Hike #1240; Suedberg to Gold Mine/St Anthony's Wilderness

Hike #1240; Suedberg to Gold Mine/St Anthony’s Wilderness

7/28/19 Suedberg to Gold Mine/St. Anthony's Wilderness with Mr. Buckett (Jim Mathews), Diane Reider, Jim “Uncle Soup” Campbell, Eric Pace, John DiFiore, Jessica Anne and Kralc Leahcim (Lerch).

This next hike would be the next in my 911 Memorial Trail series, as well as in the Union Canal series. Both are important to do, and so I slapped two into one.

On the last hike, we had finished in Swatara State Park rather late after a long section. This time, I wanted to cover some of the best the park had to offer by revisiting a few spots, and also try to hit some of the historic Union Canal branch sites.

Suedberg Hotel site

I headed out early and drove by myself, so it afforded me some time to set up some then and now photo compilations on my drive there, which I’d found stuff on during my previous hike.
I made the meeting point the end point as usual, at Gold Mine Road in St. Anthony’s Wilderness, at a lot for Stony Valley Rail Trail in State Game Lands 221.
The planned route would begin at Suedberg and follow the south side of Swatara State Park on the Old State Road route, visit a couple of Union Canal locks, and then make our way across on the Appalachian Trail to Swatara Rail Trail.

Abandoned building in Suedberg

The route would then take a back road and proposed connector to the Stony Valley Rail Trail by way of Lebanon Reservoir. We’d follow the railroad bed right to where we met in the morning.
It seemed like it’d be a perfect plan, with only two potentially tough spots, but I ended up making one of them quite a bit tougher at last minute.
We shuttled from the meet point down to the Swatara Valley to the town of Suedberg where I’d hiked on two different occasions in the past; once on Swatara Rail Trail, once on Old State Road route.

Map of Lebanon and Tremont Branch and connections

The Lebanon and Tremont Branch stated out as the Lebanon and Cornwall Railroad, and was a major artery to bring the anthracite coal from the lower coal fields down to market near Lebanon. It was this line that pretty much put the Union Canal out of business. The canal closed permanently in 1885.
The town of Suedberg doesn’t have much left to it, although at tone time it had a coal breaker and more industry. Right where we were parked was once the site of the Suedberg Hotel. The builing had been abandoned for some time, but was still standing the last two times I was here. I found out that the old place had rather recently been burned down.

Suedberg Hotel on my previous hike

Another building that was across from the hotel was amazingly still standing to some degree, but falling apart worse all of the time. It certainly is far beyond salvage, and surprisingly hasn’t been demolished yet.
The station was a couple hundred yards beyond where we were parked.
We started walking on Swopes Valley Road to the south and crossed over where the Union Canal used to cross. It wasn’t that recognizable at this point. We then reached a right turn onto the Bear Hole Trail, which makes use of the Old State Road.

Historic map showing how extensive the connections to the north once were

They had only started calling that the Bear Hole Trail my second visit to it. The older maps were still referring to it as the Old State Road, a route through what’s now the park.

Suedberg Station

I stood out in the creek at a little boat launch spot as we made our way through.
We followed the trail for a little bit, and then there was a more indistinct trail going off to the right following the creek. I could see by way of the aerials that the route led out toward the old Union Canal. I figured it would be just fine to follow this and then reach the Union Canal, then follow that on through to Lock #5, which now had a side trail to it. We could then use that side trail and make our way back to the Old State Road/Bear Hole Trail. The path was okay at first, but it started to get a bit worse.

Uncle Soup at Lock 5

We started trying to follow the Union Canal towpath, which at first wasn’t awful, but that soon got worse. It’s by no means the worst bushwhacking I’ve ever done, but it also wasn’t pleasant.
We had to keep going up and back down to and from the towpath, and then came to where it was completely purged from a stream blow out.
The stream was Bear Hole Run. From it, we could see the Old State Road bridge crossing over the stream, so Eric and Mr. Buckett took the opportunity to go back and hit that road. We could meet them again up ahead.

