Hike #1275; Hypsy Gap to Penn Estates

Hike #1275; Hypsy Gap to Penn Estates

11/23/19 Hypsy Gap to Penn Estates with Michele Valerio, Kenneth Lidman, Scott Helbing (Tea Biscuit), Jennifer Berndt, Jack Lowry, Sarah Jones, John DiFiore, and Diane Reider

This hike would be another point to point, this time in the Pocono Mountains again, and part of an annual event where we hike to Michele Valerio’s house.

SGL 38 hiking

This had been an odd year for it.
We had been having a hike for Michele’s birthday now since 2013, making this the seventh year of it.
We usually would have it in late October or early November, but this time we were a bit late for whatever reason.
Its’s kind of turned into the costume party hike more recently because it’s usually so close to Halloween, but it didn’t quite work out that way for this one. I also never got around to posting it as a costume hike, and it slipped my mind when I was working on posting it, so it never made it in.

We didn't look quite right...

When we finally settled on a date, it was going to be the weekend of Veterans Day, but then it was to be a Sunday. I try to always do a hike Saturday as well as Monday that weekend because I’m off those two days, so we were going to have it that Monday.

The group

Unfortunately, Michele got stuck working on that day, and we had to cancel the event at a sort of last minute, and I made some other plans.
We went back and looked at when we could do it, and I rescheduled as quickly as I could the next available date in November.

In SGL 38

When I planned this one out, I actually looked at probably about five different routes.
Although we’ve done hikes to Penn Estates (or as I call it, Penistates) six previous times, there is actually still quite a lot of stuff that we can do.
I first was looking at something from the east. We had come from the north the previous year, and so I wanted to do anything but that. We had come from the south the year before that, so I wanted to avoid that to some degree as well. It had been a while since we had come in from the west, and so I kind of narrowed it down from there, although there was a lot of good stuff I’d found coming from those other directions.

View in SGL 38

I kind of narrowed it down to between two different hikes.
One of them started a bit to the southwest, which putting together bits of road walks, one state game land, and a lot of other little parks to get out toward Tannersville area. We could then re-do some of what we had done on previous trips and have a good route.
I was about ready to post this one when I started toying around with the area of State Game Lands #38, a huge game land that is just full of all sorts of old woods roads. We had hiked it before, not that long ago.

Old woods road near Hypsy Gap

The last time we had gone in, we used some of Big Pocono State Park and it’s trails, and then the state game land routes between Dry Gap and Fall Gap. Some of it had waterfall climbing, other sections were off trail, and some were pleasant woods roads. Either way, I liked the route a lot.
I came up with a possible way of doing some of this, connecting with the other stuff we had done when we last hiked the game land, and then we could use a combination of back roads and power line clearings to get back toward Tannersville.

Utility clearing in SGL 38

We would then use some of the plan I had come up with for the other hike I was working out.
This one looked more interesting, and so I posted it somewhat vaguely on what we were doing.
The night before the event, I planned to put a suit on and such, but then in the morning, when I opened my closet, I saw my Hazmat suits sitting there.
I had gotten these suits when I was doing the most horrible work ever at Spruce Run, cleaning out lots of sewage pits. The stuff would get all over us if we weren’t careful.

Seasonal view into Hypsy Gap

The guys with the pump trucks gave me the things when they saw it was getting on me.
So, a lot of time has gone by and I don’t have to worry about as much of that mess at work any more, and so I haven’t needed the Hazmat suits. I figured I’d just hang onto them and hike in them.
It was a crazy kind of onesy suit, which even covered over top of your boots.
I quickly changed my plan and grabbed the four suits I could find, and brought them with me thinking at least some of us could wear them. It was supposed to be somewhat chilly with a high of 45 degrees.

An off trail overlook above Hypsy Gap

I did wear my shirt and tie, but then didn’t have to bother with special pants. I put sweat pants on under the things, and then I was pretty good to go.

