Hike #1038; World's End to Ringdale

Hike #1038; World’s End State Park to Ringdale

5/18/17 World's End State Park to Ringdale with Pete G. Wilcox and James Quinn

This next hike would be a point to point, and the first in a new series on the Loyalsock Trail.
I had been interested in connecting to this expanse of land for quite some time, and on the previous hike from Lopez to Ringdale we finally reached the Loyalsock Trail’s eastern terminus.

Loyalsock Trail map

The Loyalsock Trail is maintained by the Alpine Club of Williamsport, organized in 1953.
The name Loyalsock Creek is from the Indian phrase, "LAWI-SAQUICK," meaning middle creek, since it flows between Muncy Creek and Lycoming Creek.
Loyalsock Trail was first laid out in 1951 by Explorer Scouts, a sort of co-ed boy scouts and girl scouts group, and led by Howard Ulman, Jr . It was originally 30.4 miles long, but was extended over the years to nearly sixty miles!

Loyalsock Creek at World's End

Starting on the Loyalsock Trail series to me is more than just another single trail to work on. The area traversed by the trail is the start of another huge expanse of land, where unbroken open space can get me much farther west. I can use this series now to connect with other serious trails such as Old Loggers Path, and eventually Pine Creek Trail, Black Forest Trail, and Mid State Trail further north from RB Winter State Park, where I’ve explored it already.
This hike would also mark my first foray into the Williamsport and North Branch Railroad.

Historic image of Williamsport and North Branch locomotive

We met at the end point of the hike, the eastern terminus of the Loyalsock Trail at Ringdale, which is where the Williamsport and North Branch Railroad crossed the Loyalsock Creek. We had finished the previous hike in the area at this point.

Old W&NB station

Shuttling to the start with Pete, he pulled over to a little retail stand on private land that is allegedly a station where the rail line crossed Rt 220 near Laporte PA. We wouldn’t be walking by it this time, but it will certainly be part of our future trips in the area.
We continued to World’s End where we parked over near their visitor’c center. I brought my Loyalock Trail guide with me, and we went in to see if we could find further maps and information. I was able to get one of the regular park maps there.
I woke up in the morning having an absolutely terrible time walking. I had injured my leg on the Sunday hike very badly, and I even skipped doing a night hike on Tuesday I’d planned. I did cover a couple of miles on the Morris Canal with Justin, but not much.

My wrecked leg

It had gotten so terribly infected that I had to go to the doctor, and they told me to stay off of it for about a week and sent me home early.
Of course, I was not going to skip a day I could spend hiking, and if I was going to invest the long driving time to get to Ringdale and World’s End, I’d better get out and hike. Maybe if I’d been closer to home, I might have thrown the towel in and cut the hike short. Then again maybe not. Either way, I was in terrible pain in the morning.
The leg was throbbing when I laid down, and as soon as I put it to the floor and tried to walk, it was even worse. I didn’t know how I’d get through the day.

1915 view of a lumber camp at World's End

Worlds End certainly has an interesting history. The area is extremely remote and hidden from virtually everything, where the creek flows through it’s narrow gorge.
The term “World’s End” first appeared applied to the area in 1872. Pennsylvania forester William S. Swinsler penned the following note about the history of the name in 1935:
“There was even a dispute as to the proper name of the area. Some people called it Worlds End, others Whirl's Glen, and still others Whirls End. The first name arose from the topography of the place. Seven mountain ranges converge on the point and one does receive the sensation of being at the ultimate ends of the earth. The proponents of the second name base their claim upon the whirlpool in the Loyalsock Creek, and the third name was probably a contraction of the other two. Since the whirlpool had largely disappeared, it was decided that the name Worlds End would be most appropriate. Hence, the name Worlds End State Forest Park.”

Pete in a rock overhang!