Lock #5

The rest of us continued to bully through along the canal. Uncle Soup said he certainly didn’t mind it, because this was coon unexplored stuff.
Soon, the area opened up and we were at Lock #5. The lock was in amazing condition, barely deteriorated at all, with beautifully cut stone with gate pockets.

After the mess of the weeds and such, we didn’t take all that much time to enjoy the look of the lock. There would be plenty of time for that. Lerch, Jess, and I just jumped into the Swatara Creek to cool off.
After jumping in, I felt a million times better. I got several different views of the old lock, and from here we could simply walk out the cleared path back to Bear Hole Trail.

The Union Canal has been amazing to me since exploring it in such great detail.
The main canal might have been the first to begin construction in America. George Washington turned the first shovel of earth for the canal during his presidency, and he personally inspected the first three locks (east of Lebanon) in 1791.
Construction on the main canal stalled over the years, but was complete in the early 1800s. The canal we were following was known as the Swatara Branch canal, Union Branch Canal, or Swatara Feeder. The first section of it between the Union Water Works, west of Lebanon, and a point north of Jonestown known as Finnegan’s Dam was completed in 1827. Work began to extend the canal further north to Pine Grove in 1828.
When completed, the Branch Canal was 21.6 miles long from Union Water Works to Pine Grove, and the Union Canal Railroad was built an addition 3.6 miles to reach the coal at Lorberry Junction.
The branch canal had 14 lift locks, one guard lock, six aqueducts, and four large dams. The complexity of the Union Canal was amazing, but ultimately led to it’s demise.
When the railroad came through, just like everywhere, it was more practical than the slow old canal, and they didn’t have to be closed for the winter due to freezing. The Union Canal was abandoned in 1885 after some damages and never rebuilt.
I had told Mr. Buckett and Eric to wait for us when they got to the intersection with the spur to the lock, which is called Mifflin Trail. I assume it’s named for an architect or something.

When we got out to Bear Hole Trail, there was no sign of Eric or Mr. Buckett. We had taken so long to fight through along the towpath, then swam, then checked out the lock and walked back to the south, so we figured they must have certainly passed us and continued on without noticing where Mifflin Trail had joined.

We continued along Bear Hole Trail over a hill and descended a bit. The time went by pretty quickly and we reached the Bordner Cabin. This was one of the highlights of the trip I had planned, because it’s an odd hidden thing back in the woods.

Bordner Cabin was built in 1939 by a high school industrial arts teacher and his students, from locally sourced materials. The teacher, Armar Bordner, lived there until he died in 1994.

Bordner Cabin

To me, the building is an oddity. We happened upon it on a hike years ago, when nothing was really posted about it. It wasn’t on the trail map. I knew nothing on it and had to search.

Bordner Cabin

Now, it’s amazing that no one has destroyed it yet because it remains totally open to anyone. My fear is that people will find it and wreck it in time. The only good thing is that it’s so far back there, people don’t really want to get that far out to cause a problem. It’s also accessible by official vehicles, so they probably patrol it somewhat.
We went inside and had a look around, and I set up a then and now image of the construction of the place using a historic one I found online.
We hung out here for a bit, because it’s such a great spot. While we hung out outside, I could see someone walking below that was unmistakably Mr. Buckett. I called him, and he and Eric were soon up there. They had taken a break and were behind us the entire time.

Bordner Cabin

They really enjoyed the place too. I gave them some time to look around before we moved on.
When we did, we followed Bear Hole Trail and saw the turn for Sand Siding Trail. We could have gone that way, but I wanted to loop around so we could see the other canal locks as well.