Off trail scramble slope

Just as I was getting ready to leave the house, I figured I’d better go over the maps to be sure of all of the turns and everything.
I looked at where I thought we were starting, and then I couldn’t make sense of what I had originally planned.
I was looking at the wrong hike! I didn’t remember that I’d shifted gears and planned out a hike between Hypsy Gap and Penn Estates, and I was looking for a route I hadn’t quite worked out yet from just outside of Brodheadsville!
I had to look over everything again and make sure I had it right. Fortunately, my plans were all coming back to me shortly, but it set me behind a bit getting ready.
I got myself together and we were good to go.
We headed to Penn Estates, and I wanted everyone to check into the private community and park at Michele and Scott’s house directly. Its always a mess getting together at the start, and I figured this way everyone would have cars either at the beginning or end.

Talus slope

It didn’t take everyone all that long to get in there, and we were soon able to get out there on our way.
Diane and I drove our vehicles to the starting point, which I had not yet fully determined.
Going over the maps, I could see where official state game land parking was, but I wasn’t sure where exactly we could park.
I made some turns ahead of time checking to see if I could possibly find a good spot to park that I hadnt considered yet. We didn’t find anything until we got to the spot I was thinking would work best: the east end of Foothill Blvd near Effort, PA.

Talus slope scrambling

There were trucks parked all over the place for hunting along these back roads, and only one where we pulled in to start the hike. There was just enough room for the two cars.

Talus slope!

The road was a sort of parkway style with an island in the middle. We could go to the right and loop around, then park at a pull off spot without blocking the gate.
The gate that entered State Game Lands #38 was along a buried utility right of way, I think a water line or something.
We got out of the vehicles, and Jack and I were already wearing our bright yellow Hazmat suits. Tea Biscuit and John wore the other ones, and they put them on right there.
There were houses all close by, and someone came out of the house closest to us, which had an upper level porch, and just peered over at us. He or she was shading eyes and intently staring at us. It was starting to get kind of awkward after it was about ten minutes. I gave a wave after the start just continued, but there was no acknowledgement. The hand never lowered from the shading of the eyes, and the state never stopped. It was weird!

Talus slope descent!

Once everyone was all geared up, we started walking.
It must have looked odd enough in the suits, but then Tea Biscuit turned into the land with his leashed dog, Waffles.
If that wasn’t weird enough, Jack then started walking while playing his carbon fiber guitar! I glanced over and could see the person on the porch’s mouth had dropped open, but still made no other sound or effort to question us directly as to what we were doing. After we got behind that first gate just a little ways, the person had come down to the gate and was staring into the trail at us!

Hypsy Creek

I laughed pretty hard about this for a while. This was another one for the record books of messing with people’s heads.
The route we walked was clear and wide for a bit. It had green standing pipes that curved which make me think it was a water line with vent things.
When we got to a little fenced building on the right, there was a path that followed the line up hill, but we continued straight into the woods on a trail that appeared to be kept clear by ATVs.
We followed this for a little bit to a split, and then one went straight, one went up hill left.

Spring under a log

We turned to the left and headed up hill a bit. The ATV path was not as heavily used up this way at first, but after a bit of climbing we reached a much wider old woods road.
I had thought to maybe try to follow it down hill to the right, but figured it might involve more climbing back up doing that anyway, and we would be best off just heading up hill a bit more. Besides, there were some things I wanted to see up there I’d never visited before, and this was the perfect chance to go see them.
The bigger woods road was cut out pretty well, and took us up hill further through woods.

An odd growing branch

There were good seasonal views to the south from pretty close to the beginning. The leaves were gone off the trees, and we could see down to the Blue Mountain to the south.
I couldn’t make out any land marks yet, but it was a nice ambiance for the time.
The woods road headed up hill until it came out to the pipeline clearing we had walked before. The route we took was a more gradual ascent to the same place, and probably a lot prettier as well. We turned right at this point and followed that clearing to the north for a bit.

cut out area

The path and clearing had a slight turn to the left, and I had been watching my GPS on my phone for where we should turn off.
Everyone seemed disappointed when I got off of the rather easy and almost level utility clearing in favor of a bushwhack.
I could see the boulder field out there on aerial images, and because it was in the edge of Hypsy Gap, I was pretty sure this would have a nice view. It wasn't too tough to make our way through the clearing and found where the open clearing was.

