Hike #1226; Jacobsburg Area Loop

Hike #1226; Jacobsburg Area Loop

6/5/19 Jacobsburg Area Loop with Justin Gurbisz, San Westermann, and Daniel T Westermann

This next hike would be a loop around the Jacosburg area. I’d done a ton of stuff in the past around there, but I figured it would be nice to have something of a loop.

Jacobsburg EEC

There are a lot of trails in the state park, and there’s a way of milking a lot of miles out of them by zigzag routing it. I’d been wanting to do this for a while, and with longer days I figured this was a pretty good opportunity. Also, after the previous Delaware and Hudson hike with it’s challenging spots, I wanted to do something a bit easier.
We met at a liquor store in Stockertown, which was a bit further away. I don’t like heading directly to the meeting points so much any more. There’s the potential of too many people messing with my car (I’ve been getting a lot of threats lately), and I also don’t want anyone to try to intercept us at our start points to tell us not to do night hikes.

After meeting, we all headed up the road and to a commuter parking area in Belfast, the next settlement up, on Henry Road. The lot was totally full of all sorts of road equipment this time, but fortunately there was enough room that we could still park around it.
From here, we simply walked Henry Road beneath Rt 33. On the other side, a trail started up in the grass to the right of the road, and headed parallel with the road past an historic homestead, and then through a parking lot in Jacobsburg Environmental Education Center.

Henry's Woods Trail

We crossed the lot, and then continued on a trail to the right that headed parallel with the old mill race, and then we turned left to another trail which goes out across the Bushkill Creek on a foot bridge. Adjacent to the footbridge is the dam ruin, which was associated with the aforementioned mill race. This powered the Henry family’s gun factory. The family provided guns for the American Revolution, when they operated out of Lancaster PA. The Henry family moved to nearby Nazareth, and then established operation in Jacobsburg just to the south in 1792.

Henry's Woods Trail

They continued on that site and then in 1812 moved all major operations to Boulton, the next settlement down on the Bushkill Creek for which the dam served.
We continued across the bridge, and then turned to the right from Boulton along the upper Henry’s Woods Trail, which is the steeper route above the Bushkill Creek, but one of my favorite trails in the park because it’s on such steep slopes. They even close this trail off in the Winter because it’s considered to be too dangerous. It just has the most character with it’s ups and downs, views, and sections of stairs and such.

Henry's Woods Trail

We passed the amphitheater near the end of the trail and then reached the parking area off of Belfast Road.
This area was different than I’d remembered it. My first time to Jacobsburg was in the early 2000s, but at that time there was nothing around the lot off of Belfast Road. Now, a large visitor’s center had been constructed to the left of the lot. I’d never seen it before as I recall.
We turned left along the lot, and then the trail led up past the building. The trail always used to meander through the fields somewhat parallel with Belfast Road through here.

The new visitor center

It was an interesting building, and I was tempted to go over and check it out, but we didn’t bother with it this time. We continued on the trail, which followed their sidewalk for a bit, and then entered the brushy young woods again like it always used to. This is part of the Homestead Trail.
We continued parallel with Belfast Road, and a side trail went off to the right, out to the road. I almost went the wrong way here, but we backtracked, and then headed up hill along a power line for a bit of time. I felt so out of shape because the ascent was really getting to me. I need to get more exercise.

Yum

The trail came up to an access on Jacobsburg Road, where we turned left. The trail then split in two, where one went into the woods and the other remained out in the open fields. I believe we stayed in the wooded section here for the first part, which joined back up with the section from the field ahead. Another trail came in from the left, from Henry’s Woods Trail, and we took the next right on another leg of Homestead Trail which took us back up hill a bit more on a wider path up to the fields. When we reached the peak of the fields, we made the next left on another bit of Homestead Trail.

Homestead Trail

The path was mowed in this section, and made it’s way slightly down hill and into another wood line for a bit. Another trail to the left connected back down to Boulton Historic Site, but we continued to the right to follow the extreme perimeter of Jacobsburg EEC. This section, which I had never hiked before, skirted rather close to a few people’s back yards, but mostly was a nicely shaded route along the field edges. It headed slightly up hill again to the peak of the fields, and passed through an open area with a bench, and a nice view to Wind Gap to the north.

Homestead Trail

We stopped for a little break at the bench, and Sandy broke out some of her home made goat cheese from the farm she lives and works up in Sussex County.
I’ve had goat cheese many times and found it to be quite good. She had these chip things to dip it in, and told us she’d just made it the day before or something. We heckled Justin like crazy to try some, but he would put none in his mouth under any circumstance. This was incredibly strange considering the fact that he’s eaten all sorts of horrible things he’s found in abandoned buildings all over the place.

A view to Wind Gap

We continued along Homestead Trail just a bit more out toward the next access point, close to where we’d previously been, and turned to the left out to the intersection with Jacosburg Road and Fehr Road. Our only substantial road walk was this bit, where we followed Fehr Road to the west. It wasn’t at all busy, so it was just about as pleasant as anything else we did.
We remained on Fehr Road to it’s intersection with East Douglasville Road and turned to the right. This road took us down hill and crossed the former Nazareth Branch of the Lehigh and New England Railroad.

Justin is uninterested in goat cheese

The rail bed is not even recognizable where it would have crossed the road. We then headed down hill to cross the Bushkill Creek, and then turned to the right on a trail, formerly State Park Road. It’s still a drivable road to the east of Jacobsburg Road, but the section from there to Douglasville Road is now a trail.
We continued on this for a bit and took a break along the creek.
We continued ahead, and the Sobers Run Loop Trail soon broke off to the left up hill.

