Hike #1426; Campbell's Ledge to Wilkes Barre

Hike #1426: 7/1/21 Campbell's Ledge to Kirby Park/Wilkes Barre with Kirk Rohn, Professor John DiFiore, and Diane Reider

This next trip would be an oddball thing put together without the intention of doing it on this date. People were afraid of the weather, and so not many were signing up for the hike.
I suppose the lesson ultimately in this one would be that flexibility, even with our own plans, as well as some thoughtful planning and amendments based on situations can lead to greater experiences in the long run. Some things are more appropriate for certain groups, and some things are better to hold off for larger groups. For our smaller group, the weather, and for planning ahead, we made good choices.

My original plan was to do the Ashley Planes again, and then trace some of the old Central Railroad of New Jersey right of way through Wilkes-Barre, effectively completing the entire main line of the CNJ for me from Elizabeth to Wilkes-Barre, the original main line route.

Because of the low attendance, and because everyone with me had already hiked the Ashley Planes before, it seemed a waste to be doing something so cool and not have anyone else to see it.
Instead, I asked the group how they felt about doing something entirely new. A hike that I had never done before at all. Everyone was on board for the plan, and so the hike would take us to the same end point, Kirby Park, only from the east instead of from the south.

One of the places that was on my radar was Campbell's Ledge.
We used pull off gravel parking just off of Coxton Road north of Pittston to start the hike. 

There was a road shown on google maps to the top known as Red Oak Drive, and so that would be the trajectory for the first bit of the hike, which would be sort of a loop.

This mountain Campbell's Ledge is on is full of coal mines, but I cannot find anything on the infrastructure that used to be there. I use a google earth KMZ file to show me where all of the old coal railroads used to go, but this area is very surprisingly missing just about everything.

I know that the Lehigh Valley Railroad passed through the gap between Campbell's Ledge and Peterson Mountain, on the east side of the Susquehanna, and that there was once a spur that went in where we were parked, but that was it. 
We did see some bridge remnants made of concrete, which I would assume would have been some sort of railed infrastructure, but I have no idea what.

We headed up the road, and there was an abandoned building on the left. Someone had done a very nice job painting a Yellow Submarine on the side of it. 

There was a small reservoir in a brook along the road, near the building. Maybe it was a sort of pumping station which could easily have been associated with mines.

We continued uphill, and then took a left when the wider road continued right. This took us past the Campbell's Ledge Reservoir. Pretty soon after that, and several ATV paths branching off, we reached the top of Campbell's Ledge, 1,280 above sea level.

At the top was a long wall, with blue paint and white lettering, a long diatribe intended to talk those who consider it out of suicide. 

It was one of those bits of graffiti that I think few would have a problem with in that setting, just because it probably happens there often. And just in case, it is always worth repeating that the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 800 273 8255.

The ledge itself is an open spot with a marvelous view of the Delaware River and Peterson Mountain on the other side. 

Some say the cliff is named for author Thomas Campbell. Other say a man of the same name was chased by Native Americans and jumped to his death rather than face capture.

It is also sometimes known as "Dial Rock" because the cliff illuminates at noon, and was used like a sundial.

We were there right on time to see it without clouds, but the weather kept shifting from lots of cloud cover to nothing. Many of the clouds blocking our view were below us and quite amazing.

The ledge was very steep. A fall would mean the end.

We made our way back down from the ledge, and there were side trails heading off. I am pretty certain we could walk further down the ledge with views from the top, but rather than cover that, we went for the next woods road to the right.

This brought us downhill and past some old coal mine entrances. Someone commented on my Metrotrails post that one was called the Wildcat Mine, but I could find nothing on the mines here.

There were what looked to be obvious old railroad grades up on the mountain, but we didn't have the time to follow everything. We did come across one more splendid view point that overlooked the slop lands below, ponds where the Lackawanna River meets the Susquehanna.

Some of the grades and roads we were following along the ledge looked like they might have been funiculars or something. I'd love to see a map of what it all was.

We headed down gradually, and soon came to the Red Oak Road we were on for the way up. We followed that back down the way we came, and passed my van again. We then started walking south on Coxton Road.

This area was once known as Austin Junction on the Lehigh Valley Railroad. It might have been called the Pleasant Valley Branch. Off to the right was the historic location of the Seneca Breaker, and there are the ruins of a round house next to the rail yard. 

We headed further down Coxton Road and crossed over the Lackawanna River, stained by acid mine runoff, and reached Main Street between Duryea and Pittston. 

There was a lot of infrastructure once in this area. Just after the bridge, the former North Branch of the Pennsylvania Canal used to cross the road, immediately adjacent to the Lehigh Valley Railroad overpass. I'm not sure if the two of these ever coexisted, because there's really not a whole lot of room for both. I do know the canal was abandoned in 1872 to here. Immediately after the underpass, a former branch branch of the Lackawanna Railroad, also still in service, crosses the road at grade. 