There are also stories of a great drop off at an old road that passed through the area.
After all of the Native Americans were pushed out of the area, the first settles set up mills and such along the creek. The first major industries were the tanneries and lumber. Lumber would go to both the iron furnaces to the south as well as for mine props in the coal region. The hemlock bark was taken for the tanning processes. As time went by, lumber railroads were constructed through the area to reach more of the back woods lands. Some of these are used by Loyalsock Trail today.
The area that is now the state park camp grounds was once a logger’s camp, Nolan’s Camp. Such camps were located throughout the Endless Mountains region.
It was made a park by Governor Gifford Pinchot in 1932, and for a time was renamed “Whirls End State Park”, but the name was officially changed back after several years.

High Rock Vista

The Endless Mountains, and the Allegheny Plateau to the west are actually geologically known as “Dissected Plateaus”. The Pocono Mountains, the Catskills, and others are all such mountain ranges. Not actually mountains, they are high areas that have been eroded with deep gorges that give the feel of mountains. This is why most of the tops of the mountains in these areas are generally the same height.

High Rocks Vista in World's End State Park

I didn’t see the trail blazes at first, but then we found them crossing over the creek at the state park. The red blazed High Rocks trail was co-aligned with it for the first leg of it.

High Rock Run

The Loyalsock Trail was still pretty much standard blazed, with two by six inch yellow blazes and a red stripe through the middle. Instead of regular turn blazes, the upper blaze was connected with the lower one, and pointed in the direction of the turn, so it’s still the same principle.
The trail went up a creek valley and had some pretty steep spots. We passed a couple of nice little cascades on High Rock Run, and then headed slightly down hill to High Rock itself.
It was an excellent view, to the east down the valley with the campgrounds and such in view, and to the south at the serpentine bend in the river where the swimming area is. It’s really amazing that the swimming spot is actually a spot on the creek. It was beautiful.
The ascent became more gentle; we crossed the creek as well as Loyalsock Road, and things started to level off a bit. We went around a bit of a swamp and the grade was actually very easy for a while. I found that to be much the character of the entire first section of the Loyalsock. Sections that are quite hard, then some really pretty easy stuff.

Laquin Lumber Railroad

Nowhere was the trail easier really than when it picks up one of the old railroad grades. After crossing Loyalsock Road for the second time as well as Big Run, we came to the abandoned grade of the Laquin Lumber Railroad. This one was unlike many of the other lines because it appeared to be of standard gauge and of construction the same as most any other rail trail. Typically, these old lumber lines in rather haphazardly built, and with rocks to hold ties in place making walking them a bit uncomfortable. This was not the case here.

Laquin Lumber Railroad locomotive #4, built in 1909. Image credit: The Engineer - page 679 - June 30, 1911

The Laquin Lumber railroad was associated with an outfit out of the ghost town of Laquin PA which is quite a ways further to the north. Pete has quite a collection of maps, many of which he can just pull up easily on his phone, which showed us where a lot of these lines went.

Laquin Lumber Railroad bed, now the trail

For all of my efforts, I cannot find any historic USGS maps or any maps at all for that matter that show where the lumber line went, what other line it might have connected with, and where it’s main base of operations was. For such a substantial railroad to have been built, I can only imagine it must have been something serious.
As per Pete’s maps, there were spurs that went off of this in different directions. There were probably lumber camps in this vicinity at some time or another.
We also found a piece of old metal that might have had some significance to the railroad.
We headed south and eventually came to one such junction with one of the spurs.

Old lumber railraod junction

Pete pulled up his map, and we were able to rather positively identify which spot we had reached on the map. Both lines appeared to dead end, but more confusion came when we saw another rail line maybe fifty feet below us and closer to Big Run.

Somewhat washed out rail grade

I figure that one must have broken off either further from where we first got on the grade, or it joined at some point that’s been completely eroded away. We did reach several points where we were on steep shelves and the rail bed had fallen off into the valley. It made for some quite interesting walking.
We continued along the grade to the south, and eventually it came to an abrupt end. It most certainly was not washed out. This was the end of the line at a very obvious rocky spot. Loyalsock Trail continued on to a little overlook known as “Ken’s Window” through the trees.

