2 days biking on the D&L Trail with some pinball wizards

The Delaware and Lehigh Trail is Pennsylvania’s other long-distance bike trail, much less known than the Great Allegheny Passage but almost as long now (and will be longer once it’s finished).

I’ve biked the southern half of the D&L, from Bristol (outside Philadelphia) to Bethlehem. With some sunny and warm days in the forecast for November, it was time to tackle another big chunk.

Four of us met at Canalside Guest House, an unpretentious place a few miles south of Jim Thorpe. Think of it as an AirBnB, not a frilly B&B, a place where a group, even a much larger group, can chill. Mile marker 101 on the D&L.

First up: the route south. The trail follows the Lehigh River. That meant we pedaled gently downhill to Northampton, with its onion-domed churches and support for Ukraine nearly 20 miles away. Oh yeah, when we turned back we had to go uphill. Can’t win them all.

We spotted remnants from another era: bridge footings, old utility poles, an old stone wall with a doorway … with a wall of rocks (slate?) behind it, so who knows what it was back in the day?

And someone has a thing for bikes and Halloween.

This was our turnaround point, somewhere south of mile marker 82. Someone went to a lot of effort to lodge that shopping cart up there.

On the way back, a rider tipped us off to the Slate Heritage Trail, which joins the D&L at the Slatington trailhead. At least go as far as the covered bridge, he said.

So we did. Secret fact: it’s new.

Some more photos from the day:

And dinner before it went into the oven (yes, we cooked). Told you Canalside is a place where you can chill.

What to do on day two?

The route south of Northampton and Catasauqua to Allentown is still in development (there’s an interim road option for those 4-ish miles), so we opted to go north. Rod, the friendly co-owner of Canalside, offered to shuttle us to the Black Diamond trailhead at mile marker 140. For now that’s the end of the D&L trail; one day it will end at Wilkes-Barre and mile marker 165.

But first, some early morning games of pinball on Canalside’s ground floor. Linda put the rest of us to shame!

Back to Black Diamond. No, we are not biking down a ski run! But it is just south of Mountaintop. So yes, this was a downhill ride (a gentle downhill), with the Lehigh River hemmed in by mountains on both sides.

This section of the D&L is much more rural than our route the day before: just one town between the start and Jim Thorpe (mile marker 106). And White Haven (mile marker 130) has about 1,100 people. Yes, there are food options there, just off the trail. Not that the ice cream shop would be open mid-morning in November.

For those who want to camp, there’s a campground about a mile from town. We spotted a camping option on day 1, right off the trail near mile marker 97: Riverview Park. Here’s more info about campsites near the D&L.

Another difference from the day before: this section is not paved (or packed so hard that you think it’s paved). Rather, it’s crushed stone and, yes, soft in places, so even those on wider tires than me fishtailed a bit. (I rely on my road bike for just about everything, and that’s why the tires are 700×28).

Note the “advice” about wearing orange.

So many locks on this one! That’s what helped boats, filled with coal headed for Philadelphia, deal with the elevation drop of 600 feet between White Haven and Jim Thorpe. Well, until massive flooding in June 1862 send hundreds of thousands of logs downstream and destroyed them. Railroads then took over.

Here’s what’s left of the lock at White Haven, a particularly deep one — and built without heavy machinery. How badly did those men mess up their backs?

Jim Thorpe is a popular weekend tourist destination, with beautiful buildings, just small. The scenic railroad train was pulling out as we arrived. Wish the scenic railroad from Reading ran some bike trains for the day we try a big loop from Bristol to Bethlehem to Canalside to Reading to Philly! Maybe next time we’ll catch a rock tribute band at the Mauch Chunk Opera House?

Here’s some of what you’ll see just before Jim Thorpe:

There’s so much more to see along the D&L. We barely scratched the surface on the Lehigh Valley. State parks and other state lands, hiking trails, a nature center, the museums in Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton, minor league baseball in Allentown, maybe take a ride on the mule-drawn canal boat in Easton. I’ll be planning another road trip!