Lock 6

We walked on for a bit, and a small stream flowed off from the left. It passed beneath Interstate 81 within sight, and looked pretty big, so Lerch and I ran up and went through the thing. There was a nice little cascade on the other side. The others waited probably thinking we were insane.
We continued down hill, and eventually we came to Lock #6.
This amazing lock must be close to twenty feet high with a single lift. It’s probably the tallest one on the entire Union Canal. It reminded me of the Upper Division locks of the Lehigh Canal. Locks 6 through 9 were consecutive steps of locks, all pretty close together, but Lock 6 was way larger than all of them.
The upper end of the lock was in surprisingly good shape, but the walls of the rest of it were badly deteriorating. The lower ends also had some fine cut stone in place, but most of this lock just had the field stone base showing.

Lock 7

The trail was pretty close to the steps of locks, so it wasn’t necessary for everyone to follow me to them, but some of us went to them all.
Lock #7 was easily within view of 6. It was a much lower lock, and the masonry was in worse shape all around. I don’t think there was any fine cut stone remaining in this one at all. It’s possible that maybe it never had it, like the Delaware and Hudson Canal, but I’m inclined to believe that they were all pretty standard from what I’ve seen. Maybe the larger fine cut blocks were removed and utilized for something else. We had seen that happen with other Union Canal locks in different places.

Lock 8

I walked down past Lock 7 through some light brush, and just past that I came to Lock #8. This one was very similar in look to 7, with it’s stone sides but without any fine cut looking material.
I had walked by these locks before and didn’t recognize them as locks. It was a bit dark, but I should have recognized them at least somewhat.
Between Locks 8 and 9, we headed down a path to the Swatara where there was a great little spot to take a dip, with a view into the Swatara Gap.

Lock 9

This was a good relaxing spot to take some time. Most of the rest of the trip should be clear and easy from this point, so it was nice to relax and enjoy some of it.
I looked up along the creek and could see in to some of the remnants of Lock 8.
After our dip, we moved on down along the trail, and soon Lock #9 appeared to the right.
This was much different than the others. It was perfect cut stone, and in great shape. I wondered if, because they were steps of locks, only the upper and lower ones would have the cut stone, and the middle ones were considered less exposed to the elements and floods and such, and so could be built a little weaker. I don’t see why they would remove fine cut stone from the middle two locks but not from the two end ones.

Waterville Bridge

After the lock, we reached where Bear Hole Trail intersected with the Appalachian Trail. The AT turned to the right and crossed the historic Waterville Bridge over the Swatara.
The Waterville Bridge was built in 1890 by the Berlin Iron Bridge Company of East Berling, CT, to cross the Little Pine Creek in Lycoming County PA. It is a 221 foot long lenticular truss bridge deemed too narrow for regular traffic in the 1980s, and so it was removed from it’s original location and moved to the Swatara Creek for use on the Appalachian Trail.

Old highway

We reached the other side, and came to Swatara Rail Trail. At that point, the railroad and the older highway were either one, or the railroad bed was overtaken by the highway. The trail was paved as the old road to the right, which we followed upstream along the Swatara the opposite way.
Whatever the case, we followed it, and the paved old road turned slightly left, and the rail bed was obviously to the right. We could see an old rail bridge over Trout Run parallel with us.
The yellow highway lines were still visible in the old road. I’m not sure when this section got cut off, but it couldn’t have been all that long ago.

We remained on the road for a bit, until we saw a spot where we could get off of it and onto the railroad bed. It was brutally hot, and the old highway had no shade. I think at that point it was old Rt 443.
We got into the woods on the rail bed, which I think I’d followed years before, but it was in bad shape now. There were trees fallen over everywhere. Eric was there when we did it, and he seems to recall that we followed the highway for longer. I wasn’t sure about it, but after a while on the rail bed, we bushwhacked back out to get back on the road. It was just too bad.

