Hike #724; The Promised Land

Hike #724; The Promised Land

9/8/13 Promised Land; Burnt Mills Swamp Trail to Promised Land State Park with Brandan Jermyn, Jason Kumpas, Lyz Hagenbuch, Ric Giantisco, Justin Gurbisz, Michael "Lerch" Clark, Stephen Argentina, Erica Vera,  Christian Alexander, Guiseppe DeCaro, Leona Helverson, Steve Levy, and Gregg Hudis

Group shot near Promised Land

This hike could be considered a metaphor for sure. To me, Pennsylvania's "Promised Land" has long seemed like a Promised Land for me. Of course, I connect all of my hikes together one way or another. I always set mini goals, like completing one entire particular railroad right of way, or get to such and such a park, all through hikes that connect.

Not so many years ago, I wanted to complete the entire Thunder Swamp Trail system, and not so long before that I wanted to find a way to connect to Thunder Swamp Trail from my familiar Delaware Water Gap area. I of course did all of that. I'd done several hikes within Delaware State Forest, and had an idea of how I would one day connect it with Promised Land State Park.

The Promised Land takes it's name from the days when prospectors came to the areas with dreams of starting farms and businesses, with promises of success and fertile land and resources. What these early settlers found was quite the contrary. The rugged land of this part of the Pocono Mountains was not at all suitable for farming, and transportation was not easy with the rocky ground. When they did try to till a field, the freeze and thaw would always push up more rocks which were referred to as "Pocono Potatoes".

The area of course was timbered, but otherwise left desolate, much as it is today. Even lands that are not in preservation are pretty undeveloped.

It's also not the most interesting topographically. It's very secluded, and this was one of those hikes I wanted to do, to connect everything, and to see what we might find. Overall, I found it to be very relaxing. Not the most exciting, but it had it's good bits about it.

We met at our end point, Promised Land State Park near the beach. From there, we shuttled with as few cars as possible to the parking lot for Thunder Swamp Trail and the ATV path. We started by following the ATV path. We could see Thunder Swamp Trail come out to it, and when I walked it last it actually followed the ATV trail for a time, but it had now been re-routed a bit.

The same guy kept going back and forth past us, at a comfortable 25mph or so on this stretch.

We continued on the woods road, known as Burnt Mills Swamp Trail, out past Thunder Swamp, where it crossed the Saw Creek on a bridge. We headed up hill to a parking area we took a little break. The parking lot was located near the intersection of Rt 402 and Old Bushkill Road. From the lot, we followed a path out of the edge, which took us out to cross Rt 402. From here, it becomes the Pine Flats Fireline Trail, another woods road. This one was far less developed and pleasant to walk on. It came to a really nice little tributary crossing atop giant slab rocks that was interesting. The trail continued up hill a bit to a power line, which it turns right to follow to Pine Flats Road and the Bushkill Creek in a really pleasant little spot.

There were cabins up in there area, presumably for rent. Justin, Lerch, Stephen, Christian, and I climbed up onto the roof of one of them for a bit. We continued along the creek to the bridge, where the spur road reached the main Pine Flats Road. We followed this for a bit, and passed a mail box that Brandan recognized as the Klingon word for "hell". Hmm....

We soon reached High Line Road, another dirt road. We turned right to follow it. Occasionally, a car came by us on it, but it was maybe only twice or so during a really long stretch. This was by far the longest and most boring stretch of the entire hike. Aside from that, it was through really pleasant woods, and really peaceful. We made some pretty good time on it.

We took a couple of side trips to check out some cabins, looking for trouble I guess, but didn't find any. We eventually came to Hobday Road, and turned left to reach the power line right of way. Things got more interesting from here. We turned right on the power line heading north. The path started very pronounced, as it is on most of the power line, but then faded to a foot path, then barely a deer trail, then nothing. It got much rockier. We began climbing High Knob. Nearer to the top, we crossed High Knob Road, after which the power line reaches a small rocky cliff. Justin of course got up it first, so I had to try to follow. It wasn't a bad little climb, and ended some of the monotony. Ric came up next, followed by Lerch and Christian, who helped Erica to make it up. Lyz headed back down with some of the others to take the road around to the top after a short distance.

