Hike #1433; Trexler Preserve to Allentown

 

Hike #1433: 8/22/21 Trexler Preserve to Allentown with Justin Gurbisz, David Adams, and Brittany Weider

This next trip would be another to try to stay closer to home in case there was any problem with the baby, and I had planned out a route that would be something completely different.

My original plan was going to be a hike in New Jersey, and I forget what it was even going to be. The problem was, Hurricane Henri was arriving and there was a lot of rain forecast. I had to look for something else that would be a good Summer hike, but outside of where there would be horrible weather.

For my Hurricane Henry Alt Hike Extravaganza, I posted a hike on the Jordan Creek out of the Trexler Preserve in Lehigh County PA. I had done this hike before, but since the time I did it, much more of that greenway had been added to. I figured this would be a good time to do it again.

I made the meeting point the White Castle on MacArthur Road in Whitehall, which is along the Jordan Creek, next to the Home Depot, where I'd walked through before. The forecast for the areas just to the west of there was a fraction or less of the rain expected in New Jersey.

When I got there, and we only had a small group, I decided to have an alternate plan to the alternate plan, just because the Jordan Creek had a chance of getting choppy, and we'd need it to be more reasonable to hike that route as well.

So, the hike would still start at the Trexler Preserve, but then cover some other crazy stuff that would bring us to the west end of the Ironton Trail. I had hiked that many times, but there were a lot of additions and changes to it since the last time I had been on it that merited doing it again. It would really turn this into a great hike.

We shuttled to the start at the Trexler Preserve and used the South Range parking lot on Jordan Road.
From here, a trail leads into the woods to the east.

Trexler Preserve is an 1,108 acre preserve named for Harry Clay Trexler, who purchased this land between 1901 and 1911. It was Trexler's goal to stock the land with bison, elk, and deer, with the main focus on saving the North American Bison.

When Trexler died in 1933, he left the preserve to Lehigh County. The county took control of the property in 1935, and the elk and bison population began to dwindle. In 1975, they attempted to establish the Lehigh Valley Zoo on the property. Still, most of the property remained closed to the public, despite the wording of Trexler's will that the entire property be open to the public.

A civil suit was filed against Lehigh County by the Trexler Trust, and they acceded to the settlement in 2006. The entire property was open to public then, and the trail system was developed through.

It is truly an amazing propert because the it is maintained as a game property would have been at the turn of the twentieth century. The hills are still barren in some areas just as they would have been then, providing countless views and scenery unlike anything anywhere else in Lehigh County or most anywhere. 

A trail led from the parking lot where we started to the east for a bit, and then intersected with the Trexler Border Trail, which mostly goes around the outside of the preserve. We turned left there, and headed to the north for a ways skirting fields and through woods, then descended to reach Old Packhouse Road.

We turned right and passed through the lovely Geiger's Covered Bridge, built in 1860.
The Burr arch truss structure is in beautiful shape, and the entrances have an oblong top to the entrances that is atypical of area covered bridges. 

I came up with an oddball route to take from this point that I would not have bothered trying to do if we had had a larger group.
We turned to the east on Old Packhouse Road from the covered bridge and started heading uphill. After just a little ways, there was an informal trail, an occasionally mowed field road ascending to fields to the right. We turned on this, and then reached a field. This trail skirted the right side of the field to the south for a bit, then we came to an intersection where we could climb to the left through more fields or go straight to the south more. We turned left. 

A couple more mowed paths diverged to the right, and we continued to climb a bit more. There were some really very nice views to the west as we made our way up.

The mowed field road continued to climb for just a bit more, but then it came to an abrupt end in an area of very high grasses and such. A section of the Trexler Border Trail was just a little further up the slope above us, but it did not connect. I supposed this is because it's really quite steep.
After looking around for some semblage of another path going up, I just started to push ahead.

We made our way up and soon reached the Trexler Border Trail. Once everyone was up, we followed the trail only very briefly to the north, and then had to bushwhack again just slightly further uphill to another mowed path that leads into the Kidspeace place and Donley Therapeutic EDU Center.