Second old rail bed

The trail turned left up a steep slope, and then descended once again to reach yet another old rail grade. I couldn’t see how this one connected with the previous one. The trail turned to follow the grade or a bit, this time along a second tributary known as Tom’s Run.
We determined by this time that the junction we had passed was where the trail followed the dead end line, and the one that went up hill gradually to our left must have been the “through route”, if such a route actually existed.

Ken's Window

We continued up Tom’s Run and descended yet again to seemingly another rail bed. The trail went up to the left in this area, but there was a short spur trail that went ahead, sort of following a berm between a dry run to the left and main flow of the creek to the right. The dry run to the left appeared to have been an extension of the rail bed we were following, but it had washed out pretty badly. We followed the trail to the base of the beautiful Alpine Falls.”
I’d have loved to get into the falls because it was so hot out, but I couldn’t get my leg wet.

Alpine Falls

We backtracked from here to the main Loyalsock Trail, and the former rail grade seemed more obvious as we made our way back. We turned back on the trail which climbed the slope and made it’s way to the upper end of the Alpine Falls.

We crossed over the creek at the top, and on the opposite side was a trail register.
The trail registers on Loyalsock Trail are very odd red cannisters unlike I’d seen on other trails.
While I was signing the thing, Pete noticed that the trail once again climbed to what appeared to be yet another old railroad bed. It must have crossed over Tom’s Run just above Alpine Falls. The grade was more obvious going ahead once he pointed it out. We continued on the trail, which made it’s way up hill from here rather steeply.

Upper part of Alpine Falls

On our way up, we crossed over yet another old railroad grade, which looked like a big standard gauge one like the first one we came to again.
This one we knew was a railroad because the trail guide mentioned it. It looks like it’s marked as part of “Run Spur” or “Crane Spur” as per the Loyalsock Trail map, but not totally sure.
We crossed over this line directly, as the trail did not follow any of it. When we reached the height of the land, it became a much easier trail again, weaving through forest without much difference in elevation.

Pete spots another rail bed

The trail made it’s way to yet another part of Loyalsock Road and turned I believe it was left on it for a while. This hike had no paved road crossings the entire day. Although this road is accessible to vehicles, it is dirt surface. No one even drove by the entire time we were on it.
The trail turned right away from the road, and then gradually went down hill a bit toward Tamarack Run. There were a few former woods roads the trail switches on and off of, but I thought the route was relatively obvious.

Another rail bed!

I actually had phone service through much of this hike, although it was weak with no data. James had almost none, and even when I did try to hook up my portable hot spot thing it didn’t work for his phone.
When Pete and I were almost to Tamarack Run, we paused to let James catch up. He was apparently looking at his phone or listening to music or something and somehow managed to get off trail. We went back searching for him, and got nearly back to Loyalsock Road when we couldn’t find him. Hollering, he heard us and responded. He somehow managed to get VERY far off trail to the south!

Anne's Bridge?

Back together, we descended slightly more to Tamarack Run. The crossing point was denoted by a round blue sign reading Anne’s Bridge (many points of interest on the trail have these round blue signs with white lettering).
There was really no bridge to speak of, unless there once was one and it had washed away. There was however an interesting “natural crossing”, where tree roots had grown completely over the flow of the creek to allow for dry crossing. I am assuming that is what is meant by Anne’s Bridge.

Sone's Pond

After a brief ascent it was more relatively pleasant terrain until we reached Sone’s Pond. This was a lovely little pond the trail remained near for a while. I wanted badly to go for a swim, but again I didn’t want to have a problem with my leg, so I refrained.
I assume Sones Pond is named for George Sones who founded the village of Sonestown to the south in 1843.
The trail turned left away from the pond, then crossed Loyalsock Road yet again. From that point we started going gradually down hill over the next couple of miles. As it got steeper, there were some interesting rock formations with a few overhangs along the way.

