Hike #755; Ruppsville to Bethlehem

Hike #755; Ruppsville to Bethlehem/Buckettfest

2/22/14 Ruppsville to Bethlehem with William Fabel, Jennifer Berndt, Brandan Jermyn, Lyz Hagenbuch, Ric Giantisco, Justin Gurbisz, Michael "Lerch" Clark, Shelly Janes, Bobbi Landrock, Michele Valerio, Ted Wright, Jennifer Gates, Chris Herbig, Peter Wilcox, Colin Webb, Christian Alexander, Roger Lerner, G?, Jim "Mr. Buckett" Mathews, Stephen Argentina, Chris "Cupcake" Kroschinski, Darlene Perez, Ariel, "Commando Tom" Petrucci, Laura Allen Cunningham, and Jack Lowry.

The group on the former Reading Railroad

This hike would be a great example of how to make the best of seasonal situations and still cover interesting new ground. It would also be a seriously crazy day ending at the seventh annual Buckettfest in Bethlehem.

The planning stages of this hike put us north of Bethlehem, passing through Bath, trying to trace an old Lehigh and New England Railroad route, but a good amount of it would have been something I'd already done. Rather than do a lot of repeating, I came up with an almost completely new hike from the west that would be along a rail line, making it easier to walk in the snow. It was sort of a more last minute decision, but one that I was very happy with.

I had found a line way back that broke away from the former Lehigh Valley Railroad between Whitehall and Coplay, which made connections with the Ironton Railroad, now a trail, parallel with the Coplay Creek, but never really got around to trying to trace it's route.  I'd seen on maps that it was abandoned to the west for a time, but then serviced the corporate industrial sites further out in Lehigh County as an active line coming north from Alburtis area on the main line.

The line was once part of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad system, probably constructed to bring Portland Cement from the Coplay Cement Works or product from the Thomas Ironworks, both of which were near it's eastern terminus with the Lehigh Valley, Ironton, and Lehigh and New England Railroads. Today, one might guess it's simply a modern line built to service the industrial sites through the area, but in truth those sites probably chose their locations because of the rail access.

We began our hike in Lone Lane Park, in a little unknown area of Lehigh County known as Ruppsville. The town as far as I could tell did not even have a station stop on the rail line. We followed the park road out to Schantz Road and turned left. We crossed over Ruppsville Road and then reached the railroad line, which crossed the road on a bridge. We passed beneath and climbed up the other side to start heading north. Mr. Buckett joined us for the first leg of the trip, but ended up turning back early on because he had responsibilities toward Buckettfest later. We headed directly toward the Rt 78 underpass, but first Justin spotted a tall billboard he had to climb.

Once on the other side of the highway, we crossed Ruppsville Road and headed into the village of Chapman. We crossed Farm Bureau Road, followed by Memorial Road. I was surprised to find what appeared to be an original station still standing at the grade crossing here. Another similar structure (maybe freight and passenger stations?) right next to it, though somewhat altered for a garage door.

We passed beneath Tilghman Street and then over Chapman Street at grade, then paralleled a bunch of parked rail cars. Some of the group of course had to climb them. We then passed a Norfolk Southern diesel train idling on one of the tracks, which were now several wide. We then crossed Blue Barn Road and the line made it's way into more rural settings.

The tracks headed out onto a fill and over a small creek, followed by some nice farm lands. We regrouped for our group photo at Eck Road. I thought it was uncommon that a railroad line be on such a level grade with the ground in this area rather than constantly in a cut or a fill. That's one of the things that I thought was a sign the line was much older. It preceded more well graded lines.

We soon crossed over PA Turnpike Rt 476 and entered the area of Walbert. We crossed Church Road after closely paralleling it, then reached Rt 309. It was really busy and far too difficult to cross with the group, so we turned left down to the traffic light at Chapman and Pope Roads, and then stopped at the Exxon Station mini mart for some drinks and snacks.

There were girl scouts selling cookies out front of the place, and I couldn't resist getting a box of the coconut caramel ones. It's one of the only two foods I like that have coconut in them (the other being coconut rum, which Lerch had, a new concoction with the cheaper "Pirate Water"). I pretty much ate the whole box myself, and what I didn't eat I traded to others for peanutbutter cookies.

We took an extended break here for Cupcake, Darlene, and Ariel to catch up with us. They'd run late as usual. While we waited, Lerch and Justin climbed up a billboard just to the south of us.