We continued up hill, and I anticipated seeing the High Knob Fire Tower. Fire towers are usually a lot of fun and quite impressive, but this one honestly sucked quite a bit. It was really low, and all of the communications towers around just dwarfed it. Being up in it didn't seem to offer a better view than we got from along the power line cut, which wasn't bad at all. We could see out toward Delaware Water Gap, as well as to Peck's Pond, and Pickerel/Porters Lakes. The ridge beyond was clear out to beyond Culver's Gap in NJ, which I pointed out to everyone. Justin climbed up one of the giant iron ladies, and said he could feel the electricity from the great height he'd reached on it.

After this nice break, we continued on along the power line headed north. There was a good woods road on this section, which went up and down over Little Knob with some reasonably nice views to the north. When another woods raod was heading off to the right, there was a machine there which had cables strung from it. Apparently this was part of the power line upgrades that we also had going on in NJ. We of course had to climb all over the thing as well. I liked jumping off and holding onto the wire, which was of course not electrified yet. Somehow I managed to lose my camera here, but realized it only a short distance ahead, and went back to get it.

We stayed on the power line until we reached Lake Laura Road. I was thinking about bushwhacking over to this earlier, but when I saw the undergrowth of the forest land in the area I decided this was NOT a good idea.

We turned left on Lake Laura Road, and our next task was to find the end of Big Inlet Trail, which sort of terminates at Lake Laura Road, but not quite.

Officially, the first blaze for the trail is a distance back from this road, which is technically on private land. I found where it looked like it should be, and we headed along it. Sure enough, the post marker was there a short ways in. The trail turned out to be an old woods road, though it bears little resemblance to that today because it's so grown in.

I don't know quite what I was feeling at the time, but I got far behind the rest of the group. There was a nice wooden bridge, I assume the "Big Inlet" referred to on the trail map. It still had the doubled up wood for the vehicle tires, though there's no way a vehicle could get there today. I laid down by myself on the bridge for a few moments, and felt ill for a few moments. Somehow I got my second wind, or something came over me and I got up. Gregg had passed me a bit ago, taking up the rear of the group at this point, and I knew I had to get moving.

I felt pretty good again by the time I caught up. Jason, having grown up in the area, knew some of the best trails to take, and I went with his recommendation of taking the next right onto Bruce Lake Trail. This route would be slightly longer but more scenic. It took us across the Big Inlet again, this time on a small foot path in a more open meadow.

From here, the topography of the trail was really cool, going up and down, and around outcropping rocks covered in moss. It reminded me a bit of the central Catskills but with less dramatic cliffs. Actually, the Poconos in this region are geologically the same as the Catskills, only the Catskills were eroded far more to create the high peaks.

We took a break at Telephone Trail intersection to let everyone catch up. The trail was really rocky and the hiking was much slower than it was earlier. The woods were also much darker and shadier here. It was getting later, and so it seemed much darker than it would out on the open roadways we were on before.

We followed Telephone Trail through some more rocky stuff and finally started to pass a couple more hikers. We were getting closer to civilization. Once we got to where Wildflower Trail ended to our left, the trail began to get easier. On the last stretch of rocky terrain, Christian was cursing out the woods and speaking of atrocities he would commit. I cautiously turned back to ask if he was okay. His tone changed immediately to light and friendly, and said "Oh yeah, I'm ok. I just do this to get me through it"!

The trail soon came to Rock Oak Ridge Trail. It was pretty much a woods road from here, and became very pleasant walking. Young pines made up the understory with the taller, shady trees above, and soft surfaces made for a good home stretch. We came to park road and crossed at a diagonal, then took another trail into the camp grounds, on a path with hay scented ferns. A small path connected the camp ground with the larger lot where we were parked to conclude our trip.

Other than the couple of ATVs near the beginning, a couple of cars on High Line Rd, and here, we saw no one all day. I don't know that that is something that everyone on this hike realizes. We cover so many different areas, but we did it as a group. No one was ever really alone, and I wonder if anyone had any moments like I did, when I was laying alone on that bridge. Really, there was not much that was "fantastic" about this hike, but I think that is part of it's charm. Lyz had told me later that the hike was sort of disappointing compared to other, and it made me think of the character of the area. I always feel that the hikes are what we make them, and I thought we did a pretty good job of making it a great day.

Still, there was an underlying dismal theme to it, and it makes me wonder if we can somehow feel empathy from this land that has historically been a land of disappointment for centuries. Maybe if that's what we were feeling, it was the right experience.

Regardless, I look forward to the next Promised Land hike. What will it be, and how long will it take until I post it? What will the next goal be? Continue westward through the Poconos, or the obvious nearby Lake Wallenpaupack? And what route will we find to take us there? Time will tell, and I don't think we'll be disappointed.