Logged woods

There was a good view directly across Hypsy Gap, with a steep talus slope straight below. It wasn’t so terrible that it could not be walked down, but it also could not be done quickly. Too many loose rocks, and the fact that we could potentially let one loose down the hill is enough reason to slow up a bit.
I think everyone might have been surprised when they saw me start descending right in the middle of this rock field.

Field clearing

I tried to angle down to the right instead of going straight down. Rocks would move, and I had to be ready to fall and brace myself pretty well.
Waffles was like a little billy goat, and handled the entire boulder field section with no problem.
At the end of my first angle down to the right, I angled over to the left, then back to the right again. I waited in this mid section for everyone to get down to the area I was in. I didn’t know how we were getting out of the field, so I wanted everyone to be close to have an idea.

Ridge view in the clearing in SGL 38

I thought I saw a sort of opening in the Rhododendron trees to the left and told Tea biscuit to check it out, but Diane made it there first, and she confirmed it was pretty good.

SGL 38

Just before we started this section, Jack mentioned that it had just been the anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and he started into playing Dion’s “Abraham, Martin, and John”.
I sang along and could remember some of the lyrics, but then I was losing them.
As we got near the bottom of the talus slope, Jack went back into playing it and I started to remember more of the other verses to the end of the song.

Field wandering

We carefully made our way down hill through the woods, and the rocks continued to be tough even when we were just in the woods, not the trail itself.

Clearing

We were soon along the edge of the Hypsy Creek, which was stunningly beautiful covered completely in all sorts of mosses and such.
We carefully crossed trying not to get wet, and Sarah spotted a cool spring bubbling out from under a tree with a huge root system.
Once on the other side, we had to start climbing back up hill a bit.
I spotted another odd tree with a weird “S” shape growing into it.
We headed up hill gradually, which wasn’t as bad as before, and eventually came to an odd clearing. Not every tree was gone; some of them were left for regrowth.

No Winter maintenance...

I had to open my phone GPS again to be sure we were going the right way out of this big expanse.
It was tough to tell which way I should be going.
This area appeared to have been logged pretty recently. State Game Lands have this done for both logging and herbaceous openings for hunting and wildlife. Usually, there is some kind of management road out through the areas, but this time I didn’t see one. We turned slightly to the left through the clearing, and then to the right along the crest of the land.

A view into Hypsy Gap

From this height of the land, it was a nice view back sort of in the direction we came. There was an opening with a view out through Hypsy Gap to the land beyond. The Blue Mountain was visible in the distance and some of the land to the north of it.
I kept watching the GPS, and realized we were heading a bit too far to the north. I re-adjusted out trajectory to a bit of trees that had not been cut in the middle of the opening, and then I could see trucks in the distance all parked. They were on Hypsy Gap Road.

View of Wind Gap on Hypsy Gap Road

There were quite a lot of vehicles. I thought they would be hunters at first, but then we saw all of the trailers. The next guess was that these were horse trailers. It seemed like a weird time to be out riding horses.
As we got closer, we could see that these were not horse trailers. They were way too small. They had no windows or vents, and they had only one door on one side of them. They were being towed, oddly, by fifteen passenger vans.

View of Wind Gap and Blue Mountain on Hypsy Gap Rd

I realized then that these were all hunters that were sort of bused in.
No one seemed to be hunting on the property we had just come from, and I could see someone walking in the distance on the other side of the road, which is some sort of watershed property. They must have a permit process for hunting these areas.
We made our way out of the property by heading toward a gate when it came into view to the left of the vehicles. This took us out onto the unpaved Hypsy Gap Road, where we turned right.

View along Hypsy Gap Road

Looking at the maps now, it looks like a totally new place to us, but this recent cutting makes it look much more different. I think this is the same area we parked to finish off the last hike we had done through the area a couple of years back. We had come out of the woods on that property where the guys were hunting, and then walked down Hypsy Gap Road to a point where there was pull off parking as I had seen it on google maps.

Delaware Water Gap in view on Hypsy Gap Road

Looking at those images now, it appears to be the same place we came to the road this time, and the google images were not yet up to date showing this clearing.
There was no one around these vehicles, so we just turned right on my planned route along the road, which headed gradually down hill, then turned hard to the left.

