Hike #1552; Belfast/Wind Gap Loop

Hike #1552; 5/25/23 Belfast/Wind Gap Loop with Ken Zaruni and Everen

This next hike would be a mid week loop trip, just another day running errands and then meeting up with friends to do some area exploring.

In this case, I had this pre-planned trip I'd done a few times before with different variations that would be a loop between Belfast, meeting at the park and ride off of Rt 33 at the Henry Road exit off of Route 33.

Directly from the lot, we simply walked up Henry Road to the right turn on Belfast Road. We continued straight across Sullivan Trail on Belfast Road, and then turned left on Route 191, Bangor Road. The first part of this is pretty good because we can just walk through a parking lot to the north, parallel with the road, but beyond that it has no shoulder. That would be the only bad part of the hike.

I used to cut downhill to reach the former Bangor and Portland/Lackawanna Railroad, now Plainfield Township Rail Trail, by way of a police property, but they stopped me the last time I tried it.

That turned into a huge argument with Jillane, and so I wouldn't bother with any of that again. 

The section from the business for about a quarter of a mile to Engler Road was crappy, but everything else for the day was great. We turned right on Engler Road, and then reached the Plainfield Township Rail Trail to continue north.

I texted my old pal "Commando Tom" Petrucci, who was the municipal manager, and I found out on this day that he had switched jobs, and he was now the town manager for an area near Allentown that includes some of the Little Lehigh Greenway. He had come out to visit us the last time we hiked through last year.

The right of way closely parallels the Little Bushkill Creek, to the right of us, and just north of Engler is the site of the first of many slate quarries as we entered the slate belt area.

We passed by the old Rt of Bangor Road/191, then passed beneath the highway on the trail, and Ken's dog scout pretty much took all opportunities to get out and get in the water.

We crossed over Jones Hill Road next, followed by Getz Road. After that was Merwarth Road, and I think we paused there to use the trash can and give Ev a diaper change. I think I let him out to walk at some point in this stretch as well, because he'd been doing so well with it. He was covering well over a mile at a time at this point unassisted. I just had to watch him on trails with a lot of cyclists so he doesn't get hit.

We continued north, crossed Gum Road, followed by Delabole Road, and finally Grand Central Road. I can't help but think of the 911 National Memorial Trail, which was routed over this section, has I think more than 30 miles of road walking and over 60 road crossings, versus the southern route I was pushing for, which has more historic sites and less than half the amount of crossings. 

I had attended a meeting for the trail where they brought a huge group of us together to vote on which way the trail would go, but then they said whatever way it goes, it has to go through the Delaware Water Gap. That routing made literally no sense and is horrible, and will be horrible for the foreseeable future because of the amount of road walking, let alone crossings.

It was a real slap in the face with the planning of it all, and proved that these great trail concepts are more about money than they are about actually having a good trail. David Brickley, who came up with the concept, is a good guy and I think is more open to listening to reason, but the entire plan has been hijacked by biking coalitions, and it has become more of a road bike route than something anyone would want to hike.

fter Grand Central Road, the trail goes into some deeper woods. I stopped to cool off at one of the three or so Little Bushkill Creek bridges. That stream finds its headwaters out in the old slate lands to the north. I let Ev out and he threw lots of stones off of the bridges into the creek.

The rail trail turns to the left before reaching one of the slate quarries that is now used as a landfill. This turn was just about at the point where the Lackawanna branch to Wind Gap broke off. One can still see the ties in the cut where the trail goes up and over the right of way.

The trail follows a quarry road gradually uphill to the west in this area. We continued on this to a side path that leads out to near the end of Glass Street. 

I had found that route previously, and it was rather inaccessible in the past. The trail actually continues to the north and comes out at a parking area on the old Lehigh and New England Railroad bed off of Buss Street.

We followed Glass Street to the west a bit. In the past, I bushwhacked through the woods to the south in order to get out into Wind Gap, but I wasn't going to try with the stroller. We just followed Glass Street out to Route 512/Lehigh Avenue, and headed west on that. When we got to Alpha Road on the left, I went across into the Petro Mart at the Sunoco station to get some drinks and snack for Ev.

