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The Switchback Railroad Trail follows the bed of the 1827 Mauch Chunk Switchback, the gravity railroad that carried anthracite from the Summit Hill mines down to the Lehigh Canal at Jim Thorpe. The route is comprised of two intersecting nine-mile tracks in Carbon County. The down track runs southeast past Mauch Chunk Lake Park on a hard packed dirt surface and ends on Lentz Trail Road before a final wooded drop onto the bluff above Jim Thorpe. The back track on the north side is rougher, with roots, rocks, and loose coal, and is best suited to mountain bikes. A short side loop near Jim Thorpe climbs to the Mount Pisgah overlook above the Lehigh Gorge.
Switchback Railroad Trail
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Switchback Railroad Trail has about 119 to 160 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, birding, e-biking, biking, running, 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 Switchback Railroad Trail!
In half of past years, color along the Switchback Railroad Trail peaks October 17 to 27, typically around October 22. The trail has 59% deciduous coverage, with the majority being chestnut oak, red maple, and northern red oak.
Seven cars of Summit Hill coal rolled down to the Lehigh Canal at Mauch Chunk on May 5, 1827, and Pennsylvania's first railroad was in business. Josiah White and the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company built the nine mile line so gravity could do the work of moving anthracite from the mines on the mountain to the canal boats on the river. Loaded cars coasted down, dropping 936 feet on the trip. Mules rode down with the coal and then hauled the empty cars back up the hill. Traffic soon outgrew the mules. In the 1840s the company added a separate back track for the empties and two steam powered inclined planes, one up Mount Pisgah above the town and one over Mount Jefferson. The Pisgah plane alone rose 664 feet. Coal hauling ended in 1872 once a new route through the Nesquehoning tunnel took the traffic. The Switchback then lived on as a thrill ride. Cars plunged downhill at up to 50 miles per hour, tens of thousands of visitors came each year, and the ride became the model for the first roller coaster at Coney Island in 1884. The Depression finished it. The last car descended in 1933, and in 1937 the railroad was sold for scrap. Carbon County later turned the grade into a hiking and biking trail, named a National Recreation Trail in 1980, with Mauch Chunk Lake Park at its midpoint.
