Hike #1239; Nockamixon Area

Hike #1239; Nockamixon Area

7/24/19 Paletown/SGL139 to Haycock Boat Launch with Justin Gurbisz, Brittany Audrey, Dan Asnis, Shane Blische, Ellie Zabeth, and Annika Krystyna

This next hike would be another point to point night hike, this time focusing again on the area around Nockamixon Reservoir and much of the surrounding lands.

Starting tastily

I had had some nice hikes in the recent couple of years around this area, and I was also doing several of them there around 2006 and 2007, but there’s still been a lot of stuff I’ve never done. With the super warm weather,I had to have hikes with swimming spots, which made the lake quite attractive to me.
I had recently put together one where we did the south shore of the lake, which went alright except for the menagerie of mountain biking trails that are impossible to figure out. This time, I would focus on the northern section of the state park which has easier trails.

A south fork of Tohickon Creek

In addition to all of this, my plan included several back roads and other stuff that would further compliment the route.
We met at the Haycock Boat Launch, which I realized is open 24 hours, making it the perfect place to meet for a hike. From there, we shuttled in my van to the start point, a piece of State Game Lands #139 just below the little settlement of Paletown outside of Quakertown.
The parking area is near a ninety degree bend in Rocky Ridge Road, away from most everything. The pleasant back road doesn’t get a lot of traffic.

Old school house on Sterner Mill Road

We started walking the road to the east rather than go into the game lands, which would not get us anywhere. We crossed over a small branch of the Tohickon Creek south of the main branch, and then continued on the road out to Rock Hill Road where we turned left.
The road took us past some beautiful farm lands as we headed north around some bends. The houses were pretty old, many of them made of stone. I discussed with Shane how this part of Bucks County was sort of borderline between people who have money and people who have nothing.

Church of Illumination building

As we were coming out to Rt 313, I turned to the right on a grassy swath that took us much further down the road without having to walk so much of it. We followed this to the tree line, and couldn’t get through so easily, so we got out on Rt 313. We crossed the little branch of the Tohickon Creek, which might be known as Buck Run because that’s what one of the nearby roads is named, and we came out to the Wagon Wheel Tavern. I asked everyone if they wanted to make a stop there, but no one was into it.

Garden

We soon crossed over Rt 313 and made our way onto Sterner Mill Road heading gradually up hill a bit. This led us to a peak of land where there was an old school house on the corner with Clymer Road. I waited for everyone to catch up there, and we all turned left to follow Clymer Road to the north.
We headed somewhat down hill, and there was soon a came for people fighting addictions on the right. I thought it was funny that this was right before reaching a religious institution. I joked that the fucked up people go in fucked up on drugs, then they can send them next door to get fucked up on the Lord.

Pyramid

The place for which I was referring is no normal church. This is one that’s a favorite among conspiracy theorists, mystics, as well as drug dazed weirdos.
The property is full of little pyramids, gardens, and one large pyramid. We first saw the large plantation style columned porch looking a government building on the left, and then the rest of the property on the right. There was a lot of state park land on the left too, but undeveloped.
An old farm house to the right is also a part of the property today.
This is the Fraternitas Rosae Crucis facility. It is a much talked about religious site often said to be associated with the Illuminati. However, they are historically very different and have in the past been adversarial with the Illuminati. In fact, it was intended to keep the Illuminati secret from Rosicrucians. It was said that most of the Illuminati were stomped out.

Pyramid

We walked down the road a bit more, and the gardens were clear on the right. Just after them, we could see the tip of the giant pyramid in the more hidden part of the gardens to the right.
We cut over and behind the bushes to check it out more closely when there were no cars coming. There wasn’t anything saying to stay out over on that side as I recall. Justin and Shane tried climbing the thing.
It’s really a unique spot. I hear tell there is a lot more interesting stuff throughout the property, further off into the woods, but I’ve never checked it out yet.
We headed down through more of the gardens, and there were a couple of other smaller pyramids before we came out to the intersection between Clymer Road and Richlandtown Road. Once there, we turned to the left briefly, and then to the right into the land of the Weisel Hostel, which is along the Tohickon Creek above the reservoir inlet.

