Hike #505 8/21/10
8/21/10 Minisink Hills/Hialeah/Pocono Rim with Jillane Becker, Evan "Joe Millionaire" Van Rossum, Amanda Rosenblatt, "Action Adam" Stevens, and Eric Pace
Along the abandoned road descending to Broadhead Creek
For this next hike, I don't know why, but I decided to try something already that had some elevation thinking I could handle the breathing. I had improved a lot since the previous week, and I wanted to push myself a bit more. I probably still wasn't quite ready, but I felt better the following day so I suppose it was the right thing to do.
We spotted cars at Hialiah Picnic area and then shuttled to Minisink Hills area and parked at the Odd Lots bargan store. We started our hike by wandering all through the bargain store. I got a stupid shirt with a dog with an Easter bunny ear thing on and some Hannah Montana Valentines.
We made our way out of the parking lot and along the Rt 209 spur toward Rt 80. Just before that we turned left onto an old woods road that descended to the Broadhead Creek. Eric decided he didn't want to chance any trespassing and that he'd walk the road to catch up with us further down.
It was this road we were walking that I'd used the previous Summer to help Brad Baesic find his cell phone he'd checked from his overgrown soap dish of a boat I helped him paddle down the Broadhead!
We soon came upon the abandoned abutments of the former New York, Susquehanna, and Western Railroad. I'd never walked on this portion before. The previous time I'd tried it was in 2004 when Skyler, Chris Jones, and I swam the Broadhead Creek. I had thought this section was inaccessable or nothing was left until I was there with Brad.
Old NYS&W Railroad abutment on the old road
We walked to the old bridge site and ascended to it's top. The rail bed was clear and walkable ahead. It was actually even better than I'd imagined with some really nice views to the creek below. The section led us out onto a dead end street shown on Google maps as Post Office Road.
Along former NYS&W Railroad bed above Broadhead Creek
The tracks once crossed the road, and directly on the other side we could see the abutments to a trestle that is long gone. Amazing I'd never noticed this. We followed the road out to River Road and continued past the bar that was on the left hand side.
Foot bridge over the creek along River Road
No one was around, so we next walked across a very attractive footbridge over a creek here.
Footbridge along River Road
We descended from the opposite side of the foot bridge and crosed a fieild. This took us back out to the intersection of Gap View Road and River Road. We continued on River Road very shortly and came to an abandoned house to the left.
The door was wide open so we just wandered on in. It was really cool; whoever was in the place was into some interesting stuff. There was also a lot of original art work lying around.
In the abandoned house
Abandoned house
We looked through a lot of stuff before we decided to move on. Although we went through a door on the south side, the east side had another open door so we could just walk out and be on the street. We wandered out wihen no cars were coming by and headed along River Road.
Abandoned house
Eric rejoined us here having walked the road to this point. It was raining a bit, but it wasn't too terrible. Action Adam had found one of those African Safari hats which perfectly matched his attire.
Action Safari Adam
We continued along the road, and soon we found a path that went down to the right of us. This descended to a paved pathway along the hillside above the river, part of Shawnee. We walked this for a bit into the Shawnee developed areas, and then walked right behind some of the buildings.
Path behind buildings in Shawnee on the Delaware
Where we came out there was an historic old building to the left, probably a former hotel.
Old house at Shawnee
We came back out to River Road and soon walked into the little Shawnee village where we stopped at the general store for some food and refreshments. It was also nice to sit on the porch and keep dry.
On our way out, we noticed some of the weird little nuances of the area, like the weird directional sign to Rt 209, and the abandoned shop.
I guess they were out of real "209" signs!
Another abandoned business in PA, Shawnee
Instead of going up hill ahead, Eric decided to walk the road toward Hialeah Picnic Area and then meet up with us later.
We turned left onto Hollow Road and then cut through grass to the right out to the church road, and Jillane hid some of the stuff she got in the abandoned stuff in a hedge or something, then we walked up hill on Mosier's Knob Road. This road took us steeply up to skirt the edge of this small ridge on the Pocono Rim above the Delaware. As we ascended there was a guy in a van on his way to pick up canoes, part of an outfitter. He asked us how to get down, and told us a tree had fallen over the road. It must have happened since the time we started walking since we made it in to Hialeah Picnic area. We wished him luck and he was off the other way trying to get to his customers.