View along Hypsy Gap Rd

Barely any cars were using this road. We passed by two large obvious signs that read “no Winter maintenance”. There were a few trucks, probably the hunters, done with their hunting for the day on their way out. We ended up seeing a couple of them standing around ahead.

View to Little Gap on Hypsy Gap Road

I said hello, and “nice day for a walk”, and they agreed. They were probably wondering what we were up to, as I was wearing the silly Hazmat suit.
The hunters apparently talked to someone in the group, and indicated that they were out hunting bear.
By this point, Tea Biscuit and Jack had pulled his Hazmat suit down wearing it like a pear of jammie bottoms, and John had removed his completely. Although the high for the day was only supposed to be 45, it was just too damned hot for it.

View of Wind Gap on Hypsy Gap Road

We paused along the road and the others removed the things as well. I chose to leave mine on because I felt it was still just too funny to give up on it just yet.

Fall Creek

We paused for a few moments, and Jack and Tea Biscuit took theirs off, then we continued on down the hill.
Jack was playing his song that he likes people that smile, with variations that he likes people that frown, he likes people that hike, and he likes hiking with Mike.
As we walked down hill on Hypsy Gap Road, we soon came to another very wide clearing to the right.
There was an amazing view here, with the sparse trees like the previous clearing. Not all of them were cut, but enough were that it provided expansive vistas to the Blue Mountain.

Falls on Fall Creek

The view went on for a long while along the road. It was quite awesome.
The first part of the Blue Mountain I could recognize was wind Gap, very clear and prominently in the middle of the view.
As we continued to walk ahead a bit more, the Delaware Water Gap came into view. We were walking it seemed almost directly toward it.
I stopped everyone to explain the views we were seeing. The Water Gap was very obvious, and then Totts Gap was visible. I pointed out the slight dip of Fox Gap, followed by Wind Gap, and then the ski slopes of the Blue Mountain Ski Area, which already had snow produced on them.
As we walked a little further down the road, Little Gap also came into view to the south of us, close to the Blue Mountain ski area. There was a view marked on Google Maps that seemed to show the view was on Hypsy Gap Road, but there was also a secondary road that seemed to go to the right, labeled as that.

Falls on Fall Creek

The road we were following changed names on the map to Rosebay Road, which I can only assume is named for Rosebay Rhododendrons, although I saw none of those and plenty of Mountain Laurel.
We continued ahead on this road and away from the overlooks. We eventually came to where there were a few homes on both sides of the road. A couple of dirt roads went further into developments on the right.
We made our way down hill on the road, which seems to change names to Jackson Road in this area, and eventually reached the power line clearing I planned to turn on.
I let everyone catch up, and then planned to head up the right of way.
There is another bit of State Game Lands #38 accessible by heading up this route, and I planned to turn in to that as soon as possible.

Falls on Fall Creek

We headed up the power line clearing, and I started to see the white paint blotches that delineate the State Game Lands boundary, as well as a couple of the metal tags near the property corner. We got close to a fence and a field on private property to a development ahead, and then no trespassing signs started up to the left. It was here that we cut into the woods along the State Game Lands boundary. We kept the white paint blotches to the left, and the posted signs to the right. This route was not an official trail, but it was obvious that some people travel by this route, probably just for posting their boundaries.
We remained on this for a bit, which leads into Fall Gap, where the Fall Creek comes down. We had hiked through Fall Gap on the previous trip that ended in Hypsy Gap, but we had joined it much further up by way of game lands trails and woods roads out of Dry Gap, the next gap over accessible from Big Pocono.

Fall Creek

The boundary seemed to move off to the right, and we soon were following a sort of herd path that follows parallel to the Fall Creek.
This was still further to the south along the creek from where we had followed it the previous time.
Along this route, I was ahead, and passed by a guy standing on the slope above it. I thought he was hunting at first, but saw no gun or anything. I said hello, and left it at that. He didn’t seem inclined to conversation or anything. He actually seemed pretty surprised to see anyone out there at all. He turned and watched me as I walked ahead, and then dipped down to the right to get closer to the Fall Creek.
I could hear some rushing water, and there were still some houses in the development up slope. I wanted to get closer to see what if there was another waterfall I didn’t know about.