We turned right on that, and then came out on the road that goes into Kidspeace. We didn't hang out there for very long because I wasn't sure if we were supposed to be there, and followed the paved access road slightly to the east to another mowed trail that goes up to another nice west facing overlook. We could also see pretty plainly to that Donley Center. We took a little break to have a look at the view, and then headed to the east on the mowed path.

When the path turned more to the left, north, we headed straight down onto paved Kidspeace Drive.  

From here, my crazy plan was to turn off of the road downhill somewhat directly. This would lead us to Grist Mill Road along a small stream. Grist Mill Road is abandoned to the east up to Rt 309, and it was the route I took the first time I hiked into the Trexler Preserve.

We started heading along some sort of old road, or maybe it was some sort of erosion berm, and it gradually took us down. I watched the aerial images and GPS on my phone, which was a new one I had just gotten a couple weeks prior, for where we would need to be to get down to the intersection of Grist Mill Road and Country Lane. This was where Grist Mill used to continue through.

The slope got really steep, but we managed to do our own switchbacks and made our way down to the little brook at the bottom. We were able to rock hope or wade over and came up on Grist Mill Road.

We headed to the abandoned road at the bottom, and started following it gradually uphill through the woods. There was a small stream down to the left of us, and soon there was a bare hill across to the left, which looked similar to the rest of the Trexler Preserve slopes.

I think the road might have been unpaved at first, but then the blacktop starts up again, and the double yellow line was still visible in the middle of the road. 

We continued on the road as it leveled off, and then we climbed over piles of debris placed to block it off and came out to Rt 309. 

Directly across the highway from where we came out was the CVS pharmacy, so we went in for snacks and drinks and to just goof off. Justin found a cane that looked like some sort of pump.

Levans road continues from 309 to the east from the intersection with the CVS. We followed that east a bit, and then went straight on Locust Drive when Levans went straight. On the other side of the PA Turnpike the same road is called Coplay Creek Court.

We climbed up on a berm to the left of the road ahead and saw the new warehouse that was under construction. I am being told that the thing still sits empty, amazingly. There are so many of these warehouses, and they are growing more all over the Lehigh Valley.

The way I feel about it, if they are going to do it, at least they are doing it right next to the PA Turnpike, where trucks can get on and off without causing as many major traffic problems to smaller roads.
It had just been raining a bit, but we didn't have to have our umbrellas out for very long and it all stopped.

The warehouse was wide open and there didn't seem to be anyone working at all. It was just there ready for anyone to have a look at it. So, we wandered over to the building to see what was going on.

The southwest side was wide open and we walked in. There was no one around, and not even a sign saying to stay out at all. So, we went in the one door and wandered on through to the east side. 

I think there was someone working at the far side of the building from the sound, so we decided to get out of there and move on along to the east.

We skirted a retention pond under construction at the facility, and then were directly beside the PA Turnpike.

I had some ideas about what to do here. For one, I thought maybe there would be a pipe under the route or something we might use. I was surprised to find that the highway was down in a deep cut. There was no pipe, and there wasn't even an opportunity to dash across because we couldn't get up or down either side very easily.

I had to figure out something different to do pretty quickly from there.

Just to the south of the warehouse, off of Locust Drive, we could make our way down the gated official use only on ramp to the southbound Turnpike, then skirt the edge of the highway to the underpass on Levans Road. Then on the other side, we could climb back up and make our way to the road on the other side.
Everyone was alright with this plan, so we hurriedly made our way down that ramp. No one came by while we were there, and we immediately moved off the highway and onto the adjacent grass, which was a slope with a drainage area in the middle.

We continued toward Levans, and that meant bushhwacking a little bit to come out along the edge of the road. It was a little harder than I anticipated it would be, and then I waited for everyone to catch me beneath the highway.

Once everyone was down, we headed beneath the bridge to the other side only to find it looking like a bushwhack mess nightmare back up the other side.
To go around would mean going out to Coplay Creek Road intersection further to the east, and I was not feeling doing any extra at all.
So, I just bushwhacked straight on up steeply, and it wasn't a very far stretch.
I was soon on the grass above the place. We had only a tiny swath to use because there was a house soon after the bridge underpass. There wasn't a choice besides the out of the way road or bushwhack.
I told everyone to just push ahead on the grass until we got to the official use only ramp from the northbound lane, and we did.
We got around the chain link gates on this, and then came out to Coplay Creek Court where we turned to the right.
Coplay Creek Road soon turned to the left, and that was our route moving ahead. There was a beautiful, enormous old bank barn near the intersection, and a couple of old farm houses along the way.