Sand Siding Trail

We continued to walk the old road route until it started to turn away back out to the current road route. At that point, there was a good wide cut over trail that took us right back onto the rail bed, which at that point was great. Apparently the park decided to stop maintaining the earlier part because it was parallel with the paved road anyway, and just decided to have the road be the trail.
I think Lerch and I took a dip in the creek while everyone else waited somewhere in this area, but I can’t quite remember if that was the first or second time on this stretch.

Swatara Rail Trail

Anyway, we continued on this for a while, and were all getting pretty hot again. We would have to take the first good opportunity to get in the water. Lerch and I spotted as place with a steep slope that looked like crap at first, but once we got down we realized it was quite a good route. We headed down and took another dip in the creek here, which was much needed.
I think that stop was just before the Sand Siding Trail, another cool little spot on the way. This trail is a large elevated bridge out over the Swatara Creek that connects back over to Bear Hole Trail. I wondered if it was maybe an old railroad siding and some old piers were used, or if it was actually just a trail they put in for the hell of it. Regardless, it was a really neat side trip to take.

We continued on the rail bed out to Suedberg. This particular section was reportedly still in service as late as 1980. It was originally the Cornwall and Lebanon Railroad, and then became the Lebanon and Tremont Branch of the Reading Railroad.
I wish we could have followed these lines directly through the way they used to go for a more thorough hike. The Lebanon and Tremont Branch goes into the town of Pine Grove. I’d already traced that to that point, and a little north of town. It used to have a connection with the Schuykill and Susquehanna Branch of the Reading, which is the branch into Stony Valley built around 1862, but that would have been a lot out of the way, and a lot of sections of it are inaccessible. I’ll have to do more of that another time.
The route proposed for the connecting trail when I discussed it with Robert Thomas, one of the planners, was to follow Old Forge Road to Lebanon Reservoir, and then climb up to the railroad bed.
This route looked nice as well, but I also wanted to see the entire branch.
We turned when we got to an access to Suedberg Road next to the Suedberg Church of God. We could go directly across and up hill on Old Forge Road from here.

Swatara Furnace

We passed through a light residential area, and then crossed over Oak Grove Road in a settlement called Outwood, with the Outwood Church on a slope to the left of us.
We continued along Old Forge Road which came closer to Mill Creek, until the entrance to a water authority road to the left.
Eric asked me about a furnace up there ahead of time that I wasn’t even aware of until he brought it up. This was going to make things a lot more interesting.
The first remnant of the furnace days was the historic ironmaster’s house, which was in view from the road across Mill Creek to the right. The house dates back to about 1850, and has several other structures associated with the operation near it. The Swatara Furnace itself was to the left as we walked up the reservoir road.
Swatara Furnace predates the ironmaster’s house by about twenty years, having been built in 1830. It remained in service until 1860, and the forge that was built at the site remained in operation until about 1875. The house had signs that it was for sale, so hopefully someone who can take care of it will come along. It was a beautiful structure.

Swatara Furnace

We walked up to the furnace, which was in reasonably good shape. One of the major concerns was that the lower left side, the south side, was bowing out pretty badly. It looked like it might collapse if it was let go too much longer. They had clearly removed a lot of vegetation from it, but that won’t be enough to keep the relic from collapsing.

Swatara Furnace

We climbed inside the structure, which was really pretty cool. The worse part was that edge where a crack was making it’s way up the entire side.
From the furnace, we continued walking up the road to the Segriest Dam, which holds back the Lebanon Reservoir.
It was impressive that we could just walk up toward the dam without there being any security around or anything. If it was New Jersey, we would not have been able to walk within a half mile of the thing in many cases.
The 125 foot tall, 600 foot long dam holds back 1.2 billion gallons of water.
The dam is not the original one on the site. This one was completed in 1994, and it replaced the earlier High Bridge Dam, which sat at an angle just upstream from the current dam. I believe the original one is still there, just under water.
It was named the high bridge dam because of the old Outwood High Bridge on the Schuykill and Susquehanna Branch of the Reading Railroad, which we were coming to follow.