As we walked we came upon an abandoned house on the left higher above the road. It wasn't anything historic, but we checked it out anyway.
Abandoned house
It was unfortunately far too dark in side to see anything so we soon moved on along Mosiers Knob Road. We soon reached Michaels Road on the left. Directly across from this on the right was yet another abandoned house, almost completely obscured from the road by vegetation. The others turned up Michaels Road while Jillane and I explored the abandoned house.
Another abandoned house on Mosiers Knob
This one was quite nice, and it looked into what was probably at one time farm fields that were now pretty much all grown in. We didn't find anything of particular interest so we moved along.
Abandoned house on Mosiers Knob, PA. My camera phone actually doesn't take too bad pictures.
Michaels Road took us up hill and then down to Hidden Lake Road where we turned right. As we were walking down this road, we were surprised to find yet another abandoned house on the hill to our right. There was an old drive up to it from the road which turned back to parallel Hidden Lake Road. We made our way up to the front of it on the road.
Abandoned house near Hidden Lake
It was in pretty bad shape. The front steps as I recall were not possible to get up to the front door on because of rot. We had to go in a side door. There was carpet as I recall on the stairs which ascended from the lower or basement level to the main floor. It was wet and disgusting with each step. The main part of the building was very nice, though it was rapidly decaying. It's so sad that all of these buildings, many of them quite historic, were let go to waste.
In an abandoned house near Hidden Lake PA
After exploring the house, we continued along the road to Hidden Lake. We turned right on a side road that went up toward the lake, then took a regular trail over toward the shore. It was very little used, unmarked but in some places with improved surfacing. We followed the trail along the west side of the lake and emerged at a berm dam along Hidden Lake Road.
We descended from here back onto the road, and then soon turned right onto Church Hill Drive, a dirt road. Near the crest of the ridge from the lake, we turned right off of the road and onto an obscure woods road. My new Kittatinny Trails map showed that there was a woods road that broke off of this main one to the left and headed down hill to Mosiers Knob Road and beyond. We took the first side road we came to and it simply disappeared. We then bushwhacked to the right along part of the ridge as best we could until we got to what we believed to be the old woods road/unmarked trail. Indeed, it was the right one and we used it to navigate the vegetation and get down.
The path, formerly a road I suppose, led us out to a field along Mosiers Knob Road again. Once we were on the road we turned right and walked a short distance to an abandoned house Jillane and I had found before the fire. At the time, that house was open and easy to get in. I had taken a bunch of pictures of it inside and out, but the camera was destroyed in the fire before I could save the photos. When we got to the house this time we could'nt get in, it had all been locked up and boarded. We just hung out on the porch for a little bit. It started raining again around this time so the porch was a welcome thing to find.
None of us felt like going back to the field where we reached Mosier's Knob Road, so we opted instead to try to bushwhack down from the farm house along fields and to River Road. I took everyone through some thick brush and then tried to follow an old woods road that would have descended in the direction we were going. This road proved to be a terrible route, it was badly overgrown and barely recognizeable. Fortunately, I think it was Joe Millionaire who found a dry stream bed and led us down through that. We didn't have to turn off of it until we reached the bottom close to the road. We followed River Road to the right briefly and then turned left cutting into the parking lot for Smithfield Beach. We told the guy at the entrance station we were just hiking the McDade Trail and he let us through to use the restrooms and such. We met back up with Eric and then followed the McDade Trail to the right.
I was in a hurry here because I wanted to try to meet up with Mark Moran and Rusty Taglierni from Weird NJ at Coppermines Inn area because I'd heard they were going to tear it down. I notified Mark of this so he could photograph it before that was to happen.
We hurried along and Action Adam and Joe Millionaire couldn't believe I was hoofing it so strong. It was killing me that I couldn't breath very well but I had to push myself. I was going nuts not being able to breath right.
We ended up making pretty good time back to Hialeah Picnic area and we hurried to the NJ side and met with Mark and Rusty for a bit. We showed them the Pahaquarry Mines site which they hadn't been to yet, and that concluded another fun day.
We found a lot of abandoned houses on this one, and it was just what the doctor ordered, some exciting fun times to get me feeling alive again.
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