Hike #723; Moscow/Elmhurst/Dunmore

 Hike #723; Moscow/Elmhurst and Dunmore

9/3/13 Moscow/Elmhurst and Dunmore PA with Brandan Jermyn, Tim Kovich, and Cory Janusz

Along the abandoned rail line

For this next hike, I had a random week day off, I think it was for a holiday, and I decided to post a hike. Originally, I had posted something around Green Lane PA, in Montgomery County. I thought a full loop around the reservoir, which I nearly completed, but still had a bit to do, and it would be a good group hike.

I posted the hike, but no one but Brandan and I seemed interested in going to my surprise. I was about ready to leave when I decided to open up some other maps. If it were only a couple of us, why do a hike that's great for a group? I could post something a little crazier that I'd been wanting to get done and could only do with a a couple people. I immediately thought of the old Lackawanna main line, the rail line that went from Hampton NJ to Scranton PA, a section of which was hike #1.

It's still amazing to me that even at the time of this writing in 2013 I still have not completed hiking the original route of this railroad when it's been a dream to do since I was so small. Where I had left off on it, Moscow PA, it's an active line and I didn't want to drag a big group out. I told Brandan when I arrived at his house that we were making a change of plans, going to Moscow.

We headed up, and I texted Tim Kovich and Cory Janusz who I knew would be in the area to see if they wanted to join up.

Brandan and I parked in the town of Moscow at the ball field park where we'd left off the previous time I'd hiked up there, and we headed down hill through town to the tracks. There were cars parked on it along a fill on the south side of town, but it wasn't busy looking. We turned left to follow the tracks north. The old Moscow station was standing, and it had a Hank Hill dressed as a conductor painted on it.

We headed along the tracks for a ways, and moved further off from roads. We passed beneath an old signal bridge which I climbed up, and continued north. It wasn't long before we were parallel with the Elmhurst Reservoir to the right. We continued along the tracks, and Tim called me up saying that he was just ahead, under the Rt 435 underpass. I told him where we were, and he continued walking toward us until we met close to the dam of Elmhurst Reservoir.

When we met up, we decided to check out the dam. I had been under the impression that this was some new lake, but in fact it was very old. The dam had a date of 1889 on it. It had obviously been refurbished at somem point, but retained a lot of historic character. Just as we were down at the dam, barely out of sight from the railroad, a very fast moving freight train came barreling up the tracks. The train even read "Delaware-Lackawanna" on it. We watched it go by, then continued along the tracks heading north. When we reached the road underpass, we turned right on the other side on the older road, now known as G C Smith Street. The start of it was made of old pavers. We followed the street beyond a metal gate, which to our surprised had no signs saying "no trespassing" or anything, which we expected to find. There was an old bridge site parallel to us to the left, which I assume was probably an old railroad spur line, maybe to connect with the other parallel railroad line, which was some branch of the Erie. The patterns in the stone might mean that this was a station site at one time. Just up the road on the right was an abandoned church, which I checked out. There was also a creek bridge in poor condition. Tim talked to us about how Pennsylvania has probably the most bridges in poor condition still in use in the US.

We followed the road out to 435 where we were joined by Cory. We headed over to a convenience store for him to get permission to leave his car for a few hours, which is all he had because he was between classes. The three of us continued together along Old State Road, past a bar, and could see where the Erie line used to cross the road. This would be our route to the north. My plan was to follow this as close as possible, and then return on the old Lackawanna line that was still active. There were paths down below us from the road, and at some point we finally got on down to them. There was also an alternate railroad right of way parallel with this line, the lower track of the PA Coal Company's gravity railroad. I had followed some of the loaded track on a shorter hike with Jillane along Moosic Mountain just to the north, and an on line application showed where this line used to go. We headed down and got on the Erie line for a bit, which was a bit overgrown, and led us back out to the Old State Road. There were signs saying ATVs were forbidden on the road from the rail bed, but there was nothing telling us not to walk the rail bed from there.

The right of way was very nice. It soon passed beneath Interstate 84, and continues on a shelf to the right of the Roaring Creek. Near the bridge, we seemed to be on another grade, which I realized was the old PA Coal Company unloaded track right of way. We soon regained the main line and continued north.

Much of the rail bed from the underpass on was very washed out, but still used enough by ATVs that it remained clear and open. We continued on, and crossed a bridge over a tributary. One was fine to cross, and another, which we opted to cross, was just I beams with trees growing through it.

Despite the closeness to the superhighway, the right of way became more and more pleasant. There were places where the Roaring Creek seriously washed out the embankment to the left, almost taking the rail bed with it. What this did was to create outstanding vistas over the creek. At points, we could see the vertical cliff faces of Moosic Mountain which were outstanding. I was so happy I opted to do this trip.

There was a point where we ended up on a formerly paved road, which seemed to be on or near one of the old rail beds, and we saw culverts under 84, one of which was completely closed in with debris. Somewhere again we also ended up off of the Erie line and back on the old Coal Company right of way. We just sort of went where the ATVs were going and didn't question it. There's not very much a choice in the narrow swath between Roaring Brook and the highway.

When we came to what looked like a dam, we headed down to the creek to investigate. It turns out it was the remains of a pipeline crossing of the creek. It was certainly no longer in use because it was broken along the creek both  up and down stream from this point, which we would see more of later. We walked across the thing and explored a little before returning to the rail bed.