The falls

The guy we saw ended up being the only other hiker we saw all day.
I got to the creek, which had some nice little cascades. I crossed over, and the louder noise was in fact coming from a beautiful series of waterfalls I had not seen on the previous trips.
There are larger ones further up the mountain from this point, but this one was completely unknown to me.
I wondered if my friend Rich Pace knew about this one, because it was he that first started leading hikes through Dry Gap and Fall Gap to these sites. If one were to look at the maps, it wouldn’t look like there would be any falls further down in this area and closer to the houses.
The others made their way closer to me, and I announced that I was going to try to get up closer to the falls, and not to follow me. I was going to be getting wet.
I made my way in, and the rocks were incredibly mossy. Fortunately, they were the kind that were not too slippery to climb on, so I went for it.

Me and the falls

The first set of falls were pretty easy. There was a rock jutting out that I could put my right foot onto and pull myself up, and more rocks in the creek just above that which provided for good grip.
The next set was a little lower, and I could hold onto the sides of a bit of narrow gorge the water plummeted through.
The last bit of them was a bit tougher. I had to take a break on that. I had to use my knees to pull myself up on the previous one, which for rock climbers is considered a no no.
In doing this climb, I got water down the front of my Hazmat suit, and I had to be careful of the feet. These suits completely covered the shoes as well, and by this point I had mostly worn through them, but it would sometimes get caught up on stuff. I also ripped the crotch of them out pretty badly on the last bit of the climb, as they were not meant to do Yoga or anything in them.

Falls Creek

To some degree, this was actually a relief. That suit was just too incredibly hot.
As I was walking, I would take a sip of my drink, then tilt my sleeve down to find sweat just pouring out of it. Jen commented that she had never seen anyone sweat that much before. It was literally pouring out enough to fill a shot glass (and it might have had a reasonable ABV).
The sweat pants I wore under the suit were also completely saturated to the point it felt disgusting.
I didn’t take the thing off, because I was only hot going up hill really, and by the time we started heading back down I was cooling off again and glad I was wearing it.
I pulled myself up the second to last of the major falls drops, and the last bit of it was a very steep one to my right. There was a good spot I could pull myself out of the drink to the left, so I chose to take that opportunity. It was a good place for viewing the upper falls.

Looking down the falls

It was probably the most impressive from this area.
Sarah was climbing up on the side of the creek I walked out of, fighting through Rhododendrons thickets to reach the same outlook spot I had come out of. Everyone else went across the stream and up the east side, then around to an outlook above the upper falls.
There was a worn in trail that went up slope toward the development at a clearing above these falls.
Sarah went one way to get around, and I climbed up through more Rhododendrons to reach a spot I could cross a bit above the upper falls.
It’s quite a drop from the top, and I got several nice photos of them.
The others remained up from the falls thinking I would climb up that way. I didn’t think the trail up there would work, but I checked it anyway. It went to someone’s yard.

The falls

I started watching my GPS more closely, because I wanted to see when the last house in the development was to the south of us.
We remained along the creek upstream from the falls, which was barely a path at all.
When the slopes on the near side got too bad, I found a spot with thick mossy tree roots going almost all the way across, and used them to get out into the more gradual flood plain on the other side.
I think moss was an underlying theme for a lot of this hike. There were places it was growing thicker than almost anywhere I had seen it.
We continued up the left side of the brook for a bit, and there were two branches of the stream. The smaller one was to our right, and the larger to the left. Channels of the water were passing beneath the rocks we were walking on, and at one point there was an opening sort of shaped like a heart where the water was visible flowing through beneath.

A view of the falls

We came to a spot where there was a very prominent path up a slope to the right. It was rather close to the last house of the development, but far enough along.

