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The Lehigh Gorge segment of the D&L Trail follows the abandoned Central Railroad of New Jersey grade for about 25 miles down the Lehigh River from White Haven to Jim Thorpe, almost all of it inside Lehigh Gorge State Park. The crushed stone surface drops nearly 600 feet end to end, so southbound is a long easy coast beneath steep, forested gorge walls, past Lehigh Tannery, Rockport, and Penn Haven Junction. At Glen Onoko the trail crosses the river on the Nesquehoning Trestle and finishes in downtown Jim Thorpe. The D & L Trail: Black Diamond segment continues north from White Haven; the D & L Trail: Lehigh Canal (North) segment picks up at Jim Thorpe.
D & L Trail: Lehigh Gorge
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the D & L Trail: Lehigh Gorge has about 115 to 158 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, e-biking, running, biking, birding, and walking, 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: Lehigh Gorge!
In half of past years, color along the D & L Trail: Lehigh Gorge peaks October 13 to 22, typically around October 17. The trail has 65% deciduous coverage, with the majority being red maple, chestnut oak, and white 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 drowned Upper Grand Section itself, the Central Railroad of New Jersey grade from White Haven past Rockport and Penn Haven Junction to Jim Thorpe.