Off to the right, we saw an engine for Reading, Blue Mountain, and Northern sitting in the Duryea Yard. We continued on Main Street to the west a bit, as we didn't want to be out in the open on any tracks and get in trouble.
We passed an historic marker that told of the Twin Shaft Mine Disaster.
On June 28, 1896, 58 out of 90 miners were killed in a collapse here, right by the rail yard, one of the worst in Pennsylvania history.

We eventually made our way down a side road to the right behind businesses, and then got to along the Susquehanna River. At this point, the lower area along the river I think was probably the old canal. 

We walked along, and approached the Fort Jenkins Bridge over the Susquehanna River in Pittston. It was  renamed Specialist Dale J. Kridlo Memorial Bridge in 2017.

The open-spandrel arch bridge was completed in 1924,and today carries Rt 11. We walked under it, and we were according to my maps on the Luzerne County Rail Trail, but it more formally started over closer to the Water Street Bridge ahead, where a set of steps descend to the trail.

Eagle Shaft site

The Water Street Bridge in Pittston is a pinned Parker through-truss bridge over the Susquehanna River in Pittston Pa, built by the Penn Bridge Company in 1914. It was renamed Firefighters Memorial Bridge in 2008 for fallen firefighters who died here here.

The Luzerne County Rail Trail is actually a rail with trail project that follows the former Lehigh Valley Railroad pretty closely on what was once a double track right of way.

The wall of the bridge had a filled in archway that was once the entrance to a set of steps that served a passenger station.

The trail split apart with an upper and lower level, closer and farther away from the river in Riverfront Park, then came back together. The trail then crossed the active tracks to the south side. Pavement ended, and it was just a simple path beside the tracks. They did have a chain link fence between the two.

At the dip down, there was a depression that was the former North Branch Canal abandoned in 1872. At least in this area, the canal was down here where the tracks are now, and originally the Lehigh Valley Railroad was on the other side of the canal, just up the slope a bit. So the tracks there now probably came about in the 1870s.

As we walked the right of way, which had good crushed stone surface along it, I saw as the old towpath of the canal appeared out from the opposite side of the tracks briefly. 

As we walked, we came upon a memorial to the Knox Mine Disaster.

It denoted the location of the Eagle Air Shaft, used by miners to escape the Knox Mine Disaster of 1959. 12 miners were killed.

The Susquehanna River flooded into the mines after workers illegally dug below the river channel under supervisor orders. I've heard a lot of dangerous practices including removing coal from the supports holding up the mines was done at points.
It took 3 days to plug the whirlpool hole in the river using rail cars and culm from mining.

The scene must have been even more incredible in person, and apparently they kept filling in the site until it was the giant mound along the edge of the river that remains there today.

Also, the Eagle Shaft is apparently still open, as folks have been sharing photos of going inside of it. It's amazing that anything like that is still open knowing how curious people are.

We passed by a large rocky cliff to the left, and then continued into more level area. Along the way, there were lots of Black Raspberries that we indulged in. I was surprised to see so many of these and not the normal Japanese Wineberry.

The trail seemed to end rather abruptly at the River Road underpass. There, the chain link fence stopped, but the path continued beside the tracks. It was quite odd. We just continued on under the road anyway.

We could see old abutments for a previous bridge that carried River Road going across. We then continued on along the tracks across Market Street until we got to Tennant Street, where we turned right.

We went across River Road and then crossed the 8th Street Bridge into the town of Wyoming.

The current bridge, opened in 2011, replaced a pinned truss structure built in 1914.

This was a much weirder crossing than we would have expected. As we walked, a helicopter was flying extremely low and circling around the bridge area. 

The helicopter, upon further inspection, was going out over the water more closely and spraying something into it. Something really looked underhanded about it. It was kind of disturbing. I figured it was some sort of insecticide, but I wasn't sure. I looked up when I got home the spraying schedule for insects through the Susquehanna and Lackawanna River valleys.

I found, specifically at the location of the bridge we were on, the scheduled aerial black fly suppression operation in effect on the Susquehanna River in Wyoming, Pennsylvania.

They were dropping VectoBac, a biological larvicide used to control black flies, mosquitoes, and other nuisance flies.
The active ingredient, Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies israelensis, or BTI, is a bacterium found in soils. Spores produce toxins that specifically target larvae, and is not considered a threat to humans.
The substance is the only of its kind to complete the World Health Organization Pesticide Evaluation Scheme.

We watched them for just a bit before going across the bridge, but I felt something not right in my throat so I pulled my shirt up over my mouth and we hurried across to the other side of the bridge. 

Once across, we turned left on Susquehanna Avenue. We continued and had to turn left to remain on Susquehanna Ave, and then came to a small park and tall monument on the left side.

This was the Wyoming Monument. 

The Monument, built in 1833, is the gravesite of the bones of victims of the Wyoming Massacre of July 3rd, 1778.
Local residents banded together to fend off invading Tories and pro-Tory natives. They were defeated, and their bones were not recovered until the following October when it was felt to be safe.
Every year, since 1878, a commemorative celebration has been held at the Monument.
The actual skirmish is said to have taken place along the Susquehanna flood plain just below.