Steeper trail

We reached one spot that looked pretty nice, with some soft leafy ground and a little cave in the rocks.
I was deathly tired. My leg was keeping me awake much of the night before, and save for leaving a half day at work the day before, I had just finished working ten straight days in a row.
I laid down in the leaves to take a break, and got so comfortable that I decided to take a nap. We were making surprisingly great time, and it was just such a peaceful spot. I would love to be able to do this on more hikes. It was such a great feeling, and I was so refreshed. Also, my leg was feeling better.
One of the concerns the doctors had with the leg was that I needed to keep sedentary in order to keep the blood from “pooling up”. Excessive swelling can slow the healing process.
It was my thought that circulation as much as rest should be important in the healing process, and figured I would try a mix of both. I had nothing going on the following day, so I’d relax then.

Rock Run Road bridge

We headed down hill through a couple more steep areas, some of which required some hand holds to go over. When it started to even out, we followed a beautiful and easy path through hay ferns heading down hill.

Rock Run Road bridge

We soon emerged on Rock Run Road, another dirt road with one cabin as I recall on it. The trail turned left on the road and then reached the beautiful Rock Run Road Bridge.
The bridge is an historic through Pratt Truss structure built in 1896 across the Loyalsock Creek in what is now Worlds End State Park. It was moved to it’s present location in the 1930s and is currently closed to traffic altogether. There were a couple of people down by the creek when we arrived, but aside from them, the few people we saw at the state park at the start, and maybe someone at the end, we saw no other people all day.
We went under the bridge for another break, and I wanted desperately to go in. James and Pete had their feet in, so I managed to lay in the water with my one leg out, which would just have to be good enough for this time.

Some sort of old grade the trail followed

We moved on from here, and the Loyalsock Trail climbed to above the creek, then got on a woods road. We at first thought this was the grade of the Williamsport and North Branch Railroad; it was pretty leel for the most part, and going the direction we needed to be. All of a sudden, the trail turned to the right and started climbing more steeply. The grade we were following became a bit more of an up hill route, so I figured that must not have been it. I suppose it is possible that it may have been another lumber railroad, but it’s too hard to say. There were just so many in the area.

The Williampsport and North Branch was much more recognizable as the former railroad route, or a standard gauge route anyway. Where we emerged on the grade, there was a deep cut to the right of us.

Unidentified logging railroad image in Pennsylvania

We turned left to begin following the old rail bed, now the route of the Loyalsock Trail. I did not notice it at the time, but the “Link Trail”, which provides a shorter route to the Loyalsock Trail, also joins in this area, but I somehow missed it.

It's possible this was the cut on the W&NB we passed by

It’s possible the Link Trail went off on the rail bed through the cut, but I didn’t notice any blazes at this time. For most of the distance to the town of Laporte, it should be walk-able, so we’ll have to try to do that on a future trip.

W&NB rail bed

We had a good long stretch of walking on the railroad bed from here. I couldn’t believe how many springs flowed out from the mountain to the right of us. It must have been a maintenance nightmare during the days of the railroad in terms of washouts, because there weren’t that many box culverts or pipes beneath the grade to accommodate them all.
We continued on the rail grade as it left Loyalsock State Forest and passed through a section of private land. The trail stayed on the rail bed until we got to a scenic waterfall on the right.

Waterfall on the rail bed

From the falls, the trail turned steeply to the left, which was sort of obscured, and made it’s way down toward the Loyalsock again. I wanted to see more of the rail bed, but also wanted to cover the entire trail, so this is what we did.

W&NB rail bed at the falls

Where the trail came to the river is a popular point I had been wanting to see for years known as “The Haystacks”.
The haystacks are mounds of sandstone outcrops out of the creek which are believed to have formed during some sort of cataclysmic event. Even geologists are somewhat baffled at how the interesting formations came to be.

The Haystacks

Once again, I found myself frustrated at my inability to go into the water and really enjoy it. We simply moved on along the trail, which hugged the edge of the creek with sometimes steep walls of rock.

Loyalsock Trail along the creek

The trail continued along the beautiful creek weaving back and forth from being right on the edge to on slopes high above, depending on how the flood plain shifted.
At a certain point, as we were getting closer to Ringdale, our end point, I noted something strange about the trail directly along the river. It was level, and it seemed to have been specially graded. There were small stones, all in place, which reminded me of some of the old lumber railroad grades I had followed to the west.

