Hike #660; Pocono Rim/Milford and Raymondskill Area

 Hike #660; Pocono Rim/Milford and Raymondskill Area

11/4/12 Pocono Rim; Milford, Raymondskill, Cliff Park loop with Jillane Becker, Jaque Melo, and Michele Valerio.

At Raymondskill

This next hike was the next in the Pocono Rim series, looping once again from Milford PA. The intended route would not work out the way I wanted it to because of storm damage following Super Storm Sandy. In fact, that is why only four of us participated. So many people were still out of power, and Jillane and I only had our power restored the night before.We met at the Grand Union shopping center in Milford PA, and started walking from there. I went in for snacks first, and we made our way up hill on the road toward Grey Towers, once the home of Gifford Pinchot (no relation to the actor who played Balki on "Perfect Strangers"...I wonder if I could get a whole bunch of Balki T shirts for the group for the next time we go up there...). On a side note, Bronson Pinchot, who played Baki, has apparently purchased another old politician's home in PA and is in the process of restoring it to it's nineteenth century grandeur.

I fortunately had a back up plan, knowing that there was a possibility of closures. We got on the Pinchot Greenway Trail, a signed route through Milford following roads and small alleys. We continued south through Milford and took Old Bridge road across the beat up old truss bridge across Sawkill Creek and entered "The Glen". This time, we turned left on a trail along the stream heading down hill. There was an old mill race along the edge, and a lot of blow downs from the storm. We navigated through them and emerged on 209 next to an historic house. We then turned right and right again into the Milford Cemetery (no hunting lol). We headed up hill passing unnamed vault grave site, and met with a nearly toothless old man cutting fallen trees off of the grave sites, complaining that it was mostly pine. Still, he was jolly and happy to have someone visit him. We talked to him for a little bit, and he was happy to have some work to keep him busy. He laughed happily when he told us he makes about $2:50 per hour!

We continued through the cemetery and checked out some interesting graves, including a plot of "Pinchot". There was a younger Gifford Pinchot in the plot, but not the one of notoriety. He may have been in there somewhere, but we didn't see it. We also saw a tomb stone that was transparent, made of some sort of plastic material.We continued from here up hill on a woods road that intersected with Cliff Trail, of the Cliff Park trail system, and headed up hill rather steeply. At the top, we followed the turned right on the spur trail out to The Knob.

The view of course was great, and the clarity in the air made everything very visible, except it was rather cloudy. It even drizzled a bit during the day despite forecasts saying there'd be little chance of precipitation. We continued from the overlook along Cliff Trail west, with many awesome views of the Delaware Valley.

We didn't remain on Cliff Trail this time, but instead turned right down into the Cliff Park trail area, and the lovely little pond next to the golf course. I'd heard the golf course had been abandoned, but it was obviously rather maintained when we got there, and mowed to the point it would need to look to be an operating course. After going almost all the way around the lake, we reached a parking area with cars in it. Apparently this section of the park was open. We continued left from the lot, which had a nice clivus restroom, to Buchanan Trail, and Jillane and I explored an abandoned trailer and building. We then moved on down the trail to turn onto the one to Hacker's Falls.We had been up part of this trail in the Spring time, but I'd thought a smaller falls down stream was Hacker's Falls. Hackers was actually nice, and much larger, but the width and volume of the falls make it look much smaller in pictures. It would be a great swimming spot. We continued along hackers trail up hill, and then down into the Raymondskill Falls area. We crossed the road and got on the trail system there, with it's well build steps and such, and great overlooks of the falls from different angles.Once we left the main view, between the two main sections of falls, we continued on the trail down to the lower two falls on tributaries to Raymondskill Creek. At the end of the trail, we turned onto an old abandoned trail route, above an old mill race on the creek. This led us on up to the road again, though a lower route could have kept us next to the creek. I was surprised to see an old through style truss bridge over the creek, a road that would have been the predescessor to Rt 209. It had no decking on it, and the i beams that would have held it in place were askew, but the trusses were still looking good.

We continued out to cross 209, which was still closed from the Summer further to the south, and then got on the McDade Trail. There was still no foot bridge over Raymondskill Creek either.

We followed McDade Trail to the north from here, with great views of the cliffs of the Pocono Rim. We made good time on this stretch, and passed a disturbed area to the left where a lot of dirt had been moved for who knows what reason. We passed beneath the Milford Montegue Bridge, and then entered the Milford Beach area. From here, we turned right along the grass, along the Delaware beyond where we'd turned off previous times. I'd not followed the Delaware from this point and had been anxious to do it.I was surprised to see the abutment of the original Milford Montegue Bridge was still in place on the far shore. The near one had been completely removed, presumably for the construction of the more modern beach facility. I'm not sure if the originally bridge was washed out in 55 with many others, or if it was torn down when they built the new one in the fifties. The old road approach to the bridge was also apparent.We continued along the river, and then cut into the woods for a bit. We then made our way onto a gravel road which led to two houses. They were well kept, but there was no one there. They must be either park worker's homes, or they were vacated due to the recent storms.We passed the homes and cut into the woods. We were now on the flood plain where Sawkill Creek enters the Delaware. There was at least one, maybe two berm type things in the woods, and I wondered if it might have been a part of the Delaware Valley Railroad. The rail line was never built beyond Bushkill from East Stroudsburg, but it was planned to lead to Port Jervis. It's possible that some grading might have happened, but I'm not aware of any. It's a wonder what these structures might have been.We continued through the woods and ended up back on Old Milford Road. We passed some park rangers along the road, and I was concerned that someone might recognize Jillane or I because of the issues we'd had with them the previous year, but they were friendly and greeted us. Some of them sounded very unprofessional and harassing when we were questioned, especially since we did nothing wrong, but we haven't had a problem since, and overall experiences with rangers are friendly and productive.We turned right to cross Sawkill Creek parallel with the arched 209 bridge, then turned right on River Road, the route of the Pinchot Greenway. This road was a dirt road, barely used, which looks to be no more than a driveway. It was really nice to walk. It took us out along the river with great views up and down stream, and had no trespassing signs along it. Still, there were public trail signs in addition to these foreboding ones so we continued. The road ended ahead, and we saw that the Pinchot Greenway went up hill on Catherine Street I think it was. We headed up, then turned right to leave the Pinchot Greenway, opting instead to check out the north side of town and it's back streets. We followed them back and forth above another creek inlet, until we reached Rt 209. We crossed and followed more back streets until we picked up the Pinchot Greenway again, and it led us through back streets and down a nice narrow alley back to the Grand Union to finish the hike.