The garden

We walked back the gravel driveway and an old barn building first appeared on the right. Beyond that, the Weisel Hostel, an 18 bed youth hostel that occupies an old 19th century farm estate, was on the left.
This was the first official hike I had ever organized through here, but not the first time I’d been here.
My first introduction to the Weisel Hostel was in the Spring of 2004 when I took a weekend outdoor leadership training class with Appalachian Mountain Club.

Pyramid

I had just turned 24, and was the youngest leader in training in the Delaware Valley Chapter. I ended up being the youngest leader in the chapter until Jen Heisey came along in 2007 or so.
It was at this training I met friends like Jason Kumpas who I’d go on to hike hundreds of miles with.
Many of the trainees stayed the night there, but I opted to just drive home every night. I really didn’t fit in with them even then, but it was a great opportunity to bring out more hikers.
We walked around the outside of the building, which is quite beautiful. In back of it, there is an old stone arch bridge to a road that barely exists any more we went and checked out. There used to be a trail around this other side, but it’s since been removed from the maps and doesn’t appear to be marked any more. I thought that maybe we’d follow that, but then decided against it seeing the weeds.

Pyramid

We instead headed onto another trail closer to the hostel, but that too was overgrown. My last time out there was with Jillane, where we just walked a bit of it, and it wasn’t all that bad. This time, the trail was blocked off with trail closed signs. We ended up walking back out to the barn we had passed before and wandered into the trail from there.
The trail from the hostel into the main part of the park had been redubbed “High Bridge Trail”, named for the high road bridge that carries Rt 563, Mountain View Drive.
There was also a small stone ruin of some sort which almost looks like a spring house, except for the fact that it’s dry.
We got to a little foot bridge and more memories came back to me. The small tributary flowed beneath the trail, and I remembered an exercise we had done during training here.

Gardens

We had to play out scenarios we might come across while leading hikes, and at this point I was to play the role of someone who was too afraid to cross over a bridge.
I hammed this up like crazy. Jason Kumpas was the guy who acted as leader and had to try to coerce me across.
In most people’s scenarios, they would let up and we’d come to a good solution to get the person through whatever situation it was. For me, I wasn’t giving poor Jason a break. I was acting out and refused to cross the bridge. I could see him gritting his teeth like he wanted to be done with this exercise.

At Weisel Hostel

I liked the guy, so I didn’t want to piss him off too bad when I’d just met him, so I finally gave in, but I climbed under the bridge and walked through the water. The group certainly must have thought me to be crazy. But I was enjoying it. There was no one else there to laugh with me about how silly a situation it was, but I was always good at entertaining myself.
I ended up having great discussions with Jason over beers, and talked about doing some of the high peaks in the Catskills and such. I’d still not connected my own hikes to the Catskills yet, but I would get there eventually.

Weisel Hostel

We continued down the trail, which followed a rocky route that climbed higher above the creek. Soon, we could see the high road bridge coming into view.
To the left, the slack water of the lake started to appear, and there was a nice view out over it.
We passed beneath the bridge, where there was a stone ruin off to the right with a chimney, and then some interesting graffiti under the cover of the the overpass.
Once we were under the bridge, we could see well out onto Lake Nockamixon and to the next spot I planned to stop for a swim. We then turned to the right and climbed steps up hill to Mountain View Drive. They were a bit washed out, but still usable.

Weisel Hostel

We turned right on the highway for a bit, then started looking or a trail down on the other side. I had used this route before on past hikes, but I couldn’t quite remember where it was.

Weisel Hostel

There were a couple of cars parked up there, so I just went in near where one of them was parked.
Trails were all over the place once we were into these woods. We kept heading down toward the waterfront until we got to the rock outcrop where I like to jump off into the reservoir. It’s really a great little spot.
We took a nice long break here. Elizabeth was nearby and parked on a dead end road to the north side of the bridge, and we decided we would wait at this point until she found her way to us. She ended up trying to find the trail that no longer existed that went under the east side of the bridge, and had to walk through the water.

