridge and catch up, I helped Jillane while Cupcake went rather slowly (2a-8).
Once on the other side we descended to an ATV path into the former Thomas Iron Works site where we'd hiked before (8a-8c) and out to the building ruins (8d-8f). Kyle was not feeling well and decided he did'nt want to do the hike, and so Amanda went with him. Next, we came to the mouth of the tunnel which came out under the large roofless building next to the former Lehigh Valley Railroad right of way (9,9a). We went in and continued through to the other side (9b-17). Eric joined us on the other side.
At abandoned Thomas Iron Works
We continued out and slightly south, then west cutting up hill a bit to the paved Ironton Rail Trail. We took the south fork of that ahead (18-18b) around the bends, over a nice fill, saw a woodpecker (18c) and Jillane rested on a couch someone put out (18d). We did'nt take the north fork because somone told me the huge concrete tower we'd climbed through our previous time here had been torn down.
Soon, we came to the junction with the other part of the Ironton line, and we continued westbound under Rt 145 where the trail switched from pavement to crushed stone. Again, we went past the ruined rail car (18e) and then to the long abandoned building on the right, which since our last visit had had it's windows cinder blocked shut! Still, we were able to get through to have a look because either end of it was open (19-21).
We checked out the building across as well as the frame of one that was turned into a bird blind (22) and continued west. Sadly, the many old fashioned gas pumps lined along the trail had also been moved since our last visit from alongside another stone ruin (22a). Still, it was nice to see an active business utilizing some of the old structures (22b-22c).
We soon crossed Chestnut Ave and checked out some interesting signage (22d-22f). By the time we got to the next road crossing in I guess an area known as Egypt Eric was ready to head out. He called DJ Ray who was still resting from the party at Mr. Buckett's house to come and get him. We did'nt wait up for that, as we had a long way to go. We paralleled another road, then crossed Bridge Street near the edge of another abandoned cement place (23-23d). We then came to the old series of row houses we'd gone in before right alongside Quarry Street. The first couple that we had'nt been in I guess it was were locked, so this time we went around the back, and to our surprise they were left open! We went in and scavenged around, and found all sorts of great stuff! I got a nice jacket and vest in beautiful condition, cds, a hat, and Jillane got a whole bunch of old biker tee shirts. We found som garbage bags and just loaded them full of stuff and took them out.
In retrospect that must have looked really crazy (24-28). The other weird thing was the lack of indoor plumbing in any of the houses. they all had out houses (29). We got back on the trail as quickly as we could, and then headed toward it's end. There was a small abandoned building over off the trail to the right very near the parking area, so we hid the bags of stuff along it until we were ready to move on. We could see other abandoned buildings in the vicinity but had no time to check them out (29a-29c). The trail ended and so we had to walk along Quarry Street for a bit (29d-29g). Soon, the rail bed came back across the road to the south side, so we followed it. We could see where the spur line continued on to Orefield which we'd followed the previous year (30) but this time we were folling the main branch directly into Ironton (31).
The rail bed came back to cross Quarry Street and I tried on my nice new suit I'd gotten in the house (31a), but I did'nt leave it on for long because I did'nt want to ruin it in the snow and ice. The rail bed was still clear to the south (32) to where it crossed Mauch Chunk Road. We crossed directly and had to go past some business in order to get on the rail bed continueing north (33). We soon saw horses on the left hand side. To my great surprise, Cupcake had never pet a horse before, so of course he had to stop for a bit. He fed them something, I don't remember what, but it was amusing watching him with them (34-36c). The rail bed skirted a pretty pond to our right and then seemed to abruptly end. There was a ball field at the end, at a much higher level than the rail grade. The grade either went left a bit or straight ahead. Either way, it had been covered over. We ascended over the rocks leading up to the park area, then sat at a picnic bench for a bit to eat our lunch, leftover Eggplant Parm Cupcake had made for the party the night before (37).
mmmm eggplant
Before we were ready to go, Cupcake put on a goofy looking skirt he'd found in the abandoned house and wore it the rest of the hike (38)! The park access road took us to Levans Ave next to a pond that I think was called Grouse Lake (39) or something in Ironton, then we followed Levans Road, stopping to look at interesting things along the way (40-43) until we crossed the PA Turnpike and reached Rt 309 next to a CVS. I remember going in for something but I don't remember what.
Directly across 309 from Levans Road was an abandoned paved road, the predescessor to the newer road to the north.
I think this one was called Old Packhouse Road. Now it was being used as some sort of a trail. It was still striped, but lots of branches and stuff were on it. Even signs were left in. It was just a little tough walking due to the snow which was still rather heavy (44-49). All of the fields around us were well terraced which was interesting (50). I soon found a giant tractor tire and tried to roll it all the way down the road which was getting steeper. When it stopped it did'nt fall over in the snow so I just left it standing (51-54).
My sweet Jillane
The road ended at the intersection with Grist Mill Road and County Lane according to google Earth. We turned right on the now paved road (55) which took us to a newly built up section of road which must have cost millions (56,56a). Still, it was incredible. I knew I had to post a hike in this area when Jillane and I first discovered it while driving around in the months prior.
We followed the Old Packhouse Road to the left and then right onto Orchard Road where the views began to open up onto the Trexler Game Preserve, a place I'd been wanting to hike in for quite a while. This hike opened us to it (57-65). It seemed like forever till Lehigh Carbon Community College appeared on the right, but when it did we tried to cut across it's campus to get to my car. We made a couple of wrong turnes because construction was going on that made normally accessable places a bit tougher, but we got through.
The three of us were able to get back to Ironton, pick up our bags, and then get back to Northampton and Cupcake's car with no problem.
My sweet Jillane
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