Bike Trails PA. Lehigh Gorge Trail & Black Diamond Trail

 
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Last updated 06/18/2015

Raw file: Lehigh Gorge Trail 12.gpx (432.87 KB)

My wife, brother and I are bicycle enthusiasts who enjoy riding the ever increasing number of rail / canal trails mostly in the Northeastern US. We also do volunteer work for NOAA by recovering US Coast & Geodetic Survey Benchmarks. We often combine these hobbies while trail riding.

Unlike geocaching, benchmark hunting serves a valuable purpose by providing NOAA with updates on the condition of their 700,000+ benchmarks across the Unites States. Information on Benchmarks is available here: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/.

We have been riding these trails for over 10 years now and I decided to share some of the .GPX files I’ve created. Of the hundreds of trails available in this part of the country, I selected these for their quality, scenic beauty, lack of excessive grades or hazardous terrain and overall riding or hiking enjoyment. These files contain tracks for trails and waypoints for significant features such as road crossings, bike shops, campgrounds, points of interest and USCGS benchmarks along or near the trail. All waypoints include elevation data for use in plotting trail slope and planning outings. These files were compiled using a variety of resources including:

www.traillink.com/

NOAA - http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/

Garmin’s Mapsource & Basecamp software

USCGS Topographic Maps. Available free for many States here: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/

Google Earth and Google Earth Pro

Garmin’s Birds Eye Imagery

Personal Knowledge

Various Internet & Print resources:

PA DCNR’s Lehigh Gorge State Park website: http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/findapark/lehighgorge...

Visit PA’s Lehigh Gorge State Park website: http://www.visitpa.com/pa-biking/lehigh-gorge-state-park

Pocono Biking’s Lehigh Gorge website: http://poconobiking.com/the-trail/lehigh-gorge-trail-options...

This trail is the Lehigh Gorge and Connecting Black Diamond Trail in Northeastern PA. These combined trails run for 35 miles from Glen Summit, south to Jim Thorpe. The Black Diamond trail begins in Glen Summit and runs for 10 miles through farmland and reclaimed coal mine property to the connecting Lehigh Gorge Trail in White Haven. The Lehigh Gorge Trail continues south from White Haven through the scenic Lehigh Gorge for 25 miles to the historic town of Jim Thorpe. The trail passes remnants of the old coal carrying canal and railroad along the way.

Anyone interested in Benchmark hunting can obtain detailed data sheets for each mark by going here: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_pid.prl The PID is the waypoint name symbolized by the color coded cube icons. Green= Recovered within the last 10 years. Blue= No recent recovery but set in a massive structure which still exists. Red= Likely missing or reported destroyed.

Be aware that the GPS coordinates provided in this file for benchmarks are approximate and can be off by as much as 600 feet. In most cases, the specific detailed information provided on the data sheets is necessary to locate the benchmark. The on line data sheets are easily converted into .PDF files and can be stored on most smartphones.

Free, legal, 24K and 100K topo map downloads for the states with these trails are available here: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/ Segments of these maps covering the above trails can be loaded into many older handheld GPS receivers with limited memory by using Garmin’s Mapinstall program available here: http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=3291

I always enjoy conversing with fellow bike trail enthusiasts so please feel free to contact me with comments, questions, inclusions or revisions. – Enjoy!

***** Update 6/18/15 *****
Added info for the connecting Black Diamond Trail
Added waypoints for picnic tables
Added waypoints for river rescue equipment
Corrected trail track alignment in 8 locations

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