We then headed south on Alpha Road, until we got to E West Street. The road changes names to Mack Road there, and the Lackawanna branch to Wind Gap crossed the road near the intersection.

We turned left on E West Street, and cut through the front lawns of the Wind Gap Municipal Complex.

After the complex was the intersection with Longcore Road. We crossed this, and the former Lackawanna grade used to continue on the south side of, or at times on, E West Street. 

This area has changed a lot in the past few years, as it is now a huge development known as Dream Lehigh Valley. Some of the old railroad bed is now an improved surface trail parallel with E West Street.

Part of what I wanted to do this time was to follow that path, which sort of is a substitute for a sidewalk on that road.

I was surprised to see when we walked a short bit of it that there were signs reading "Live Lane Walking Trail" and that it was private, Dream Lehigh Valley residents and guests only. 

This path was literally just into the grass off of E West Street. It seems like a ridiculous joke. 

We walked the thing anyway, as we were already on it, and a fence separated us from that development. I had been inside the houses in that development while they were still being built. It was weird to see it all up as it is today.

The trail came out on the other side of the development, and we only had to jog onto E West Street very briefly to reach where the gravel lane was that went to the back of the Wind Gap Park.

The next surprise was that the gravel lane off of the road was now a paved trail, complete with bollards and striped with biking logos. Quite a lot different than all of the last visits there.

We walked the trail to the backs of the ball fields, and then where we previously just went uphill through the grass between the trees, the new trail was graded up to the upper lot in the park.

We headed out of the park and exited it at E 3rd Street, directly across from Oak Street, which we continued to follow to the south.

We continued south until we got to A Street, and then turned to the right, west.

We followed A Street to the south into Wind Gap, turned to the left, and then made our way to the new Taco Bell on the corner of 512, Sullivan Trail and Rt 33 at the underpass for 512.

We stopped here and got some food. I got Ev to eat some, so that was good. There's good outdoor seating there on the one side, and the site is very convenient for us when doing a loop like this.

After eating, we continued west on Rt 512 beneath the Rt 33 underpass, and then went steep up a grassy slope into the lot for ESSA bank and trust.

We continued parallel with Jacobsburg Road on the east side for a bit, and then made our way across the road and into the grassy slope of the Colonial Academy on the right.

Where we came out of the end of an athletic field, we entered a parking area where there was a good pedestrian route all through the lot with striped crossings of all traffic lanes. We followed this to the south, and at the end of the lot to the south, near a ball court, there is a mowed path that cuts through to the north end of Ballas Park.

I had done this park a number of times in the past, mostly as night hikes, and last year around this time was the first time I'd ever walked it during the daylight.

This time, we decided to keep to the right as we entered the park, on the improved surface trail that went around the outside of the park.

We meandered through the pleasant fields here, and my plan was to head out of the south side of the park onto Kromer Road, from which point it was only a short distance away to get on the old Nazareth Branch of the Lehigh and New England Railroad.

We continued around the outside of the park, but then I was shocked to see a new trail going into the woods to the right, north, before we turned south through the park.

We were doing well on time, and so I figured we should check this out. Worst case scenario, we'd end up back at the school fields we had already come from another way and have to do more distance.

The trail meandered through the woods with crushed stone surface, and crossed over a nice foot bridge over some of the head waters of Sobers Run. Then, in a short while, we emerged on the old Nazareth Branch and continued hiking to the south. I let Ev out of the stroller again to run for a while. 

The Nazareth Branch was chartered in 1898 originally as the Bushkill Branch. Track construction took place in 1900 and 1901. The line was nine miles coming off the Old Bender's Link (a southern Lehigh and New England route from the main line from which the junctions broke off) at a point called Bushkill Junction, near the village of Rismiller, just west of Wind Gap. It headed south through Jacobsburg and Aluta toward Nazareth.

The line's main commodities were slate, limestone and cement and was built to compete with the Lehigh & Lackawanna Railroad which was LNE's rival at the time.

The same year, the 1901, Northampton Railroad was incorporated to build a line from Bath, where a connection would be made with the Lehigh & Lackawanna Railroad to Martins Creek PA.

