Hike #652; Tobyhanna and Gouldsboro

 Hike #652; Tobyhanna and Gouldsboro

9/16/12 Tobyhanna/Gouldsboro with Jillane Becker, Jamie Becker, Derek Baker, Jason Itell, "Commando Tom" Petrucci, and Tim Kovich

The group on the dock at Tobyhanna Lake

My next hike would be a re-visit to Tobyhanna and Gouldsboro State Parks. I had done two hikes there before, one the day of the fire, but hadn't been back to finish doing the trail system there. The two most significant ones I hadn't done were the Yellow Trail and the Prospect Rock Trail. I put together a route using an old map of the parks from the 80s (and I miss-scaled) and made a route that would cover these trails as well as one of the missing sections of the old Lackawanna Railroad I'd yet to walk.

We met at the travel station just off of the Gouldsboro exit from Rt 380 and shuttled two cars to the beginning point, a rugged pull off along Rt 196. We had to walk the road a little bit from where we found a place to pull off, then headed into the woods on the yellow blazed trail. At the trail head there were signs warning of unexploded ordinance from when the area was party of the Tobyhanna Military Depot. The trail was easy to walk, a wide woods road at first.After a while, the trail became a narrower foot path through some nice, although young woods. I knew ahead of time that the route would be rather relaxing. There was a woods road to the right I noticed which headed off according to my GPS to an unfinished development. There certainly is a lot more to see up there.The trail took us across a small brook area, a power line, and continued on to eventually cross the Tobyhanna Creek on a nice foot bridge. We then came to a trail intersection. The Lakeside Trail was another wide woods road from which we turned left. The now blue blazed Lakeside Trail turned left but we continued to go through the camp grounds. When we got to the shower building, I took a shower.Feeling quite refreshed, we walked and joked quite a lot. I hadn't laughed so much on a hike in quite a while. It just seemed like there was constantly a stupid joke going on somewhere from this point for the rest of the day.We made our way back to the trail, where it crossed the camp ground access road, and turned right to head toward the beach. The beach was unfortunately closed for the season, which surprised me. Since there's never life guards anyway, I wondered why they would close it at all. Whatever, we had a nice break and continued on along the shore, then out past the boat concession area and docks. The trail crossed the outlet of the lake, and there were four distinctly different ways to cross. The dam was first, with a foot bridge on it, but it was off limits as per a sign. Next, there was a nicely made new foot bridge, followed by the "old trail crossing" as Tim put it, just a bunch of what looked like former parking bumpers laid side by side in the creek, then the road bridge next to it. Certainly overkill.On the other side, I noted the existence of railroad ties in the trail approaching the lake. I knew a lot of these lakes were part of an ice industry, and wondered if this could have been the access to an ice house. As we headed further on the trail, I saw what appeared to be a fill leaving the area.

Upon further research, I found that it was indeed a railroad right of way! According to a 1921 map of the area, a spur line broke away from the Lackawanna Railroad at Tobyhanna Station and headed almost due north to the lake, with two spots where it would have been accessed for ice. The lake at the time was known as Lake #2 (Mill Pond #1 still bears that name on maps, on the south side of Tobyhanna). According to area imagery, the old right of way would be mostly walkable today.Not sure if this link will always work, but this is where I found it: http://historical.mytopo.com/getImage.asp?fname=pcno21nw.jpg&state=PAMore rail spurs for ice also broke off around the area and will merit further exploration.We continued on the trail until we reached the Frank Gantz Trail to the left. It looked different than it did in the past, because two more trails had been builf off of it, but they weren't intended for hikers. These side trails were built by the army to recover unexploded ordinance. Signs were posted every time another spur trail broke off, reading that "this is not part of the red trail", etc. We continued to follow the red blazed Frank Gantz Trail through pretty woods until we reached  Tobyhanna Road. We crossed and remained on the trail until we got to the old Lackawanna Railroad, which the signs read "Steamtown Railroad", for the tourist line that runs out of Scranton. We turned left to follow this section (now, I would only need to hike the section from here to Gouldsboro and I will have walked the entire old line from it's original terminus in Hampton to Moscow, not far from Scranton) to the south.

I started walking the tracks but saw a hornets nest so moved off. We then followed an ATV path on the west side. We came close to the military installation, but no one was around, and we weren't bothering anyone. Along the way we took a break at a couch where there was an abandoned building. Derek and Jason sat on the thing, which read "Drug Test" something. Something about benefits.We soon came to about where Old Rt 611 comes to the tracks, and so we turned right over to the abandoned road via a connecting ATV trail and then followed it north. This was a long stretch of the old roadway, and we took one break along the way at a bent over broken old picnic bench at a nice view of swamp lands. Someone on an ATV came barreling by us a few times. When we got to the original entrance road to Gouldsboro State Park, we walked it over a hill to the current park roads. There was a trail register box there that Tim had built when he was younger at this intersection, and he was happy to see that it was being used.We headed down the roads from this point to the actively used part of the park and the beach area. It too was closed, but that did not stop Jason, Commando Tom, and I from running fast and jumping into the lake for a dip for a few moments, then running back to the picnic grove where the rest of the group waited.Next, we turned to the shore of the lake and followed a little of Prospect Rock Trail to the unofficial trail that leads out to Gouldsboro. It comes out on a drainage area, from which we followed streets into town. We stopped to goof off at the old playground before reaching the main street, and then turned left to reach the general store which was surprisingly still open. We got some snacks here before moving on. The best part of wandering into town was that we found a bunch of stuff set out for free in front of someone's house. There were a lot of shirts and such, and I ended up with a nice bath robe. I put it on and wore it for the entire remainder of the hike. Commando Tom got a dress shirt, and another one that said something about being perfect because he's Italian. Jason got a dress shirt as well, and put it on (tom put his on too), and Jason commented how it's always good to finish off a hike better dressed than he started it. I had a couple other shirts I got including a Beatles one and a blue dress shirt.

Next, we followed the main street back to the road access into Gouldsboro, and then found our way back to Prospect Rock Trail where we turned right to follow it west.This trail was by far the rockiest one we encountered along the hike. It was narrow and steeper in spots as well. Prospect Rock itself was not much, just a rocky outcropping that was out of place compared to the rest of the hike. The woods were dark before the rock, and it suddenly seemed like mid day again when we ascended the hill. From here, the trail continued a gradual descent to lower wetlands and across a creek. There were spur trails in two locations. At the first turn, we went right, and a second turn also broke off I think, but we missed it somehow.

While walking this trail, some of the group spotted some of the weird white aphids crawling around on a rock. I had seen and video recorded the same aphids at work in Hacklebarney State Park earlier in the Summer, but this time Derek had his music playing, and the bugs (which Tom later identified as Beech Blight Aphids) humorously appeared to dance to the music. Tom got a funny video of us with the bugs.

We eventually came back to Old Rt 611 further south than I'd anticipated we'd be, and so we had to walk it north to the travel center to finish the hike.Along the way, Jillane found a really great walking stick made of a twisted wood, and I was carrying it for her from the tracks to the box that Tim made, but I forgot it there. Jason drove me back to pick it up, and fortunately it was still there. After retrieving the other cars, we had a nice dinner at a little bar and grill Tim knew of further in Gouldsboro. Consequently, this hike passed closer to Tim's house than just about any other hike we'd ever done, as he is a native of Gouldsboro.

This hike was really something very different than the past few, but it was a celebration in it's own right, the kind of silly laughing I hadn't had so much of lately, which drove the day on. We ended up walking about 21 miles total, but it really felt like an average 15 miler to me, probably because of how much silly laughing went on.