A view of the falls

I climbed the slope while Diane, who was right behind me for the mossy mess section, waited for everyone else to catch up.
When I got to the top, I found a fork in the paths. To the right, it led to the last back yard, but to the left continued a little narrower, but in the direction we needed to go. I motioned everyone to come up the slope and we would continue.
We made that left fork, and then there were several other lesser forks from that. I tried to stay at about the same distance from the homes to the right, and eventually we found our way onto a much more prominent, wider path.
This was an informal game lands trail marked with blue blazes. We had used this one on the previous hike between Dry Gap and Fall Gap.
We turned right on this route, and it was immediately familiar to me.
I figure that most people who come through simply follow this trail to the creek and go up.

The falls above

Now I know that there are large falls down stream from this intersection. I wouldnt be surprised if Rich has already found them, but if not, maybe he will now!
We continued on the prominent path to the right, which followed through a little natural dip in the land, within sight of some of the homes off to the right. There were several other prominent routes breaking off in a couple of different directions, one of them with yellow blazes, and we came to a much more prominent old woods road, which makes its way directly up and through Fall Gap.

Looking down the falls

We followed the wider woods road for a bit, until I saw there was a large substation on the right. This is noted as the Pocono Power Station. There was an ATV path leading to it.

The falls above

We followed the ATV path which paralleled the thing, then turned hard left up the slope to the access road to this station.
We continued along the access road slightly down hill, and then turned to the left on another access road that went below the man made plateau on which the station sits.
One utility clearing went straight up Camelback Mountain ahead of us, while another turned to the right and went slightly down hill and to the southeast. My planned route was this one.

Cascades on Fall Creek

We turned down the very wide path, which was easy and pleasant. I immediately started cooling off again with this down hill route.
After the down slope, we turned hard to the left, and the power line remained very clear and easy walking.
We crossed an access road crossing close to where it paralleled Rinker Road, and the surface went from being a hard packed rock to more grassy. This was all in the property of the Mt. Gilead Camp.

Incredible moss of Fall Creek

There were often tree stands right alongside the power line, but we never saw anyone sitting in any of them, so we just continued on with no problem.
We came near to one house in this area, but then continued through woods for a good while with no one around.
After a good long stretch, we came to the crossing of N Road, as per google maps.
I was in somewhat of a hurry for some reason going across this and didn’t think to look at the map while going by.

Heart shape on Fall Creek

Around this area, there was a side power line that went down, and there was a building that seemed to have awnings on it in the style of a train station.
I mentioned at the time that I was wondering about it; sometimes stations are moved from their historic locations to other ones, and I said there was no railroad around there.
I couldn’t have been more wrong, and I was kicking myself not a mile after passing the spot.
N Road is the former right of way of the Wilkes Barre and Eastern Railroad, a line I was very hot on completing for a very long time. In fact, it’s among my favorite railroad lines I have ever traced.
The line was completed in 1893, a wholly owned subsidiary of the New York, Susquehanna, and Western Railway, which previously terminated in an area called Gravel Place just outside of East Stroudsburg.

Heart shape on Fall Crek

The line originally relied on interchanging with the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western at that point, until the Wilkes Barre and Eastern was completed.
At that time, they owned the most direct route from the anthracite coal to the cities to the east. The problem with it was, there were lots of very tight turns on the line which meant they had to impose a much lower speed limit for trains.
The Lackawanna Railroad made major improvements after the turn of the twentieth century, and so they could keep much faster speeds on straighter paths and more level grades.

Big tree along Fall Creek

The Wilkes Barre and Eastern simply could not compete with such a line.
It continued to operate until 1939 when it was abandoned.
In this area where we crossed the right of way, there used to be station stops for Reeders to the south, and for Tannersville. I’m not exactly sure where the stations were for these, and I had already walked the section through this area and hadn’t noticed anything, but seeing the building got me curious. It does seem to resemble somewhat both the Tannersville Station and the Reeders station.
We continued on the power line clearing as a grassy path, but then it turned into a driveway access road known as Strausser Lane. The last house on this seemed to be abandoned, as did a trailer to the left side. We continued on past a couple of other houses. There was one guy out blowing leaves, but he paid us no mind as we walked on by.