We followed the road to the north for just a little bit, and then turned to the right onto Wood Street, which was a much smaller road without a line up the middle of it.

We walked Wood Street to the crossing of the Coplay Creek, and in the woods to the left was a very nice looking trail that followed it. We walked in and just had a brief look at this piece of preserved land.
It turned out to be Johnson's Pond Wildlife Park. We should have continued walking up Coplay Creek Road just a bit more and walked through this park rather than the road for this piece, but I'll do the little bit we missed next time I'm out there.

We headed back onto Wood Street to the east, with some nice scenery on the way out to Sand Spring Road. Sand Spring was much larger, and we cut a corner over a yard to head east here.

As we walked the left side of the road facing traffic, I could see some sort of a path down below us in the woods to the left, beside a small stream. Rather than walk the busy road, we headed down to follow that for a little while.

There was a little bridge over the stream, and it looked like regular park style construction. I thought it would be some sort of extension from Kolapechka Park to the east, because there weren't private property signs on the road, but it turned out to be private property after all. It was just a really nice looking trail.

We continued on this trail through the woods for a bit, and then emerged on the road again at the intersection with Sand Spring Road and Maples Street. Maple came in from the left, and then broke away to the right again in just a little bit. 

We were walking right along the road pretty obviously here, and not trying to get away with anything, but then there was a guy that was speeding by like crazy and nearly ran us off the road! He then came back around again and had his phone out filming us walking. Justin waved at the guy, and I just gave him a questioning look.

I wondered what this guy could be all about. There was the yard we had crossed barely back at the last intersection, which was probably within road right of way anyway. 

Or could it have been someone associated with that trail we accidentally trespassed on and didn't realize it until we came out at the next intersection? I don't think anyone saw us go in or come out, but I could be wrong.

Or maybe the guy was just pissed because we were in the way of him throttling his car. Whatever the case, it was pretty stupid of him to be operating the phone while driving on the wrong side of the road, and I would think if it had anything to do with those two assumptions I made, he might have spoken to us about it and given us the chance to apologize. 

We soon entered the edge of Kolapechka Park and just wrote him off as a loser for his behavior. We would head over to the east side of the park from there, and get on the paved trails that go all the way around it. The east side is farthest from the roads, and I kind of expected the guy would be back to swing by for more video, but he gave up on it.

We headed south along the edge of the park, and then crossed a little foot bridge on the paved path where it entered Levans Recreation Park. Here, we turned left and continued around the east side of that park, heading south.

We reached Levans Road, an then turned to the right. To the left of us on this road was Grouse Hall Pond, which is part of a Fish and Wildlife Association property.
Before the end of the pond, the North Whitehall Municipal Building was on the right. We turned right and cut across the front yard of that, and then turned to the right and crossed some of the Ironton Ball Fields. The Ironton Trail had been formally connected to these fields and to parking just a little bit ahead on Levans Road, which we didn't go to.

The Ironton Rail Trail made its way onto the old railroad bed at the end of the fields, and we began following it to the southeast.

The line was originally built in 1860 for the purpose of carrying raw iron ore from mines along the route out to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River. 
Another branch of the line was established a year later that went to Siegersville and Orefield to the southwest, where more extensive iron mining took place.
The iron industry out there started to die off, but at about that time the Portland Cement industry was born. The first transport of Portland Cement over the line took place in 1884, and Coplay became the center of that industry.
The line between Orefield and Siegersville was abandoned before 1900, but passenger service began on the rest of that line in 1898.