We continued back to the tracks from the convenience store, and headed eastbound. Jenn Gates had fallen behind us a bit, but soon caught up. We made our way across Church Road and Ridgeview Drive, then over Brickyard Road. We crossed over Huckleberry Road, which we had paralleled, then continued north as we began to follow a fill that was the approach to the Jordan Creek. There were some quarried out areas, probably borrow pits used to create the fill near the tracks. Justin and Lerch took a side trip to climb a power line tower here.

When we got to the highest point on the fill, over Jordan Creek and Iron Bridge Road, Cupcake made two large snowballs and rolled them down hill. The first one picked up mass as it went down, but exploded against a tree. The second one he made went far down to the bottom but did not gain much mass at all.

We had passed beneath this bridge before on a Jordan Creek hike in late 2010, at which point I told my comrades Commando Tom and Eric Fay that I wanted to walk this line. It's nice to think I'm still accomplishing all of these goals. There was once a Jordan Station located near here.

We soon passed over Cedar Crest Blvd and continued on the tracks to reach a fenced area with no trespassing signs, the first we'd seen all day. I figured we might not get through if we went this way, so we turned around and instead climbed down to Cedar Crest Blvd to follow it to the north. Somewhere in this area was another station known as Metamora.

The road took us to a little settlement with historic stone homes at the intersection of Cedar Crest, Orefield, and Shankweiler Roads. One of the corner was obviously added onto at the top but retained a lot of historic looks. We turned right on Orefield Road and continued to another little settlement, name unknown, where we took a break at Grumpy's Barbecue Roadhouse. A lot of the group used the restrooms, and some ordered drinks while waiting, despite the non need for it. I ended up having to help them chug two beers so we could continue on.

We followed Mauch Chunk Road from here to Sieples Station Road, where we turned left. This was a former station stop on the old railroad line, but no sign was left of it. The entire line itself was abandoned at this point, the tracks having terminated in this section we missed on the private industrial property. We continued along Sieples Station Road and were joined at the intersection by Stephen who overslept or something and still wanted to join.

This road led us to Mechanicsville Road were we turned right. Where the railroad crossed this road was kind of obscure. A driveway was built on it at an angle to the left, and to the right it was just a mess of trees. We continued on Mechanicsville Road until we got to a Jewish cemetery on the left hand side where we'd access it once more. I had everyone regroup here, while Stephen and Lerch had a snowball fight. Stephen was going nuts throwing snowballs at everyone on the road. Somewhere in this area was another station known as Mickleys, but it might have been further ahead.

We cut through the cemetery and reached the railroad bed on the other side, now completely overgrown. We instead followed the parallel farm field on the other side of it, again heading east. The snow was tough to get through here. Guillermo took the lead, following some snowmobile tracks that made it a little bit easier to walk, but we still busted through the mess often.

We came out to MacArthur Road near the intersection with Lehigh Street after a particularly bad bout of trudging in the snow. Herbig was sort of delerious at this point, and we had to wait up a while for those who were behind. We turned right on MacArthur, because the rail line turned slightly to the south, and following Lehigh Street would not be as close to the historic route. We headed to Glenside Dr. and crossed there, stopping for a break at the Wawa market.

When everyone caught up, which took a while, we took some time for snacks, drinks, and restroom stops, then moved on down Glenside past a cemetery I'd hiked through during a hike about six years ago. We continued on Glenside to 7th Street where there was a skating rink. I had to double check my phone for exactly where the rail line would have gone. I opted to cross the skating rink parking lot, which was plowed, to the right and to the east. It appears the buildings were in fact constructed partially on the right of way to the west. Ahead, just into the woods, we got onto the railroad beds near Coplay Creek, in an area that was known as Rittenhouse Gap. The popular rail trail located in this area is the Ironton Trail, on the old Ironton Railroad. The Reading Railroad line that we had been walking made a connection to the Ironton to the north in two locations. Directly to the left of us a right of way headed north to a former junction. Directly ahead, the line headed to another junction, which was an east bound connection to the Lehigh Valley and Lehigh and New England Railroads.

We climbed down the slope from the first rail bed to beside the Coplay Creek, where we could see the concrete culverts where it passed beneath these rail lines. We then climbed the fill to another connecting like and turned left, which led in short distance to the Ironton Rail Trail. It was so nice to find that this trail was actually plowed. We had a nice break walking the line to the right for the next half mile.