I have heard tell that the state of Wyoming takes its name form a poem written about this particular battle.
It is said that some of the survivors walked downstream to Forty Fort and settled there, and that is why there are several Connecticut settlers noted in a local cemetery there.

While we were checking out the site, a guy and his granddaughter I think it was came up to us and chatted for a while about the history there.
They had a canopy set up and for their big annual celebration in a couple of days, and he told us we should come back for it, but we're unfortunately too far away with busy schedules.
It was still very nice chatting with him about the history there. Engaging with the locals and hearing their passion about their own historic sites is one of the best ways to get a feel for their importance.
We headed from here west on Wyoming Ave, and it was only a short distance to the start of the Luzerne County Levee Trail. This would make up a good distance of the remainder of the hike.

The trail went south toward Monocanock Island on the Susquehanna, then turned right when it got to the river and went parallel with the Wilkes-Barre Wyoming Valley Airport.

There were interpretive signs along the way, but unfortunately some of them were so badly scratched up and faded that they were completely illegible.
We continued past the airport, and there were tons of interpretive signs everywhere, detailing everything from geology and native Americans to the early settlers, to the area industry. We went by the Forty Fort Cemetery and continued on the flood levee parallel with the town.

The trail eventually went inland and emerged on River Street. We probably could have continued well enough along the river, which didn't have a formal trail, but for whatever reason we decided to go into the town for a bit. This town was the location of the stronghold for settlers from not only Susquehanna River Valley, but the aforementioned Connecticut settlers as well as Westmoreland County PA.

The fort was so named for the first forty settlers that established the fortification in 1770. It is said to have enclosed about an acre, which contained copious amounts of fresh spring water.

Around the site where we came up was the former site of the Lehigh Valley Railroad's Port Bowkley Bridge. Little evidence of the bridge remains today.

The bridge was opened in 1891 and provided connection for the Lehigh Valley Railroad's Bowmans Creek Branch, which carried much needed mine prop timber as well as ice.
The bridge was dismantled in the late 1930s, and the piers remained until more recently.

At the end of Turner Street, we opted to get back along the river. There was a bit of a trail that just sort of ended when we got to the the Cross Valley Expressway bridges.

We got under them, went out to the edge of the Susquehanna, and then attempted to walk the shore of it to the west for a bit.  It was a little mucky and sometimes didn't provide for much space for walking, but we got through.

My plan was that we had to continue as far as the Wilkes-Barre Connecting Railroad Bridge, also known as the Mill Creek Bridge, over the Susquehanna as we reached Kingston.

Originally, there was a wooden bridge on this site built by the Wilkes-Barre and Eastern Railroad in 1893. The pier at the center of the photo has what appears to be a rock just to the left. That is actually a remnant of one of the Wilkes-Barre and Eastern Bridge piers.
The current bridge was completed in 1915 for Wilkes-Barre Connecting Railroad as a joint venture between Pennsylvania Railroad and Delaware and Hudson Railroad.

We got under the bridge, then headed uphill. There was a bit of a path parallel with it, and we passed by a pretty outlandish shelter out there. At first glance it wasn't much of anything, but when stepping into the vegetation, it had a porch and canopies keeping the road out, with more branches and such to hide just how large it was. Someone had put a lot of work into this one.

We made our way out of the woods almost beneath the bridge, and then climbed the flood berm to continue on the next bit of the Luzerne County Levee Trail.
This was the spot where we connected the hike with the previous ones I'd done. In my series on the Bowmans Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, we had walked this way and connected to the other side at the end.
We made our way along the berm with lots more historic markers like we saw before.
As we approached Pierce Street and bridge, the trail split in two. We went to the left to go under this bridge, and then continued to the west just a little bit more.
We passed through Nesbitt Park, then reached the Market Street Bridge, which we didn't go under.

\Market Street Bridge was constructed over the Susquehanna between Wilkes-Barre and Kingston in 1929.
This has been a historic crossing site since the first covered bridge in 1818. There was a second covered bridge, followed by a metal bridge before this one opened.

The north side of the bridge is also noteworthy for being the northern terminus of the D&L Trail.

Both the Central Railroad of New Jersey and the D&L are milestones I really should try to hit in keeping with trying to finish off all these different series. But I postponed this one again.

I suppose I realize now that I want to share in a more major celebration with my friends when I hit these little milestones and I want more of them to attend. It really isn't a big deal at all for most of them, but for me it is pretty major. I had followed the D&L Trail from Bristol PA, and the Jersey Central all the way from Elizabeth. Why wouldn't I just prioritize knocking this one out?

I don't really have a good reason. I just have to do it.

From here, we just crossed over Market Street and entered Kirby Park for the final stretch. We wandered through past beautiful pond scenes, and past some remarkable giant trees. Some of them were sadly dead, but one of the dead ones had a lovely carving of a bear family in the side of it.

Despite not having finished off the series I was originally intending to, I was very happy that we chose to do this trip. It introduced us to more new ground than we would have seen otherwise, and opened the door to both more trips in the future, and inspired me to research some of these amazing areas that I certainly would not have had we not wandered through them.
These days are a mental inspiration for me as much as they are exercise or relaxation.