Trail between Dry Gap and Fall Gap

Strausser Lane turned hard to the right from the power line right of way after a bit, and a cleared path went ahead. There was one large mowed off field for a house to the right I was somewhat concerned would have it blocked or something, but there was not even a sign.
We walked across this clearing with no problem into the woods.
As we got into that wooded section, I heard a mess of guns blaring back in the direction we had come from, which prompted me to stop and wait for the others to catch up a bit more. I could see some rednecks at least trying to put a scare in us.

View to the Water Gap

We had another pleasant section of woods ahead go by free of incident, and then we crossed paved Storm Road.
The right of way was even more clear up ahead, and we got a fantastic view of the Delaware Water Gap and Kittatinny Ridge as we continued on.
There were a few access paths to the right of way, and after a little while, a tractor pulled onto the right of way pulling a trailer full of kids doing a hay ride. They turned around and started going the other way when they saw a few of us walking up ahead. I wondered what they though when they turned around and saw even more people coming up the right of way the other way!

Power line clearing

As we continued, there was a guy with a big white beard who rode up on a quad with a little girl, no more than three years old or so, coming from the east.
The guy stopped when he got to us. He had a white beard and a hat, and the edges of his mustache were kept longer than the rest of his facial hair, and manicured into a festive little curl.
I was at first expecting to hear a question; “what are you doing here or the like. Instead, the guy smiled, shut the machine down, shook my hand, and introduced himself. I wish I could remember what he told me his name was.

Water Gap view

He was out taking his granddaughter for a ride on he ATV and he told us how much she loved it.
I told him we were out for a nice hike, enjoying the weather and the scenery. The little girl was fussing with him to keep on moving, and so he was soon off. We walked on only a little while before he came back. He stopped again and told us that the little girl said they had to turn around because they had to “beat us” back to the road on the other side. I had to laugh at how cute that was. I told them we didnt stand a chance against them and that they were much faster.

The building I thought looked like a station

“Ya see? You won!” the grandfather said to his granddaughter, and she giggled.
They took off, and made a right onto another path, and then they went by us twice again on another parallel road as the power line started to turn off to the right a bit.
The utility clearing emerged onto a driveway with a house to the right. I figured we would be okay with someone riding ATVs through. We continued past this and down the driveway, where Rt 725 started coming in to view. The driveway started turning right to parallel it a bit.

Reeders Station on the WB&E Railroad

There was a day care center and a couple of other stores in a building straight out across from where we were on 715. I let everyone catch up, and we took a shortcut through the woods there to get to the road behind the thing.

Tannersville Station

We were going to meet up with Dan Lurie here, but he headed out. We didnt continue to wait then, and headed across the highway where there was what appeared to be a Walmart distribution building. A few trucks had walmart written on the sides.

Power line access

We cut through a bit of a gravel parking lot, and then descended to a paved access road to the south, which followed the power line we had just been on. The access to it near the other side of 715 must have just been the driveway.
We headed down hill and reached another substation where there was a bucket truck parked. The route became a smaller access road at that point and started going up hill gradually. There was a large retention pond to the left, and the power line climbed the slope and made an abrupt turn to the left at the top.

Power line and Mt Pocono view

When I looked back, we had a pretty good view of Camelback Mountain, also known as Mt. Pocono. We continued around the corner on a good clear route for a bit.

Power line clearing

We were running out of daylight fast. We had done pretty well on time for most of the power line clearing, but some of the earlier stuff with the talus slope, the falls, and off trail bits slowed us down a bit.
The power line crossed a driveway, passed a house on the left, and then continued down a slope a bit before turning hard left again. We then had a nice long stretch to the east through pleasant woods until we came to where we couldn’t continue on past Interstate 80.

Slash wood hell

I had checked over all of this on aerial and street view images, and found a well worn ATV trail that connected the power line with Stadden Road to the south. I figured this would be one of those areas we would have no problem at all.
Such was not the case; we could see where the ATVs used to go through to the right, bu tthe entire area had been rather obnoxiously logged, and the path was intentionally covered over with slash wood to make riding through impossible. It was not going to be easy to bully through this section.
We couldnt go to the left from there, because land owners had put up a large fence to block passage through it. We might have been able to get through to the next cul de sac, but it looked like it might cause more of a problem than it was really worth.
We made our way down slope, and then tried to stay close to 80 for a bit.