Stone arch at Weisel Hostel

Justin, Shane, and I kept jumping in. It was really a refreshing spot. I couldn’t believe that Brittany didn’t want to jump in. The water felt absolutely great.

Old stone arch bridge

Justin kept floating on his back to where his crotch protruded and referred to the pee pee bulge as a “shark”, much to everyone’s amusement.
There was a bigger rock further down the trail where there were a lot of people swimming. My original plan was to head out that way.
When Elizabeth finally was able to find us, we continued along some trail briefly, but then I changed the plan slightly to stay on some of the trails that were closer to the top of the hill. We had just swam, so we didn’t need to get back in at that popular spot further on.

At Weisel Hostel

The trail in this section is known as Quarry Trail. We followed it to the left for a bit, and it took us through sometimes muddy woods, and gradually descended a bit.
The plan at this point had changed somewhat from staying just along the waterfront to instead following the more inslane trails, and then stopping for dinner at Beckers Corner Restaurant, which occupies an old school house on the Old Bethlehem Road. I was getting pretty hungry, and everyone was totally up for it.

Building at Weisel Hostel

We took Quarry Trail weaving through the woods down hill until it eventually came out on Old Bethlehem Road, one of the roads that was severed when they created the reservoir.

At Weisel Hostel

We turned to the left to follow the road, which continued up hill steadily. It is open to traffic, but we only passed one or two cars while heading out along this.
We eventually came back out to Mountain View Drive, where Becker’s Corner Restaurant was on the far side.
The restaurant is a former school house that now serves as a bar, and retains a cool historic ambiance. I had stopped here once with Jillane a while back and we both really loved it. It seemed like an obvious choice to stop here again with the group. We ended up having a nice long and relaxing break.

Foot bridge

The food was outstanding as expected.
Some were tempted to leave early after the dinner, but only Annika went this time. She called an Uber and got a ride from there directly.
The rest of us headed from here out to the intersection and turned to the right on Mountainview Drive.
My plan was to cut from the road onto the Old Mill Trail, which maps show has a connection right out to Mountainview Drive, but we walked the road and I didn’t find where it was supposed to be. We just kept going, and I saw no way to get into the woods.

High Bridge Trail

Without a good opportunity to hit Old Mill Trail, we just stayed on the road until we got to Deerwood Lane, which accesses the park more easily. I figured we could just take that down hill to where the next trail crosses.
My plan had been to follow the Old Mill Trail which leads to the site of one of the old Stover family mills at an inlet to the reservoir. From that point, the trail becomes paved and very easy for quite a while. Instead, we just followed down the road until the paved trail crossed over and turned.

Inlet to Lake Nockamixon

I was already ahead, and waited for everyone to catch up at the trail crossing. Once we were on that, it would be easy for quite a while making our way closer to the shore.

The high bridge

The trail split after a short distance, where to the left it led up near the public swimming pool, and to the right led down closer to the edge of the reservoir. My plan was to go right.

Steps

I hadn’t considered it before, but we could potentially sneak into the pool at night, which became the topic of discussion.
I considered doing it, but if we got up there and there was no good way in, we could be walking around there for a good long while. We decided we would scope it out in the future and then maybe try it on another hike.
This time, we headed down at the fork, and did a couple of switchbacks on the paved trail.
We passed some large picnic grounds, and then went by the boat rental area in the park.
After that, the trail entered some deeper woods and weaved around a bit. It emerged again at another picnic ground and the large Marina area. We continued on the pavement to the east, which made it’s way out onto a penisula or jetty that reaches out onto the Lake, to a cul de sac sort of outlook area that was quite nice.

The lake from the high bridge

We spent a little time out there, and there was a Great Blue Heron out on the rocks that flew around rather closely. I think we pissed it off or something messing up its night fishing.

Abandoned Kahagon Road where Quarry Trail starts

We walked back out the way we came, and then headed north along the edge of the Marina.
I thought this would be a cool area to swim, but the entire thing was locked off pretty well at each dock. I was thinking we need something like that at Spruce Run.
There didn’t seem to be any way of walking through from the north side of the Marina area, so we took a break at the restroom building there, and then moved on along the Harrisburg School Road, an access road that apparently used to also go through where the reservoir is today. I turned right up hill through grass into a grove of trees.