Cory had to turn back unfortunately because he had class, but the three of us continued on along the right of way which got much wider. The roadway that preceded the interstate highway was the Old Drinker Turnpike, and somewhere there must be vehicle access to this spot.

We passed through a cut and emerged at a large, open area where the high bridge of Rt 84 spanned the now wide and steep valley of the Roaring Brook. To the left, I saw, barely visible behind the trees, the trusses from the start of the railroad's long bridge over the same valley. Of course I needed to cross it!

We stepped onto it to find that it was in rather poor shape. We managed to get past the truss section and continued, but there were sections of entire ties missing and nothing but a drop off down to the creek and woods below. The creek was not yet big. It could be hopped across on stones. A fall would certainly mean the death of us. At times, the former pedestrian walkway along the south side of it, which was of course not safe by  now, had completely fallen off into the ravine. Walking over these areas on nothing but a single track wide span of ties was nerve wrecking. Still, I managed to cross the entire bridge without getting down to crawl somehow. Brandan and Tim took their time and kept a lower center of gravity, much more logically.

It was a big relief when we'd all gotten to the other side safely. We celebrated by calming our nevers with some much needed wine.

We passed beneath the 84 and 380 overpass and entered more woods. The rail bed was not as heavily used at first through this area, and understandably so due to inaccessibility. An ATV could not get across that trestle without at least putting some wood across the big gaps in it.

The rail bed opened up and became about two tracks wide as we continued, and some ties could be seen along the left. There were also more good views of the Roaring Brook through trees where it made bends and washed out some of the slope. I could see the slope of Moosic Mountain descending to Dunmore where Jillane and I stayed for Valentines day earlier in the year.

After not long, there were rails along the right of way, which became double tracked. The ATV trail still continued between one of the tracks. Ahead, we reached a junction site.

We turned right at this junction site, out onto a fill. This branch of the Erie continued north to Archbald. I had been to where it's trestle used to cross the Lackawanna River twice on hikes in the past. It was interesting to be on this side of it.

The rail bed took us soon to a metal blockade to keep people off of another long bridge over the Roaring Brook. This one was in far better shape to get across than the previous one, and we got over it easily. The bridge offered fantastic views of the Roaring Brook and Moosic Mountain to the south, but not much of a view to the north. On the other side was Dunmore. We were very close to the hotel Jillane and I had stayed at in February. It was here that we picked up the branch line of the Lackawanna heading south again. We could see the active tracks barely below us, and it made no sense to try to walk those when there was this perfectly good and clear abandoned rail bed without even ties along side of it, within view. We opted to follow this until it's former junction with the main line. It was a very nice route to walk, parallel with the Old Drinker Turnpike.

We followed the paths that went back beneath Rt 380 and 84, and there was graffiti on the piers that read "Locals Only", which sort of worried me a little. We continued along the tracks, which were now doubled, for some time, and passed beneath the scary bridge we'd crossed earlier.

A short distance beyond that, I heard running water and there was a path down to the right from the tracks. We opted to check it out, and it was a fantastic little cliff and small waterfall on the Roaring Brook, sort of a ways off from anything. There was a little bit of junk there, but it was not heavily used. I checked out the water level and determined it safe enough, and jumped off the cliff for a refreshing dip. It was outstanding.

Brandan followed me in, and we messed with our cameras recording the jump. My water proof camera which I had been carrying since late 2010 was not so waterproof as I'd thought it would be, and it stopped working after recording. I had to use my phone as a camera for the rest of the day.

The rocks around the cascade were some of the "kettle holes" or "tubs" that are formed by erosion. This was a really special place we'd found.

After a few jumps and feeling pretty refreshed, we continued along the tracks along the Roaring Brook. We crossed the brook one more time on a rail bridge, this time so obscure that we could easily not even notice that we were crossing it. We ended up finding a nice parallel path to the left of the tracks for a while to walk on, saving us some of the nastiness of walking on ballast rock for so long. We could see more of the pipeline along the creek we'd seen earlier, and it was in even worse shape than the section we'd seen, collapsing off into the creek.

We continued along the tracks beneath interstate 84 again, and made our way back toward Elmhurst. We would cut out at Tim's truck. Because he joined us late, it provided us with the opportunity to go further to the north than I'd anticipated we'd go (I thought we'd cross only the scary bridge and turn back on the Lackawanna line, and head to my car in Moscow). We were able to add a couple of miles to the north rather than backtrack to Moscow after reaching Tim's car.

As we reached Elmhurst, a path led down from the tracks just before G C Smith Street that took us to the recreation fields where Tim parked his track, at Elmhurst Water Authority.

Tim's truck only holds two, so I had to leave Brandan and come back for him with my car.

This excellent hike reminded me of so many of them from the earlier years. My hikes retain a lot of the feel that the old ones had, but the groups are larger and we're doing a lot more official trails. It was really refreshing to have just a few friends out to do some serious exploring to exciting new places, with a bit more of an element of danger than many of them have.

I thought this might end up being the sort of celebratory "End of the Summer" thing I always seem to have, but it wasn't. The Summer fun just wasn't ready to be over yet.