Where the former Reading line broke off to the right, and became Lehigh and New England, we turned right. There was a former bridge that had been partially demolished, with a hole straight down to Coplay Creek. We crossed over Water Street and continued following the Lehigh Valley Railroad south along the Lehigh River. The Lehigh and New England apparently once paralleled just to the west. There was a tall signal tower here, which Cupcake immediately climbed up. When he came back down, Justin and Lerch went up. When they reached the top deck, that wasn't enough, so they climbed to the top of the railings at the signals themselves. Everyone watched in horror as the old structured swayed back and forth. Fortunately no one was hurt this time.  We passed beneath the Pine Street bridge, and Justin and Lerch had to climb out onto this as well. The Lehigh and New England line used to cross the Lehigh just south of here. The bridge is still standing in deplorable shape. Christian got close, and everyone deemed it unsafe to cross, and agreed they needed to sit tight here and insist that Justin and Lerch continue walking because they'd want to climb across it. The piers to the bridge were deteriorating, and the first span appeared to be situated at a different angle than the others, meaning it's moved out of place quite a lot. I can't believe the thing has been left standing rather than removed.

We continued south on the rail bed, which was really bad trudging. Walking was difficult, and there were no other foot prints but ours. By the time we reached Race Street Bridge, we were sick of the trudging. Lerch and Jen opted not to even continue the hike, climbing up to the bridge there and headed to a bar. At the same time that they were leaving Jack finally caught up with us to finish the hike! The rest of us climbed up to Lehigh Ave here, turned right and then crossed that same bridge. Unfortunately, Jenn and Lerch had already disappeared. I called Mr. Buckett and asked him to try to find them.

We all crossed the Lehigh; from the bridge we could see the remains of an old dam partially jutting out onto the river, probably remains of the former Lehigh Canal system. We continued across and into Catasaaqua, then turned right onto Lehigh Street on the other side. We opted to just stay on the road from here rather than the tracks or the old canal trail because it was just so difficult. We continued to Irving Street and turned left. This street took us past some commercial centers and then beneath Rt 22. Once on the other side, we turned left on Airport Center Road.

We turned left off of Airport Center and past the Sam's Club. We continued across a large parking lot from one big box store to another making a direct route back to the intersection of Airport and Catasaqua Roads. I finally got Mr. Buckett in touch with Lerch so that he could pick him up. We just sort of waltzed around the retail places, then headed across where a business had been torn down and got stuck in a fenced in area. We had to wander around a bit in order to get out of the fenced construction zone, but we managed.

We crossed Airport Road onto Catasaqua to reach the Dunkin Donuts and our cars. It was now dark and most everyone was pretty tired. To my great surprise though, all but a couple of the hikers still attended Buckettfest VII!

We all headed up the road to Buckettfest after a bit of time trying to figure out who would be driving the drivers from the beginning back to their cars. Lerch made it back and put lots of pizzas onto his credit card, and we tried to reimburse him for a lot of it.

While Buckettfest VI was sort of a disappointment, Buckettfest VII made up for it and was actually sort of too crazy for some. Over thirty people attended, and there was dancing and silliness going on the whole time.

I think the hike and party both were a great success. Lerch brought along 22 Four Loco drinks as well as other stuff, and there was plenty of craziness.

These hikes, and this party I feel, are representative of the kind of life I like to live, save for a little extra drama. The party was and always is a great tribute to "Mr. Buckett", Jim Mathews, who can come across as brash and uninhibited in speech, but also incredibly intelligent and engaging. Mr. Buckett has become a celebrity among the group, known for always keeping things interesting. He's got the amazing ability to speak in ways as to sound completely immoral, yet he has some of the best morals of anyone we've ever encountered; he is the friend who would do anything to help in a time of need. I've always felt that Buckettfest was a celebration of this, an appreciation for his way of life. If we were all as uninhibited in speech and as loyal in our friendships, maybe the world would be a much better place. At Buckettfest, I could see everyone letting loose in just this way. It was funny, it was crazy, and no one hates one another when it's over.

The entire day in fact was representative of a similar balance. Maybe all of the hikes are. It was crazy and uninhibited, yet we were following a planned route, an almost caged looking path between two rails. The perfect balance between chaos and creation, a random migratory party with just enough order as not to feel hampered. It was a much needed exciting and substantial new route to explore, and the right choice of hike to do in the snowy conditions to cover good mileage. The Winter has been long and painful, but experiences like these soften the blow.