Hiking A Mystical Wood

We did it again. Stumbled upon a mysteriously fantastic little secret wood that is, seemingly untouched/unseen by human hands/eyes for quite some time. I'm not sure how it happened. I remember "Hey what's that over there?" but I don't even remember who said it. It must've been one of us, right?

Then we took in the view along a lake

The Search For Glen Onoko

Dani & Vic stayed at our place Sunday night before returning home, newly wed, so we decided to give them a little adventure they could bring home and tell all their friends about. We tried to anyways.

Glen Onoko falls is the chosen destination. A little investigating told us that it's a lovely 75 foot drop in Jim Thorpe that lies deep in the woods and offers an intimate spot for picnicking and photos oppurtnities but that they can only be reached by way of a "rugged hike" over "treacherous obstacles" that are "not recommended for inexperience hikers". Sounds good to me. Let's go!

We thought we'd stop by "our" waterfall first, to get them broken in for the hike ahead. It's kind of hard to believe that this really does lie just off the road by our house, but is mostly unknown about by locals, and everyone we bring here is surprised by the spot. It's ours. You can't have it.


It's higher than it looks.

There's a money shot.

Watch your step. This rock path is new.

Seems like the trees have become evil-er.

The climb back up is not as fun.

Vic does his best Ralph Macchio impression.

Missed the jump, but you get the idea.

A mighty mountain climbing triumvirate.

Broken in. From there we made the rek to Jim Thorpe and found the trail entrance pretty easily.



From there it was all downhill. No pun intended. We quickly came to a crossroads and we had to decide which way to go. We attempted to consult a map, but instead of actually using it, we just posed with it for a quick photo op and then foolishly put it away.



I'll try to sum up the next two hours of our lives in one word: Lost. It was a great time (had by me & Vic at least) climbing thru pricker bushes & ascending some pretty serious summits, but we quickly realized that we were in no way, shape or form on anything that even closely resembled a path. But we pressed on, thinking a neatly worn out strip of hiking road would be just over that next rock. It wasn't.


Wishing Laura good luck.

This is where we probably should have turned back.

Yeah that looks easy.

Phew, I spotted my wife.

We managed to reach the top of the mountain, or the equivalent of the top for us, enjoying a short break to catch our breath and rehydrate and mostly just take in the view and discuss the descent.


Vic realizing we have just climbed the wrong mountain.

I'm not bothered. The view is spectacular.

That is not happy to see me.

Yes, we did climb all the way to Heaven.

At that point we knew going back down was going to be much more difficult. And it was. Especially since Laura had a bum knee from the wedding (danced too hard) and all of us had much less energy than when we began the climb up.


So far so good.

Laura and prickly branches are not friends.

You'll be glad to know we made it down safe and sound, obviously, and started heading back to the car, feeling defeated. That's when Vic spotted the actual trail, marked by red dots spray painted on the trees along the way. Awesome. Why couldn't we find those 2 hours ago. Dani & Vic decided to trudge on, may be the only chance they get, but since Laura's knee was bothering her, she & I decided to explore the lowlands. Smart choice I think. We'll come back sometime.

I gave Vic & Danielle the camera so that if they were to stumble upon the great Glen Onoko falls they'd have photographic evidence, and good thing I did, because they did.

The great and glorious falls of Glen Onoko!!

Or not.

They got this far and decided to fill up the water bottles and head back down. I have a feeling they were hungry and had had enough.



We made it to downtown Jim Thorpe around 5 o'clock, just as all the shops were closing. All except one.


The Country Cottage, home of the blue ribbon pickle!

They had buttons for sale.

And lots of pickles...

Which we bought and ate in the street.


Not a big pickle fan but damn these were good pickles.

And Laura stole a flower from them.

Starving, we hit the main drag Mexican place, who had delicious flautas & enchiladas but seemed to be in the midst of a chip & salsa shortage.

That left one last thing to do in Jim Thorpe...

We never found Glen Onoko. Perhaps that's another adventure for another day.

[Laura recommended a song to accompany this post, but I just don't have it in my collection, but it was "Don't go chasing waterfalls, just stick to the rivers and the lakes blah blah blah blah". Good choice hun.]

Bushkill'n

We head eastward for our second day of outdoor excursion. Eastward to the "Niagara of Pennsylvania", a state that apparently doesn't take itself too seriously. Bushkill Falls is a lovely place, 6 or 7 quaint yet beautiful falls throughout, but trust me, ain't no one trying to go over these in a barrel.

Our estimated time of arrival was set for opening hour, 9 am. Our actual time of arrival: 1:30. Early birds are for suckers. Fran had to return some moccasins purchased on a pass-by a week earlier and then we checked out the Native American exhibit.





I could totally live in a longhouse.

They also had an old sifter from the mining days. I took a picture of that.



We hurried on to the falls. Lots of trails and we wanted to see them all. We're training for a big hike. Seeing the Main Falls first is kind of unavoidable since they're right there when you come down the first trail. Lots of great vantage points spiraling thru steep staircases and winding paths. Very cool. I would build a longhouse here.






We headed down the river to check the Lower Gorge Falls, crossed some bridges, some bridges with strangely low weight restrictions for their size, and climbed a few rock formations. The paths were getting more rugged.






The next part of the trail was for hikers only, and that is us. I mean we had our new hiking shoes on and even had backpacks with water bottle pockets and carabiners attached. We were hikers. We stuck close to the river as to not get lost, and climbed ourselves thru the rocky terrain while we ate blowpops.





We were happy to see the man-made trail reappear, and knew we were close to the duet of Bridal Veils & Bridesmaids Falls. These were small but aesthetically pleasing sights nestled into the corners of rock formations. We liked them. We scouted places to build a longhouse.






We came to a fork called Peter's Corner. We could go south back to base camp or head east thru Pine Grove Forest and see some more falls. We chose more falls. And apparently were the only ones who did because we didn't see a soul between there and Pennel Falls. A good size falls, more flat ripples than straight drop, that flows just below a footbridge. Nice.




A tight path wove between two tall mountains and a running stream created quite a nice shady hike before we entered the heart of Pine Grove, where pine trees grew far as the eye could see, hence the name...






We arrived at the Upper Canyon, home to my favorite of the day, Laurel Glen falls. A system of bridges and walkways along the sides of the mountains make for a nice finale to these wonderous works of nature. Water flowed quickly towards the Main Falls from here and we stopped to take more than photos.






We were back at the beginning, but one more climb up the center of the falls would bring us to the Delaware Valley lookout, so how could we resist.







From atop the mountain we ate lunch and made another trip around thru Pennell Falls, thru the Pine Grove and across Laurel Glen. Another good day. We're 2 for 2.






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