Hike #669; Wind Gap/Jacobsburg/Belfast

 Hike #669; Wind Gap, Jacobsburg, and Belfast

12/8/12 Wind Gap, Jacobsburg, and Belfast with Tim Kovich, William "Guillermo" Fabel, Jason Itell, "Commando Tom" Petrucci, Eric Pace, Bonnie Peters, Teun Ott, Michele Valerio, Brandan Jermyn, Jane Merryman,  Chris "Cupcake" Kroschinski, Darlene Perez, and Ariel.

The group at Jacobsburg Historical Society

Our next hike would be another point to point in Northampton County, revisiting some past stuff but covering a lot of new ground as well.

We met in the morning at the parking area for the Plainfield Township Trail in Belfast PA, then shuttled cars north to Wind Gap, to the Giant supermarket off of Male Road. We had one newcomer, and plenty of veterans of the hikes. Jane, the only new addition handled the hike very well and fit in with the group great. It was interesting that she recently moved to a back road near Dingman's Ferry that we've hiked by so many times before.

We started off our trip by going into the Giant to get ourselves some lunch and snacks for later. This hike would not be passing by any stores along the way, like so many others do. I was having a good time from the start, happy to see so many familiar old friends. Tom and I followed Jason around and made ridicules comments to him about items to buy. Jane sat on a mobile kids animal ride in front of the store, and Guillermo pointed out to her "Just to warn you, that thing will make some beeping sounds if you sit on it long enough". After thinking about that, I realized that this comment meant that Guillermo himself had goofed off on this kid's ride in the past to know such a thing, which makes him all that much more awesome!We walked up Male Road; Eric headed out to hike parallel roads because he didn't want to potentially trespass. We had no problems anyway, and passed no posted signs. We passed beneath Rt 33 on Male Road, then turned left onto a convenient path leading through a muddy line of trees out to farm fields. We then cut across toward an abandoned building I'd found on areal imagery. It was surprisingly being torn down the moment we went by! A machine was there ripping it down. We were too late!We continued walking to the right once we reached the edge of the fields, to the west. There was a good farm lane along that border, and we were separated by the other stores and businesses further south on Rt 512 by a line of trees. We opted to stay in the fields until we got to the last business and open area, where fields gave way to woods on our left. We then cut out across grass and such to Rt 512, conveniently the same time Eric was walking by. We turned right on 512 and followed it down the road until we reached the right of way of the Nazareth Branch of the Lehigh and New England Railroad. This was now under development as a trail. I had found out about this at an Appalachian Mountain Club meeting in 2009 or 8, and then tried to hike through it again (the first time trying to hike it was in September of 2005) in Summer of 2009, but it was still overgrown and in bad shape.This time, we found the entire first section from 512 south to Kromer Road was cleared, graded with a crushed stone surface, and pretty much done. The new parking area on 512 was still blocked, but that was it. We began following it south. From Super Storm Sandy, many of the antiquated old power poles were knocked over and laying there, now replaced by tall vertical wooden poles. When we reached Kromer Road, the right of way was now a clear stone roadway, ready for the screenings to make it an official trail, but it was not done yet. We continued along this route anyway, which was nice enough. There was a man and woman dragging an eight point buck out of the woods to the left of us, and gun shots were going off nearby, a bit unnerving, but we made it through fine. It was nice to have Guillermo back out, because he and I laughed at silly things for most of this stretch.The trail took us out to Keller Road, near the intersection with Belfast Road in Jacobsburg Environmental Education Center (State Park). We continued to follow the rail bed, part of the Sobers Run Loop Trail, ahead into the park.

