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The Black Diamond segment of the D&L Trail runs about 10 miles across the plateau of southern Luzerne County, from the remote Black Diamond Trailhead to White Haven. It follows the old Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad grade through state game lands, past Moosehead Lake and a string of ponds and bogs, under a nearly unbroken forest canopy. The grade is rail-trail steady, dropping about 600 feet toward White Haven. About 9 miles are improved crushed stone; the last stretch into White Haven is rougher. North of the trailhead a gap separates it from the Mountain Top piece; south, the D & L Trail: Lehigh Gorge segment continues down the river.
D & L Trail: Black Diamond
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the D & L Trail: Black Diamond has about 109 to 154 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, e-biking, running, biking, walking, and birding, with May, September, and October the best months.
Hourly comfort scores for the next 15 days of weather, tuned to your activity and your own thresholds.
Plan your visit to this trail. Get the best windows for a comfortable outing.
Enjoy the D & L Trail: Black Diamond!
In half of past years, color along the D & L Trail: Black Diamond peaks October 13 to 20, typically around October 16. The trail has 64% deciduous coverage, with the majority being red maple, white oak, and chestnut oak.
Josiah White and Erskine Hazard founded the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company in 1818 to move anthracite out of the hills at Mauch Chunk. Their Lehigh Canal was rebuilt for two-way traffic from 1827 to 1829, 46 miles from Mauch Chunk to Easton. Pennsylvania dug the Delaware Canal from Easton to Bristol between 1827 and 1832, and the first coal boat reached Bristol that July. Upstream, the company dug the canal on through the Lehigh Gorge to White Haven by 1843 and chartered the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad to reach Wilkes-Barre. In June 1862 a dam failure above White Haven washed the gorge canal out for good. The Lehigh and Susquehanna replaced the drowned canal and the Central Railroad of New Jersey leased it in 1871, while Asa Packer's Lehigh Valley Railroad hauled coal down the far bank. The last paying boat left the Delaware Canal in October 1931, and the company closed the Lehigh Navigation in 1932. Pennsylvania made the Delaware Canal a state park in 1940. The Central Railroad of New Jersey gave up its gorge line in 1972. Lehigh Gorge State Park took the empty rail bed in 1980, and Congress created the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor in 1988. Its namesake nonprofit has joined towpaths and rail beds into the 165 mile D&L Trail since. This segment is the Lehigh and Susquehanna grade above White Haven, climbing away from the river toward Mountain Top, and black diamonds was the miners' name for anthracite.