Justin says "no" to goat cheese

I can’t keep track of which trails are which out there, but we pretty much just followed the perimeter this time for the sake of simplicity. I think I’ve followed most of that section before. I have another version of this loop hike I plan to do in the future that will be at least 25% different from this one, but I don’t want to post it that soon.
We continued to the north side, and the trail turned right to follow a power line clearing down hill. This took us back own to the former Nazareth Branch of the Lehigh and New England Railroad. This section was used from 1898 until 1939.

Old State Park Road

We turned right on this, and I pointed out along the way where there were a couple of railroad ties still in place in the crushed stone surfacing.
I’d first hiked this section in September of 2005, and since that time much of it to the north has been made into a trail.
We continued south a bit, and then turned left onto a trail that more closely follows the Sobers Run. Along the way, some of the route looked as though it was following an old mill race because it seemed pretty level.

LNE Nazareth Branch

Along the way, someone had cut bits of logs into weird tikis.
We followed this until we reached back to the former State Park Road section, nearly a loop from where we had turned off. We turned left, and followed this trail to a foot bridge built where the road had crossed. We crossed over, and then turned immediately left on another leg of the Sobers Run Trail, this time to follow the creek we had just followed down stream on the other side, back up stream on this side. It was a pretty section, and there was evidence of recent flooding with lots of strewn rocks.

LNR Nazareth Branch

I find this section a bit confusing as well, because there is one trail that follows close to Sobers Run, and another that goes up the slope a bit more from it. At some point, we left the one along the closer side of the creek, and went to the upper one because we needed to get to the Sobers Run Connector Trail.
We eventually reached it, and headed up hill away from the creek. This took us through a weaving route in the woods out to cross Belfast Road. On the other side, the trail was then quite wide, as if they had just done a ton of improvement on it.

Old mill race on this trail?

It was kind of strange though, because the improved section just abruptly ended all of a sudden, and it became a narrow footpath.
We next crossed over Jacobsburg Road after the weaving route, and then after that over State Park Road.
The trail beyond then headed into the area where the former town of Jacobsburg once stood.
The town was named for founder Jacob Hubler, who set up the settlement here in 1740. William Henry II certainly helped it grow when he moved his gun factory from Christian Springs in 1778 to Jacobsburg in 1792.

Tiki friends

There was a trail I had intended to take to the left after crossing the road, but it appeared to be completely grown in, so we kept to the right, to the old road into Jacobsburg. This is now the Jacobsburg Trail. We followed this red blazed trail to the north and crossed a foot bridge over Engler’s Run. I didn’t see a single foundation from any of the buildings at this time.
We continued up hill on the trail, to the north end of the park, and then turned to the right parallel with Route 33.

Sobers Run Trail

We headed to the south following the extreme perimeter of the park. There were a couple of other trails that broke off to the right, which I’ll have to use on future versions of this.

Old State Park Road bridge site

When we started getting toward the end of the Jacobsburg Trail, I took everyone a way I prefer to go off of the unofficial trail.
There is an old slate quarry in this section of the park, which is pretty cool to see, but you have to turn off of the official trail and onto a service road in order to view it. Even more than the quarry, I prefer this way because of a large slate slope that used to afford us a view into the valley around Jacobsburg. Unfortunately, this has grown in quite a lot from what I remember my first time seeing it, and it’s barely worth going to any more.

Washed out

We passed around the quarry, and went out to the edge to have a closer look, and then returend to the official trail. This took us out to Belfast Road and the parking lot we had been at earlier. Rather than just turn left over the road to continue, we instead turned to the right after crossing the Bushkill Creek on the road bridge, and headed into a swath of woods via a grassy opening to visit the circa 1792 Henry Forge site built by William Henry II. There are two old stone buildings remaining there, the only two survivors of the forgotten village of Jacobsburg.

It’s very disappointing to me that there is not a single interpretive sign for this historic site. There’s nothing to tell anyone of it’s significance at all.

Bridge in Jacobsburg

We walked around the site, and then existed it to the left, out closer to Belfast Road where there is a rather nice pavilion where we took another break.
There is another trail we should have done to an observation blind, but I forgot to head that way.
From here, we headed out to Belfast Road, and then across into the lot. We crossed the prefabricated bridge across the Bushkill Creek, and then continued on the very pleasant lower Henry’s Woods Trail, which follows more closely to the bottom of the flood plain, while the other leg stays up at the higher elevation.

Jacobsburg Trail

The Henry’s Woods section provides multiple access sites to the creek, which are really nice, with steps and such going right down into the creek.

Henry Forge

We stopped at I think it was the second one, where there is a rock cliff across, and a somewhat deeper spot into the creek. I absolutely had to get in to cool off, but surprisingly none of the others wanted to get in.

Henry Forge

We actually took a pretty long break here because we were doing so well on time. Eventuall, we got out, and continued along the trail to the south. It left the edge of the Bushkill Creek and climbed away a bit, then joined with the trail at the mill race where we had first turned off from it shortly after entering the park.

Henry Forge site

We backtracked the same way we had gone on the way in, across a small parking lot, and then past an old homestead to a trail out toward Rt 33. We then got on the road and simply followed it back under 33 to where we had started.
This was really a very relaxing and enjoyable hike, and I hope to do a few other versions of it to cover all of the other trails there. There’s really a lot to see there, and even a couple of close connecting parks that I’ve never done at all. We had moved along pretty fast, and finished among the earliest finish times of any of the night hikes I’ve done, probably around 9:30 pm!

Henry's Woods