LNE quickly purchased the charter and built the line themselves, opening the line as the Martins Creek (sometimes also called Uhler Branch) Branch in 1904. A connection between the Martins Creek Branch and Nazareth Branch was made at Tadmor. The LNE not long after acquired the Lehigh & Lackawanna Railroad, renaming its Bender's Junction-Bethlehem portion their Bethlehem Branch, abandoning L&L's Old Bender's Link and soon began to favor their routing over the Nazareth Branch. A bit of Old Bender's Link, L&L's earlier routing to Wind Gap from Bender's Junction was kept in place between Wind Gap and Rismiller to reach the Nazareth Branch.

Henry's pond at Boulton

Pond site today

The US Railroad Administration took over the nation's railroads during World War One and suspended all operations over the Nazareth Branch, rerouting usual Nazareth Branch traffic to the Bethlehem Branch.

After the Great Stock Market Crash of 1929, the LNE suffered significant woes, having to abandon several miles of trackage. During the 1930s, the Slatington Branch, Saylorsburg Branch, Glenwood Branch were abandoned. The Nazareth Branch too met its demise when abandonment was filed in 1939.

We crossed over Kromer Road, and it was a great, long section for Ev to run along on because there are no road crossings until getting into Jacobsburg Environmental Education Center.

Ev had a good time running along with us for a while and kept up very well. He eventually started falling behind, and at that point he was ready to get back in the stroller and relax a bit. He likes to beg to be picked up, but he's getting too heavy to carry for a long way, so I try to give him the choice of walking, holding my hand, or getting in the stroller. Inevitably, someone ends up picking him up and he then won't settle for less. Ken did pick him up once in there, but he was tired enough that he was pretty good about laying down.

Soon after I got him in the stroller, he completely passed out and was out for a while.

The trail led us south across Belfast Road and into Jacobsburg. The right of way in this section occasionally shows the marks in the surface of the former railroad ties. 

We continued south through nice woods until the railroad bed, now part of the Sobers Run Trail, reached the former crossing with State Park Road, now also part of the Sobers Run Loop.

We turned left on the old road route, crossed over Sobers Run itself, and continued out to the intersection with Jacobsburg Road, where the rest of State Park Road continued ahead.

We turned right, crossed the Bushkill Creek, and then went straight across the intersection with Belfast Road onto the Homestead Trail. Just inside the woods, we turned left and followed Homestead Trail to the south a bit more, somewhat parallel with Belfast Road, and eventually past the park headquarters building.

Across form here is where William Henry II established his first gun making factory on the Bushkill Creek in 1792. A forge was constructed on this site for that purpose. 

Around the War of 1812, the industry moved further south on the stream to Boulton. Henry guns played a major role in the War of 1812 and other skirmishes. 

Stanley Jones photo, 1936, Library of Congress Archives

From here, we continued on the trail through the parking lot to the south, and crossed the pedestrian bridge over Bushkill Creek onto the lower Henry's Woods Trail.

This is a great section of trail for children, and I love bringing Ev there. There are steps down to the creek where kids can walk in and play in the water. Ev stayed at the first one for a while throwing stones, and often offered a stone to Ken to throw as well.

We continued on Henry's Woods Trail for a bit, and then continued on the up slope for a while. Ken headed out from us a bit earlier so I could play with Ev in the water some more and explore some of the Boulton site a bit. I had lots of historic photos taken around the site, which I couldn't figure out the sites for exactly. 

S. Jones Library of Congress 1936

We walked to the right across the old raceway, and then across the foot bridge over the Bushkill Creek just below the Henry dam, which was purged in 1926.

We walked thorugh the historic site, then down the slope to Henry Road and across the modern bridge on the site. The pony truss that had been there previously washed out in the flood of September 2004.

S. Jones Library of Congress 1936

We crossed the bridge and headed back up to where the main gun factory building used to be, then along the road under Rt 33 to finish our hike. 

We'd had a really great hike. It was relaxing and I think we all enjoyed it quite a lot. I wish I could do more of these during the week, every week, but there's just too much stuff to do too often to be able to.