Rhoma Mostel recently visited New Hope and made a short video of her time on the D&L Trail.

Don’t let this week’s warm weather fool you. The sad fact is that we are only half way through winter.  Why not embrace it by attending Emmaus’ SnowBlast Winter Festival on February 5-6?

Every year the town comes out into the cold to celebrate all of the things that are great about winter, from sleigh rides and snowball fights to hot coco and toasty fires. You just might come away wondering why you ever wished for spring.  The schedule for this year is chock-full of events for the whole family. So, check out the SnowBlast website, grab the scarf and mittens, and head for Emmaus.

While trail usage across the Corridor goes way down during the winter months, trail design heats up.

Field work is an essential part of trail design. This involves things such as surveys and walk throughs with partners, engineers and permitting agencies. Wintertime provides the opportunity to do this without the heavy vegetation that is in some of the undeveloped areas of canal towpath and railbed. It also allows for greater sight distances, which makes for a much more cost effective survey.  We also take the opportunity to put the finishing touches on our projects, like the installation of entrance signs at the new River Road and Cementon trailheads.

We are currently taking advantage of the winter time to do survey work on a few projects – the pedestrian bridge in Jim Thorpe and design of the D&L Trail in North Whitehall Township (Lehigh County) and the Boroughs of Catasauqua and North Catasauqua (Northampton County).

The winter also allows a glimpse of what impact future trail projects will have. The photo below shows a section of trail in North Catasauqua that is impassable in the warmer months. You can clearly see how reestablishment of the townpath adjacent to the canal retaining wall unearths the beauty of this section of Lehigh Canal.

Another advantage of winter is the ability to see the canal ruins uncovered. I am constantly amazed at the engineering that went into the canal back in the 1820s when it was being built. One example is the guard lock in North Catasauqua. Designed to prevent canal damage during high water in the Lehigh River, they are a testament to the talent of craftsman of the time. While the timber work has not weathered well, the stonework is largely intact, as you can see in the photo below.

Finally, working on the D&L Trail constantly reminds me that nature will over time reclaim what was hers to begin with. The photos below show the guard lock area during operation of the canal. As you can see, there are no trees in sight. Trees would have compromised canal and lock wall integrity and impacted the travel of a canal boat, mule and the rope connecting the two. Left to nature the past seventy plus years, the area returns to its previous forested state.

Check back for more updates.  Spring (and great trail weather) will be here before you know it.

See the press release from the City of Allentown.  Thanks to all of the partners who worked as quickly as possible to repair this popular section of the D&L Trail and get water back into the canal.

This in from Scott Everett, our Trail Steward: 

In mid-December, I had the opportunity to see the progress of the construction of the section of the D&L Trail from the Nesquehoning Trestle to downtown Jim Thorpe. Unfortunately, the recent snow and onset of cold weather has more than likely put the project into winter shutdown.

When complete in Spring 2010, this completed section of trail will connect two historic canal towns – White Haven and Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe). The D&L is in preliminary design of the next link of the trail southward, which will cross the proposed Jim Thorpe pedestrian bridge. This bridge will take trail users back across the Lehigh River and connect to the recently completed section of trail in Weissport.

In addition, design is well under way for the 8.5-mile section of trail from the northern end of Lehigh Gorge State Park above White Haven to a new trailhead south of Mountaintop, along Route 437. We hope to have this project completed by the end of 2010.

The end result of these two projects will be an additional ten miles of surfaced trail added to the 26.5 mile stretch of D&L Trail in LGSP for a beautiful 36 mile trail through woodland, along natural lakes and marsh, and the Lehigh River.

Please check back here for updates.

Thanks,

Scott