That branch saw more traffic with potato farmers, and even Mr. Trexler used the branch to deliver buffalo and bison to the game preserve in 1911.
The iron industry pretty much collapsed, and the Thomas Iron Company along the Lehigh River closed in 1921. The Ironton Railroad had been operated for a while by the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, and after 1923, was jointly operated by the Reading and the Lehigh Valley Railroad.
It still saw industrial use, and the line switched from steam to deisel power in 1948-49. The entire branch to Seigersville was abandoned in 1955. The PA Turnpike would have severed it anyway.

The Ironton Railroad was paired back by one mile to Ironton in 1961, and then further to Ormrod and Egypt between the 70s and 80s. It became part of Conrail with both the Lehigh Valley and Reading in 1976.
The entire remainder of the trackage was abandoned in 1984.
Whitehall Township purchased 9.2 miles of the line in 1996 to form the Ironton Rail Trail.
For many years, only the loop of the eastern end, an oddity among rail trails, was paved, and the rest of it was just surfaced with a crushed stone aggregate. I was saddened when I found out that the western section had also recently been paved. This was my first time seeing it.

We noted a dead Spotted Lanternfly on the trail in this area.

The Spotted Lanterfly were an invasive species that had gone crazy along with everything else in 2020, and were completely covering the entire sides of trees. Their preferred tree is the invasive Tree of Heaving, or Ailanthus altissima, but they also went after any native trees. Their secretions create a mold that ends up killing the trees. Sugar and Black Maples particularly suffered a lot through this, and the states set up BS hotlines to report them which was basically a placebo to make the public feel better about the government doing something about them. They had already taken over just about everything by the time that program was in place.
The good thing that seemed to have happened by the end of 2020, was that birds and other insects began recognizing the Spotted Lanterfly as a food source. In 2021, we didn't see nearly as many.

Whatever had gone after the one we saw on the trail, had consumed the body almost entirely and left the colorful red, white, and black wings.
The trail took us by a pond, and then out across Mauch Chunk Road.
It then passed through a swath of woods I had not been on I don't think since the trail was developed at all there. I had hiked through it I think in February of 2010, but it wasn't really a trail yet then.
We continued out to Quarry Street, and the trail turned left and was built alongside the road. It was in this area where the junction was with the branch to Seidersville and Orefield broke off.

The trail gets kind of weird ahead of here. It never used to go through, and we always used to have to walk the road in this section. 

The property of the old cement quarries to the north is now Lehigh Valley Sporting Clays, and there's all sorts of gun fire coming from it.

I think the railroad bed actually stayed a bit closer to the road, but the trail goes further away and skirts a very high fence that was installed next to the shooting property.

After a while, the trail reached a giant concrete structure, and then went around it on a long boardwalk. It obviously wasn't the railroad bed at first at those angles. 

On the south side of this big building, the metal frame of that bridge was still obvious supporting my theory of the original location of the track bed.

The trail picked up the railroad bed again and skirted more abandoned building frames. What would have been an access to the right was still a chain link fence out to Quarry Road, which I thought was kind of funny. We'd look like we were trespassing to anyone out there.

When we got to the main location of the Ormrod Plant, there was a large area with foundations, all cleared out and with little signs telling us what everything was. There was a conductor's office foundation, a blacksmith shop foundation, a water tower base, and a Section House where the Gandy Dancers who worked on the rails stored equipment. 

The rail bed weaved through woods from this point and then came close to Quarry Street again on the way to the little settlement of Egypt where there is parking.

 

I got another then and now compilation using an historic 1970 image, possibly by Mike Bednar, showing an Ironton Railroad train passing parallel with Quarry Street bound for Mill D, Ormrod. Mill D at the time was operated by A. Sheftel & Sons, who dealt in fabric and textile clippings. The parking lot at Egypt for years was the terminus of the trail, and the rest ahead was pretty overgrown.

We took a walk off the back of the parking lot, and there was once a rail spur that served a business back there. An abandoned couple of buildings were off in the trees there, one of them totally full of old TVs.

Justin commented since that it was probably purchased by the township at the same time as the rest of the railroad right of way, they probably had one of those municipal "drop off your TV" or "put your old monitors out days", and rather than getting rid of them the correct way, they just dumped them into this abandoned building in the old cement industry area. It seems like a likely reason.

We headed through the building, and then made our way back out to the rail trail where there was a little track car sat on a piece of disused track for display, with Ironton Railroad written on it.

We made our way just a little further ahead to where the railroad used to cross Quarry Street and continue. This was my first time back here since several of the old row houses had been destroyed. When I first walked through this area with my ex Cathy, there was a huge row of these row houses for the concrete plant workers. The few on the end were all completely abandoned, and I went into some of them to have a look around. They were quite a trip. On the next few hikes I did through the area, we went into and explored the row houses. On one occasion, I got a great three piece suit that I used to wear on the hikes. I found one of my old photos that featured the row houses, and I began setting up my history compilation using my own old photos.

While I was doing this, a guy was sitting on the porch of one of one of the nearby buildings. I talked to him, and he told me some of the history of the area I was not aware of.

This was like another little "patch" community around the industries. The little village here was simply known as "Mill A". I showed him my old photo of the three buildings on the end that are now long gone. He went on to explain that these three buildings were not up to modern standards, and even though they were lived in until the early 2000s, none of them ever had indoor plumbing. Indeed, I remembered the backs of these buildings each having their own outhouse. I recall some of them were equipped with electric, but they just never had any toilets inside.

It was apparently because of this the remaining people got evicted and and the buildings were demolished.

The man I was talking to had had family that worked in these old cement mills over the years, and told the familiar story about how the area had gone down hill since the industries had closed. This was a great little exchange, and I'm glad he was friendly and not some hack that wanted to scream about everything or call the police because I was taking photos along a trail. The trail continued into woods ahead with the Coplay Creek directly beside it on the right.

A little further ahead, there used to be a little dam on the right side that I was in the past able to do a running jump to get over. I could not do that any more because the entire thing was gone I could see where either wall of it was cut away. I wanted to go over and explore the one abandoned remaining cement mill over there, but amazingly no one else was into it. I waded through the creek, found my way to the chain link fence that blocked it, and found a hole through. I then made my way to the building and went into the lower level, which was pretty cool. On the way through, I gashed my upper leg on the fence and ended up bleeding a lot more than one would expect because I was so sweaty. Like so many others of these things, it had cat walks and such around the equipment. I didn't spend a whole lot of time in there because I was the only one that went, but I wanted to have a look around and have an idea on how to get up into upper levels should I try to come back any time soon.

I went back through the same hole in the fence, through the creek, and then along the trail ahead. We reached Reliance Street and then paralleled the road for a bit heading east on the trail. We soon reached the crossing with Church Street, where I set up another then and now compilation, this time using an early 1980s image by Bob Wilt.

We headed south across this intersection and then through more woods where there used to be more cement plants in the woods to the right. 
Pretty soon, we came upon the frame of Egypt's first fire house which sits along the trail to the left. We then saw other ruins from the cement industry, including one looking ready to collapse. Another building is being used as a bird blind frame, and another large one with holes through the metal roof that had been blocked off in somewhat recent years was back open so we went in to look around.

Just ahead, there was a former yard area where there is an old rail car on the left side. I had a 1965 photo of this site with which to do a comparison shot.

In 1914, Ironton Railroad obtained the combined passenger and baggage car. Passenger service ended on the line in 1921, and so it was retired in 1923.

The car was taken off of the wheel trucks and placed on concrete blocks for use as a yard office.

The yard office was closed in 1972, and deteriorated badly for many years.

The car was restored recently by Wasyl Mauser as an attraction on the Ironton Rail Trail.

As we walked, we passed beneath Rt 145, deviated from the rail bed slightly, and then took the left fork where it goes in two direction. This brought us along the north side of the trail, which had a lot of little displays added, one of them being a caboose.

We crossed Ruch Street next to where the trolley used to cross, and then headed to 2nd Street.

Ahead in Saylor Park, the old Coplay Cement stacks were starting to fall apart. Brick work was crumbling from the sides where it used to look just fine. You used to be able to walk among the stacks as well, but now it is all fenced off. It was kind of depressing to see.

Officially known as the Schoefer Vertical Kilns of the Coplay Cement Company, they are now part of Saylor Park Industrial Museum. We could see that some repointing work had taken place on some of it.

The nine kilns were constructed in 1892-93, and taken out of service in 1904.
The park is named for David Saylor, the father of the Portland Cement industry. Saylor's cement was superior to the earlier mined Rosendale Cement.

These stacks were originally enclosed in Mill B, through which the stacks protruded from the top.

The land was donated to Lehigh County in 1975. We headed over behind the stacks, and then down across the former Lehigh Valley Railroad right of way to a path down to the Lehigh River. There, there was a tunnel that Justin had found before, going beneath the site and he said there was a place where one could come up if they felt so inclined. We decided not to this time. Justin described it as something where we would have to crawl up through some hole in the ground and I was admittedly starting to get lazier as the day progressed.

From here, we turned to the right and headed down along the Lehigh River, and walked more of the former Lehigh Valley Railroad than the Ironton. Ironton is paved and Lehigh Valley is not.

We passed beneath the old bridge that made a connection across the Lehigh to the Central Railroad of New Jersey and the Nor Bath Railroad on the other side, and then got to the beginnings of the Thomas Ironworks ruins. This is probably one of the coolest areas of ruins along the entire Lehigh River. 
The Thomas Ironworks were named for David Thomas for his contributions to revolutionizing the iron industry through the use of coal. The process was far more difficult in earlier years, with colliers producing charcoal in the hills, and later with the hot blast bellows.

The plan for the ironworks was laid out in Easton in early 1854, and things progressed quickly. The Butz Farm, on the west side of the Lehigh, was chosen as the best site for the industry. The town was laid out soon after, with streets and homes for employees, as well as a spring with pumped water, a school, and a church.
The Lehigh Canal was already in place on the opposite side of the Lehigh River.
The railroads showed up also in the 1850s. Lehigh Valley Railroad on the west side of the Lehigh, and Central Railroad of NJ (Originally Lehigh and Susquehanna) on the other. The Ironton Railroad of course was built in part to serve this site, as well as the Crane Ironworks a little farther down which was on the other side of the Lehigh River.

The Thomas Ironworks were purchased by Bethlehem Steel in 1938 and demolition began soon after, except for a few structures that still remain in place today.

It started raining quite a bit heavier by this time, which made some of this exploring a drag. Just a little ahead on the railroad bed, the tall building with only the metal frame remaining of the roof was on the left. We walked right through the middle of it, which is always really cool.

It used to be so much cooler here, because there is a tunnel that goes all the way out almost to the Lehigh River that could be walked through. Unfortunately, people partying were dropping all of their bottles into the pit where we would have to climb in or out. It had gotten to the point that the doorway was filled right up to where we could no longer even see it.

This is just so disappointing of these idiot party people. Here we had a really awesome tunnel that everyone could have fun in, and they just literally piled it full of broken glass. 

This is more than just not appreciating history. They don't even appreciate their own potential for fun. This is why we need to worry about humanity. They literally destroy the good in a place for the two second thrill of throwing a bottle in a hole, or worse, they just don't think about any of it at all. 
We headed south and got down to Water Street on the old Lehigh Valley Railroad bed. The Ironton Railroad bed turned around to the west again, and Dave and I found ourselves continuing south without the others. I think they all turned off and started following either Ironton or just down down Eberhardt Road or something. We continued south a bit more on the railroad grade.

The Lehigh Valley Railroad was not yet official trail through this bit, and a bit of what we followed was gravel driveway, and another bit was just ATV path. It was nice, but I think we climbed back up from the rail bed when we got to Pine Street to start heading to the end point.
We ended up follow Pine Street, past a little municipal park with a memorial on the right, to Main Street, to Mickley Ave. Mickley Ave and Mickley Road came together at the same place, which has got to be as confusing as hell for fire and emergency personnel.

We continued on on Mickley on down to MacArthur Road/Rt 145. There, we had a delicious stop at Taco Bell for dinner. The others missed out.

From there, we continued across on Mickley, and pretty soon the trail along the Jordan Creek cut over to the left. Pretty soon that crossed a foot bridge over to the other side, and we followed the trail right on back to where it skirted the parking lot we met in. And so ended another great hike.
This day was nothing like what I intended, nothing like my back up plan, and probably better than both of them combined.