Quarry Trail

This was a pretty neat little area, out to what would normally be a view out to the reservoir. It was nicely mowed with just a few trees well placed around it. I figured we would simply walk from here directly into the parking area #13. This was not nearly as simple as I planned.
We went to the end of the mowed area, and there was a deep wash separating where we were with where the parking area was. I expected that it would be like Spruce Run with social trails connecting between these places, but we found absolutely nothing. We had to backtrack following the edge of the grove.

Quarry Trail

I eventually found a spot where we could step through some weeds and down over a small tributary to reach the Picnic Area 13 lot. No one was crazy about this way, but it worked out alright.
We turned to the right through the lot to its far end, and then a trail led into the woods to the Children’s Fishing Pond. We turned to the right and went around the outside of the pond.
When we reached the far end, another trail continued into the woods. My goal was to get to the east over to Fox Run Road, around where the now closed frisbee golf course is, but I was having trouble with directions.

Quarry Trail

I found my way to a foot bridge over the stream out there, and we started heading up hill a bit. I figured we were going the correct way, but then the obvious trail started going west.

Quarry Trail

It wasn’t terribly overgrown, but it was getting kind of frustrating. When I finally found my way out to a wider route, I decided we would follow that through to whatever it led us to and not worry about anything else. I didn’t want to be lost in there forever, and the trail marking was not the best.
The trail took us out onto Church View Road, where we turned to the right. This led us to a bridge beneath Mountain View Drive. I had been here I guess it was the second to last time I hiked this with Justin. One of the paths off of Haycock Mountain took us out just to the north.

Quarry Trail

I decided that we should simply head up hill as best we could to get to the edge of Mountain View Drive. I knew there was a way of passing through off road for just a bit further, but since the frisbee golf course was closed, it’s grown in a bit more. I didn’t want to deal with all of that.
We managed to get up to the road, and then followed it to the east for a bit.
I wish there was some sort of trail that connected through these lands below. It’s not all that far to the Tohickon Boat Launch, but there’s no way of getting through to it, so we had to walk the highway.

Old Bethlehem Road

We continud past the boat launch for a ways, and eventually came to a long abandoned road known as Tohickon Lane. I had used this on a few hikes before. We turned right on this to head into the woods, to the south.
The area was full of lightning bugs and sound, and we crossed over a small pond on the left. Whatever bridge carried the road over it’s outlet is long gone, so it we had to take care crossing. The body of water is known as John’s Pond.
The road becomes more prominently paved when it gets to where there was a building to the right. The parking lot is still there for it.

Old house on Old Bethlehem Road

I feel like I researched what this was at some point and might have found out, but I forget what it was and I can’t find anything on it now. There was something in there for sure.

Becker's Corner

The better paved road took us out to the intersection with Old Haycock Road, another one that went through where the reservoir is today at a sort of southwest angle.

Beckers Corner supper

We turned left, which leads out toward our end. To the right leads to the water. There is another trail that leads to the right in this area called Prison Camp Trail.

Great Blue Heron

Clearly, there must have at one time been a prison camp on the property, but I don’t know anthing about that either. That road lines up more with where the main dam is.
The dam was completed by the state in 1973, after having been planned as a recreational lake going back until 1958. A guy by the name of Goddard wanted to have a large park available to all Pennsylvania residents within twenty five minutes of their home from everywhere in the state. Unfortunately, in this case it meant the destruction of the little Tohickon village and reportedly many historic structures.

Historic home image before the lake

We continued along the old road and soon arrived at the Haycock Boat launch where we were parked. It was a beautiful spot to finish up, and the temperature was great.

Marina area

There’s still a lot more stuff to cover at Lake Nockamixon, and knowing I can park at the boat launches leaves us open to a lot of other opportunities to hike from there.
I still didn’t do some of the other trails on the north side that I planned to do on this trip, and there are several more on the south side we never got around to because of the dark on the previous one.
There never seems to be a shortage of places to explore, even with the limitations of daylight.