Grade along the Loyalsock

This was very likely not a natural phenomenon, but I wasn’t sure just yet. We continued along, and I saw other possible remnants of what might have been rail infrastructure, but I questioned myself because there wasn’t much substantial evidence.

Old rail grade along Loyalsock

Before we reached where Loyalsock Trail turned up hill away from the creek for the last time, we spotted what was without much doubt another former logging railroad bed. It had substantial grades, likely former bridge sites, and even had the unevenness of surface where railroad ties would have been. I can find no information to support any of this however.

W&NB/Loyalsock Trail

The trail climbed rather steeply for a time, and it once again emerged on the right of way of the Williamsport and North Branch Railroad. We turned left on it heading toward the trail’s eastern terminus. I didn’t see anywhere that a separate grade would have come off of the main line, but a lot of this could have been destroyed at some point by erosion.
It’s both fascinating and frustrating that such a substantial business enterprise with significant infrastructure along the Loyalsock has no recorded history of it’s existence.
My theory for the site is that it could have been a rail tram to the creek at the point of splash dams that were opened for logs to flow down stream in the deluges.

Unidentified lumber rail line and camp in PA.

Maybe one day the only remnant of any of these lines, or evidence that they existed, will be the photos Pete and I took.
We continued along the rail grade, and eventually came to where Loyalsock Trail turned right to head up hill to the parking lot.

Upper Dutchman Falls

We had plenty of daylight left, and we couldn’t finish the trip without going on the side trip to the beautiful Dutchman Falls.
The Loyalsock Trail used to continue along the rail bed and terminate at Route 220, but it was rerouted to end at the parking area, which seems more practical.

Dutchman Falls

We followed the rail bed out across Dutchman Creek, which had the most substantial underpass we had seen on the line still in place. A side trail broke off to the left from here heading along a knoll to the east of the falls.

At Dutchman Falls

The trail blazes seemed to just abruptly end. There were little paths going to to different spots from here. One went to a high bluff above the Loyalsock Creek, with a nice little overlook of the falls. The more interesting one went steeply down hill to Dutchman Creek below the falls themselves.
The upper section of the falls was more safely visible above, but this was a more difficult, loose surface descent.
The view of the falls from the bottom was outstanding, and really the only way to see that it’s such a substantial drop. Pete and James both came down to check them out as well.
After a nice break here, we climbed back up the way we came, and returned to the railroad bed.
We went to the left on it briefly, but the rail bed emerges at a private home just before the highway, so we didn’t bother to try to follow it any further. We backtracked from here to where the Loyalsock Trail official route goes up.

Dutchman Falls

If we had continued on the rail bed a bit further, we’d have reached where it crossed present day Rt 220, and then the Loyalsock Creek on a substantial deck truss bridge. Today only remnants of abutments and two piers are left of the bridge, and it’s probably all inaccessible.

Historic image of the bridge over the Loyalsock

We headed up hill somewhat steeply and soon reached the terminus of the trail at the parking area. It was really great to have completed an entire quarter of this substantial trail, and also open the door to so much more research and exploring (I personally read for a couple of hours on this and related stuff!).

Pete at the end!

I drove Pete back to his car at Worlds End, and we headed back toward Laporte area where we stopped to eat at I think it was D&D Brew Works. I had one of the most delicious burgers of my life there, and we chatted about some of the places we’d seen and what we would do in the near future.

Receding infection

It was a really long drive back for me, but well worth it. I actually was well awake for the distance, and even getting back into my car after dinner found my leg feeling really pretty good. The same was the case when I arrived back home, walking the block back from where I park to my front door (typically this walk is done with quite a limp just from the straing then long drive anyway).
All was well until the next morning when I woke up with the leg badly swollen again. It seemed to be improving and closing rather fast though. The only problem was the infection; it got so bad at times that I could see my flesh extending beyond my socks, which really aren’t that tight.
I’d have all day Friday to recover, and then a split hike on Saturday with a break in between for Warren Land Preservation Day, so I figured things would be just fine moving forward.