This landscape story continues today at Lehigh Gap where beautiful vistas and trails meet where the river breaks through the mountains.
Over time the Lehigh River carved into the ridges of the Appalachian Mountains, blazing a trail that would eventually become the backbone of future transportation routes. Footpaths along the river banks gave way to canals, then to railroads, and finally to modern-day highways. Nowhere is this more apparent than at Lehigh Gap, a dramatic landscape where the Lehigh River breaks through Blue Mountain, also known as Kittatiny Ridge, the final ridge in the Appalachian chain. Level land is scarce here due to the constriction caused by the mountains.
The D&L Trail meets the Appalachian Trails at Lehigh Gap along the Blue Mountain. This once-degraded area lost its vegetation to industrial pollutants from a nearby zinc smelter that closed decades ago. Thanks to ongoing restoration efforts, which included a strong partnership of agencies and private industry and strenuous hand-seeding of steep and rocky slopes by volunteer D&L Trail Tenders, the terrain is coming back to life. The land is becoming thick with native, warm-season grasses-a habitat in very short supply in the East-and someday forests, The 800-acre Lehigh Gap Wildlife Refuge now boasts hiking and wildlife observation trails, not to mention beautiful vistas.