We didn't go too far on the rail bed from this point before turning right onto the upper part of the Sober's Run Trail. We followed it around the extreme perimeter of the park, which connected to other trails, but we continued on to a former road on the edge of Bushkill Creek. We then turned right out to Douglasville Road where we met up with Cupcake, Darlene, and Ariel. Together, we turned back the way we came a bit, then took the more narrow footpath along the Bushkill Creek. We crossed the LNE right of way again, at the site of the former trestle over the Bushkill Creek, then made our way to the left up along Sobers Run, while another trail went straight on the old road route along the creek. I was planning to turn right and cross Sobers Run, but there was no bridge, so we continued back to the rail bed and turned right next to Belfast Road again, where we met up with Michele. Together, we continued down the trail on the other side of Sobers Run, then went left on the Jacobsburg Connector Trail.This trail crossed Belfast Road, Jacobsburg Road, and then State Park Road. We turned right after a bit to reach the former site of Jacobsburg itself, with old foundations and a nice big tree. We then had to head out to State Park Road and walk it down to Belfast Road, then cross the Bushkill Creek. When we reached the bus parking area (we could have got there on a trail but it crosses the creek without a bridge) we headed onto the Homestead Trail system, and turned right. I'd never done a lot of the trails in the park, although I'd done so many hikes there, including some parts of the Sobers Run Trails, as well as this section of Homestead Trail. We followed it along the west edge of the park, then came to near houses and passed mostly through fields. We turned left to zig zag back into the fields, right again, and descended to Henry's Woods Trail. Eric skipped the up and down, and the Henry's Woods Trail. Henry's Woods on the west side is the most beautiful trail in the park, which runs high above the level of the creek with steep drop offs. It had a sign that marked that it was closed (it seems to be closed every winter), but we went on through anyway and came out at the restrooms and foot bridge over the creek. We then took a nice break and ate our lunches (those who hadn't already). We didn't have that much of the hike left anyway.We turned down the easy part of Henry's Woods Trail, all flat along the lovely creek out to another parking area, but then turned right across a mill race and to the foot bridge over the creek, with a view of the remnants of the Henry Family's dam. This was the area where the Henry Family had their gun factory. We followed the trail up the other side, then crossed through the open area past the farm buildings. The trail then led us out to Henry Road. We crossed onto the Jacobsburg Historical Society property where people were wandering around. Apparently they had an event going on. We went by a nice big tree I always like to stop at, with nice low hanging branches, and then walked Schoeneck Ave south through pretty fields. We turned left at the end on Filetown Road. I'd hiked this section of road in the past, but this time we'd turn left again on Old Filetown Road, an earlier alignment. This was cool because it went across a messed up old iron truss bridge. Beyond the bridge, the former road dead ended, with the new alignment up on a high fill with a big bridge over Bushkill Creek. We climbed the embankment and then turned left on Filetown Road to cross Rt 33. This highway was probably the reason for the realignment of Filetown Road.On the other side we again took a better route than I'd previously done. We turned right on Sullivan Trail, then left on Clyde Street. At the end of Clyde, we nearly crossed 191 onto Gall Road. This road soon paralleled Plainfield Township Rail Trail high above. If we'd followed Gall we would have crossed it, but I didn't realize that at the time. We bushwhacked down hill very steeply to the rail bed, and then hike it back to the south. There were some national guard guys or something doing a drill on the road, running by us for time. Bonnie commented that when she did it they didn't get to run on a nice trail, it was a boring track. We continued on the trail back to the cars to finish the hike.It wasn't the most incredible hike we do by any means, but it was a great group and a really good time. We went out to dinner at a nearby diner that was really good, and then some of us went to  hang out with Commando Tom and Laura, for Tom's 30th birthday (which was actually the night before). We had a really fun day and night, although late.

I'm really lucky to have such fun, active, great friends. One of the standout conversations during the day was about time going by, about birthdays, where we were, where we're going...I had recently been watching some old youtube videos of Beatles stuff (of course), and one particular John Lennon interview from 1971 or 72, which I'd seen many times before, stood out to me. Lennon said he didn't want to be singing "She Loves You" when he was fifty, or even when he was thirty. He knew he'd be doing something different. He then stated that he had just turned 30.

I thought about it, and realized, being 32, that I am now older than Lennon was during this interview, but I do not think of myself as being older. I don't really know how old I feel, how old I should feel, or what should be happening. Standing there talking to Jason, Tom, and Guillermo was really something. We've been friends for so long now, had so many good times, and it still feels as fresh as when we'd met. The passage of time does nothing at all, except maybe bring us closer, but that's mostly subconscious I think. I'm glad we're all still very much alive and active. I'm in a good place, and I feel that they are too.

Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero