Hike #1489; Bellaire to Falmouth

 

Hike #1489; 6/12/22 Bellaire Nature Preserve to Falmouth with Dan Trump, Jenny Tull, Robin J, Jim Kohan, and Diane Reider

This next hike would be the next in the Highlands Trail series in Pennsylvania. This would be the sixth in the series but only the second after the designated route broke off of the Mason-Dixon Trail.

We had last left off in Falmouth PA at the boat launch, having completed the Northwest Lancaster River Trail, much of which followed the old Pennsylvania Canal Eastern Division and Pennsylvania Railroad.

This time, we would connect to there from the east. I planned to do the hike in backwards order rather than west to east because it would be better for swimming opportunities, plus the starting point had a loop I planned out.

There are always little things along the way that we have never explored, and they wouldn’t fit into the context of one of our hikes unless we specifically planned it. Such was the case with the Bellaire Nature Preserve at the start.

I had actually already done this hike before, sort of. It was a bit different.

Previously, I had started out by Colebrook, and then headed west on the former Lebanon Valley Railroad. We road walked from there to near Three Mile Island, and then traced the former Pennsylvania Canal north to Middletown. 

It was a pretty great trip, but I didn’t want to repeat that same thing again.

So, I planned for the preserve loop at the start, then the rail trail, then try to follow the line west a bit more and do a bit different road walk, and finally follow the canal as best we could back to Falmouth. It seemed like a good plan.

We met at the Falmouth Boat Launch again, and then shuttled east to Bellaire Woods Nature Preserve on Prospect Road, near Elizabethtown PA.

We parked, and there was a very nice Pawpaw tree right in the edge of the lot. The first part of the hike would be a lollipop loop, out and back to the same lot, so it wasn’t actually necessary to bring the packs for this part.

The trail went into the woods and over some puncheons; there was a closed trail to the left that made the loop a little earlier, but apparently due to wetland issues it was cut off and changed.

When we did get to the junction of trails, we made the right turn and went slightly up through very wet lands and over rocks. There were some really nice big trees in the well-shaded, deep woods. We weaved around in a loop, and I ended up getting really far ahead of everyone else.

The trail came back together at the junction again, and we made our way back out to the lot where I opened a beer and waited for the others to arrive.

As we all got to the lot, someone else showed up for their own hike, and seemed surprised to see so many people in this obscure little parking lot. I can only imagine their confusion when they saw us walk from the parking area and directly down Prospect Road to the north, not onto the trail system!

There were some minor pastoral views along the road, so it wasn’t bad. We crossed Rt 241, Mt Gretna Road, then continued on the other side to the Lebanon Valley Rail Trail. A cop actually drove by as we were walking down, which is surprising to see in the middle of nowhere.

The right of way was that of the Cornwall and Lebanon Railroad, constructed in 1883 in direct competition with the already existing Cornwall Railroad. 

It was incorporated by Robert Habersham Coleman, who was interestingly the son of the Cornwall Railroad founder William Coleman and cousin of William Freeman, the competitor’s President.

The line was extended west to Conewago Station, and continued hauling iron ore, military personnel, or local goods, but passenger service ended in 1928.
The Pennsylvania Railroad purchased the line then, and it continued in service until Hurricane Agnes in 1972, after which it was pretty much abandoned. A stub of it is still in service out at Conewago.

We turned left on the right of way, which took us to the little settlement of Bellaire.
There is a mill building there, which might have once served as a station, but I’m not sure. I have not seen a photo of a station at the site, and I think Dan felt it was definitely the station. There was a sort of station sign on it that read “Bellaire”.
We went up to it, and there was even an old train schedule on the wall in a frame. There was an old coaling trestle at the approach as well, which was roofed for some sort of other storage now.
We headed to the west from here, under some pretty blooming Catalpa trees, checked out the Conewago Creek to the north, and crossed Koser Road.
The trail was pretty nice; I had only seen it in the Winter before, but Summer certainly wasn’t bad.

Next, we came to a little side trip into Old Trolley Line Park.

This park had paved trails around it and prefabricated bridges, but apparently not one bit of the park was an old trolley line. That would have been out on the Mt Gretna Road as I understand it, and Dan couldn’t make sense of why they would name the park that.

We wandered out to the first parking lot in this park because I figured that someone was going to want to use one of the portajohns, but I don’t think anyone used it.
We headed back to the rail trail to continue to the west.

Just a short distance on this, and there was an old 1940s model speeder on display to the left side of the trail. This would have been for maintenance personnel traveling on the line. There apparently used to be a “Rails to Trails Bicycle Shop” on this route because of the promise of all sorts of commerce coming with the trail, but it looked to be out of business.

Unfortunately, the bike traffic doesn’t bring all that much business as much as people claim.

We crossed over Hershey Road and continued ahead, and then there was a side trail to the right. It led to a little viewing area over a wetland to the north known as the Hershey Meadow.

We got back on the railroad bed heading west. It changes names from Lebanon Valley Rail Trail when it leaves Lebanon County, and becomes Conewago Trail.
There were some beautiful farm views through this area, and we passed beneath the Route 283 bridges. Just after that, we crossed Old Hershey Road.

After a little further, we took a side trail to the right in this area to check out the Conewago Creek. It was really hot and I wanted to take a dip, but it looked like complete crap. It was so gross that even I did not want to go in.

We passed through a cut ahead of here, and then reached the spot where there used to be a bridge over Old Mill Road. Only one abutment of the bridge remains today.

We crossed here, then passed through a very lovely section of farm land to the left beneath the shady line of trees, a very nice section.

It wasn’t far past that we reached the parking area and the end of the trail on Market Street.
I had not fully decided what we were going to do at this point. I had looked at parallel road routes, and figured the one to the south would probably be best for us, Zeager Road, but then Dan was thinking we would have no problem bushwhacking a bit through straight ahead and staying on the historic route.

I had already walked that way before; my last visit we bushwhacked through this same mess, which wasn’t terrible for long, but I just figured we wouldn’t be doing that this time.

It turns out there’s a machine Dan works on up in that next section, so he knew it pretty well.

We took a break in the parking lot for a bit before moving on, and I checked out some old dam remnants or something that were next to the railroad underpass. There was a handsome stone arch that carried a tributary to the Conewago Creek beneath, dated 1881. I went through part of it.

We bushwhacked through some of the mess on the other side of Market Street, and it wasn’t all that bad. There was a deep drop off of a washout to the right at one point, but we were okay. 

We got up around the fence of some of the industries there, and then got on the tracks heading west.
We soon passed by the machine Dan works on, which is nicknamed “Midge”, a diesel engine parked on the track back there. We had a look at that and continued on down the tracks to the west.
They were a bit overgrown in this area, because they don’t get all that much use.
A short bit after we got into the woods, Dan pointed out to me where the old turntable pit is. It still exists, but it’s just overgrown and full of water. I was barely able to see through the brush to it, but I saw it.

This section of tracks was certainly used as a trail. Despite being a single track right of way, there were well worn ATV tracks on the right side as we continued.

We crossed over Zeager Road and continued, and Dan pointed out to me where the Cornwall and Lebanon Railroad had its station, which was only about one hundred yards from the Pennsylvania Railroad station. Only a little clearing of the site remains today, and I was able to confirm the location using some historic aerial images.

Just after this point we crossed Bossler Road. I was apprehensive about continuing on from this point because it went out to the very active former Pennsylvania Railroad, but we wouldn’t have to follow it for very long.

Dan wanted to try to follow the original alignment of the line from this point. Around 1906-7 the Pennsylvania Railroad did major realignments to the grades and widened them from double track to four tracks wide.

We made our way out to the junction site, and the abutments and part of a pier of the original alignment bridge over the Conewago Creek was there.
There was really no way of going to the right onto the right of way all the way through because after it weaves through the woods, it makes its way through wide open farm property and is farmed out of existence.
My plan instead was to hurry across the railroad bridge, then cut into the woods to the left. A parallel woods road starts up in that way and would get us back out to Binser Road.

We had to bushwhack for a bit, and it was some rough going, but when we got out to the woods road, it was fine.
We pushed ahead and then came out to the road, turned right, and crossed the tracks on the road bridge.
We headed north to Locust Grove Road, and could make out where the railroad used to go off to the right across the fields. When we got to Locust Grove Road, we were going west, but we turned east a bit first to see if we could see any of the original railroad bed first, and if any of it was accessible from that point.

Where Binser Road continued to the left was where the tracks would have crossed. There was basically no trace. West of the road there was also no good route so we followed the road to the west.

We followed Locust Grove Road to the west, and on the right we came upon the old Rothrock Cemetery, with a stone wall surrounding it.
I had walked down this road the previous time I was out there, but I didn’t realize there was an earlier railroad alignment when I went through then I don’t think.
The Pennsylvania Railroad later route came in close from the left of us, and we reached the intersection with Hillsdale Road. That wasn’t the way we were going, but we walked up that way a little bit to see if there were any noticeable remnants of the old rail alignment, because it crossed very close, then had its junction with the later route just to the west.

We went south on Hillsdale Road beneath the stone culvert of the later Pennsylvania Railroad, and on the other side turned right on Gingrich Road. 

This was a bit out of the way of where we needed to get to ultimately, but I wanted to get to the same spot we came out to the Susquehanna River the first time I walked out this way, and we followed this road that time.

We continued on the road to the next intersection and veered left on Geyer’s Church Road.

As we walked the road and gained a little elevation, there were some views of the Three Mile Island facility and many power lines off to the left.

 This brought us to River Road, Route 441, where we turned left. The Susquehanna River and Three Mile Island came into plain view.

The slack water lake behind the York Haven and Red Hill dams is Lake Frederick, in Londonderry Township.
Construction began on the facility in 1968, and first operation began in 1974.

It was originally built by General Public Utilities Corporation (GPU Incorporated). There are two separate units, TMI 1 and TMI 2.
This was the site of the largest nuclear accident on American soil, 28th 1979. TMI 2 suffered a partial meltdown. Unit 2 has been off line ever since. Unit 1 was shut down in September 2019.
These world-famous cooling towers dominate the landscape, visible from miles around.

We continued south from there, and there was the Exelon Generation training center on the left side, which looked to be completely abandoned. Half of the building was completely consumed by vines.
There were some great views of the power plant as well as the river and farm land as we continued ahead, and there was also an historic marker for the disaster. 

We also passed the bridge that led across to TMI.
Over the edge at some of the power line clearings, we could still see the Pennsylvania Canal towpath, although grown over.

This was the 1833 Eastern Division that stretched from Columbia to Clark’s Ferry, part of the Main Line of Public Works, the combination of rail and canal between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh completed in 1834. The Pennsylvania Railroad purchased most of the Main Line of Public Works in 1857, and built over a lot of the canal, but some of these areas are still recognizable.
Just before the area of the Red Hill Dam, there was a mowed path and some cars pulled over along the road. It looked to be a public trail, so we followed it on down hill.

The path led right down to the railroad tracks, and then there was another on the other side that went up onto the towpath of the canal, then some steps built in the mud right down to the river edge. I followed some of this, and went over to the Red Hill Dam.

This looked to be a good spot for a swim I had been so patiently waiting for, so I got in. It was really refreshing. There were a lot of people fishing around the area, so I tried not to get in their way.

I made my way back up from the dam, and we had to walk the tracks for a bit to the south because there wasn’t really another good way to go. I tried watching the canal remnants to the right the entire time.

To the left, there was an abandoned house in the little settlement of Falmouth. There was also a bridge over to Three Mile Island, just before the railroad crossed the Conewago Creek.
We re-grouped there, and I decided to go and lay in the creek at this point, because this section of it looked way cleaner.
This site was pretty amazing because some of the old canal aqueduct remnants were in place adjacent to the railroad bridge. The stone work was mostly all collapsed, but definitely recognizable as having been the canal.
Upstream from the current rail bridge was the base of a pier which was probably the earlier alignment of this part of the railroad. When the bridge was replaced, it probably took over part of the old canal site.

There was good retaining wall in place along the canal when I climbed down, adjacent to the tracks.
The current rail bridge is also concrete, which dates it to even after the 1906 upgrades.

We continued on the tracks to the south, and I fell behind everyone else. I watched closely for the remnants of the canal, but it was pretty overgrown. The only thing I saw recognizable was the land contour of the towpath at a power line crossing.
What I ended up missing in this section was Lock #6. It was apparently right in Falmouth near a bend in the river, and there was at one time a trail to it.
When we got to the access road to Falmouth Boat Launch, I saw that there was another unpaved trail on the towpath to the left. There was a sign that pointed to the right to a trail, but it was completely grown in and inaccessible. I’m sad I missed that lock up there.
I walked down the grassy towpath a bit, and then I was shocked by what I found.

Lock #5 was there and in great condition.
The site used to be maintained and mowed, but it was still passable. Some trees were down and such, but overall it was a great spot.

This was actually a double lock for opposing traffic, which made it that much cooler. The lock to the left was well shaped stone but looked dry laid of composite material. There was even some vertical wood left from the facing that would have lined the lock, which is amazing considering how long it has been abandoned. The lock to the right was fine cut stone, fit together perfectly.
I could see the holes and recesses for the hardware that operated the locks, and the gate pockets in both locks were in fine shape. The gate pockets on the composite lock also had some wood framework holding up inside.
I was blown away that none of the lock walls appeared to have been collapsed.

I got a call I think from John when I was up there looking everything over, and told the others they need to get up there to check it out. There was another path that was somewhat accessible more from the parking lot, but only to the first lock. 

There were foot bridges over both of the locks, but only the one over the composite lock, which was the inland side, was intact. The fine cut lock bridge was busted into the lock by a fallen tree.

The others came up to look at it I think from that other angle and I had to go back to Collins Road, the access road down to the lot.
It started raining pretty well just as we were finished, in perfect timing. It really started pouring some of our trip out of there.