80 culvert

There was a big slope ahead, so we had to turn to the right into the field of crap, and then make our way down until it was eventually a bit clearer again. Once back in the woods, I could kind of see where the ATVs used to go.
We waited here for everyone to catch up, and then continued south toward Stadden Road. In a short distance, it was obvious where the ATVs were going, but not continuing up to the power line any more, at a point where there was a little brook passing beneath Rt 80.

Power line muck fun

I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go under this culvert. It was pretty big, and it looked rather inviting. I had already gotten my feet totally wet earlier, so it was a no brainer.
Everyone else continued out to Stadden Road, and I headed into the thing.
The water wasn’t even ankle deep through it, and it came out in a pretty spot where the creek drained into a swampy area.
I headed to the right, and then got to another area of slash wood. I climbed through, and then emerged on Stadden Road as Jack was walking by. Most of the group was already ahead by this point.
It was getting too late fast. It wasn’t looking like we were going to be able to get back in to Penn Estates by dark.
I figured we could try either way, and we headed out Stadden Road to a strip mall on the right. Tea Biscuit had Amanda coming to pick him up there, and Ken an Michele were going to go with them. Jack and Sarah were looking to Uber out as well.

On the abandoned development road

It turns out that Tea Biscuit and Waffles, as well as Ken, Michele, Jack AND Sarah all crammed somehow into Amanda’s little car to get back to Michele and Scott’s! That must have been quite a sight!
Guillermo (William Fabel) was looking at coming and meeting up with us at this point as well, but it was getting pretty late.
Diane, Jen, John, and I continued across Rt 611 and turned left on Learn Road. This took us a little ways to another access to the same power line we had been following all along.
We had followed this power line section once in the past, on another hike to Michele’s, but that time we went the other way to the Tannersville Cranberry Bog and continued in from there. That was a ways out of the way, and we were NOT going to try to get in that way this time.
We followed the power line for a bit, to the intersection of another power line to the right. We turned there, and headed down hill to cross over the Cranberry Creek.

Abandoned JoAnne Ct.

We did a little rock hop, climbed up a step slope, and then came to where JoaAnne Court ends on the right.
To the left, the road was built to continue through, and remained cleared as a sort of trail. We turned left here and continued through some pleasant woods to the east.
The route took us out at a cul de sac on the other side of JoAnne Court, and we followed this up hill a bit through the development. At the intersection with Mackenzie Lane, there was a bit of a nice view toward Camelback Mountain to the left.
We continued to the intersection with Laurel Lake Road, and I couldn't get in touch with Guillermo. I texted Tea Biscuit to see if he could come out and rescue us.
It was getting pretty dark, and there was no way we were going to be able to do what I had planned to do.
I had hoped to go off trail through the Tannersville Cranberry Bog property where I think it might remain dry enough to hop over the creek to power lines. It just wasn’t going to be light enough to get through any of that, and we had already done over 15 miles.

I was pretty tired. Photo by Jack

Tea Biscuit came and rescued us, and then took Diane and I back to our cars.
I was glad to have done this; having these hikes forces me to look at these areas where I’d wanted to explore more, but probably wouldn't post it if not for Michele’s event. There is really so much more to see, and it never gets old or seems to run out.
I think the whole day wearing the Hazmat suit took a lot of energy out of me. I was drenched with sweat, and it was hard finding a change of clothes in my car to wear. Fortunately I found some shorts from Summer and a sweat shirt.

Another power line view...

We gathered at the house, and Scott Trinkle prepared gumbo and chili for everyone, which was great. I stuffed myself.
Guillermo came up too, which was nice since I hadn’t seen him in like thousands of years.
Interestingly, in the days leading up to this hike, I had been feeling kind of sick. I had headaches every day, and had an awful case of heartburn or acid reflux. My stomach was hurting, and I was kind of dreading having to walk around.
After walking all day and sweating my balls off, I think maybe I sweated out some toxins, because by Monday morning I was feeling 100% healthier than I had before!

There are still plenty more places to explore even in this area, and I’ve got at least four more ready to go. There’s always something more to look forward to.

HAM