The dam

The original bridge was an interesting covered bridge. It was a deck truss, possibly a burr arch truss variation, and the lower end of it was covered, while the railroad ran over top of this.
The branch line remained in service only until the early 1940s when it was abandoned.
There are some amazing color photographs in existence of this bridge, taken by photographer Arthur Grumbine.
Grumbine purchased a Leica 35 mm camera around 1935, when color slide film first went on the market! Some of the photos date back from between 1935 and 39.

Arthur Grumbine trestle view

The photos of the bridge are among the oldest color photographs anywhere in Pennsylvania.
We approached the base of the dam, and then cut to the left to try to find our way to the top.
As we walked, we had crossed over the creek on a road bridge. In retrospect, there was probably a path that would have taken us up the other side, but I didn’t think of that at first. We ended up having to climb down and cross the creek on rocks.
On the other side, Lerch started climbing the edge of the dam following the fence line. I made my way up trying to follow the area of larger scrubby trees, where at least I would have a little bit of a canopy to help offset the problems with the undergrowth.
Lerch made his way to the top and managed to find a path somewhere in the mess.
I made my way up and found the path on my own as well. It wasn’t great, but it was going to get us where we needed to go it seemed.
When most everyone was on their way and it looked like they would be alright, I hurried ahead along the path toward the reservoir. There was no sign of the railroad bed yet.

Arthur Grumbine 1930s trestle view

The trail went over some really rocky terrain back in there, but soon we came out to a little rocky beach which was exactly what we needed to find. It was the perfect place to jump into the water. I cooled off really quick and then got back to head back and check on the others.

Outwood Trestle

When I could see everyone was making it through, I hurried back and got in the water.
It was beyond refreshing. I didn’t want to get out. We spent enough time here that Lerch, Jess, and I all swam all the way across to the other side and back.
Once we were all adequately cooled off, we headed back out on the path.
In a very short distance, the path started to become the old railroad bed. It got wider, and then reached a cul de sac for turning vehicles around as well as a large fence.

The rail bed reaching the trestle site

This section was now offiically part of the Stony Valley Rail Trail, although it was a section that doesn’t really get used much at all, because it’s technically a dead end. The proposal is that they will complete a trail through following the railroad bed, it just hasn’t happened yet.
The path remained along the shore of the reservoir for a bit, until it eventually disappeared.
The tributary that feeds the reservoir from this end is known as the Evening Branch.
Along this long and secluded section was once an obscure station stop known as Golden Eagle Station. We didn’t note any remnant of where it would have been however.

Possibly Golden Eagle Station

Some of the stations on this secluded line were just very small shelter stations, so they wouldn’t have very much to see even if we found something.
The section was slow going and very secluded. I think we might have seen a cyclist or two, but they usually go the other direction.
After a while, we reached the crossing of Gold Mine Road, and just a little beyond that was the parking area, beyond where the rail bed was used as an access road to reach it.
The parking area at Gold Mine Road was also once another station site, called simply “Gold Mine”, with another little shanty station or flag stop.

Present day Golden Eagle Station site

I got a ride back to my car at Suedberg where I was able to take a few more then and now compilations before heading on home.

Gold Mine Station

I really thought this was a particularly good hike, in an area that people just don’t typically consider when they think about good hikes.
The old canal locks, the Bordner Cabin, the giant culvert, abandoned highway, the furnace, and plenty of little swim spots at good intervals made it just what I look for in a Summer hike.
Still, some hate the bushwhacking too much to really enjoy it. I didn’t even plan on there being any bushwhacking; it was just something that occurred to me that I wanted to see along the way, and I changed my mind on where we were going.
I just hope I can maintain enough interest to keep this going. It’s been such a fantastic experience doing all of this exploring. It’s certainly not what a lot of people would consider to be their idea of a good time, but it was everything I could have wanted it to be and more.
For the next one, I worked out a route that would involve no road crossings for the entire day.

HAM