Bike Trails PA. D&L Canal Trail
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Raw file: D&L Canal Trail 2.gpx (1.18 MB)
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 400,000+ benchmarks across the Unites States. Information on Benchmarks is available here: https://geodesy.noaa.gov/GPSonBM/index.shtml
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, 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.
This file is the southern portion of Pennsylvania’s D&L Canal Trail. It follows the footpath of the Delaware and Lehigh Canals for over 100 scenic miles along the Lehigh and Delaware Rivers from Jim Thorpe to Bristol. Many of the old canal structures have been preserved and offer a peek at river life during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Information for the northern portion of this trail from Mountain Top to Jim Thorpe is provided in the “Lehigh Gorge” trail file.
At present, there is no off road link between the northern and southern trail sections. Local road maps should be used to determine the best route in the Jim Thorpe area. However, in April of 2017, work began on the pedestrian bridge over the Lehigh River at Jim Thorpe which, when complete, will join the two trail sections.
The southern section of the D&L trail between Jim Thorpe and Allentown is at present incomplete and requires the use of several busy roads in 7 sections for a total of 8 miles. The file will be updated as work on this section progresses.
Although devastated by flooding in 2004 and 2006, the southern section of the trail between Easton and New Hope has been repaired and is now open again. The mostly level trail surface ranges from pavement to compacted gravel with a few dirt sections. It is suitable for all types of bicycles.
Occasionally, sections of the trail are closed for construction. Detours are sometimes difficult so it is always a good idea to check with the websites below before planning an outing.
This file was compiled using a variety of resources including:
Traillink.com’s D & L Trail - Lehigh Canal South webpage: http://www.traillink.com/trail/d--l-trail---lehigh-canal-sou...
Traillink.com’s D & L Trail - Delaware Canal Towpath webpage: http://www.traillink.com/trail/d--l-trail---delaware-canal-t...
The Delaware & Lehigh.org website: http://delawareandlehigh.org/map/
The D&L National Heritage Corridor website: http://delawareandlehigh.org/
NOAA - http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/
Rivopom’s Combined US campgrounds POI Factory file
Garmin’s Mapsource & Basecamp software
USCGS Topographic Maps. Available legally at no cost for many States here:
http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/
Google Earth
Garmin’s Birds Eye Imagery
Various Internet & Print resources
Personal Knowledge
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.
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’ll post more trail files as I update and clean them up. I always enjoy conversing with fellow bike trail enthusiasts so please feel free to contact me with comments, questions, inclusions or revisions. – Enjoy!
Change History
bdhsfz6 - Jul 28, 2017
7/28/17 Added 30 miles of trail. Updated header page.