Jim Thorpe & Hickory Run: Lehigh Gorge Trail, Whitewater & a Glacial Boulder Field

The Lehigh River through the gorge below Jim Thorpe runs Class II-III in spring and early summer when the Army Corps of Engineers releases water from the Francis Walter Dam upstream — the release schedule is predictable and posted weeks in advance by outfitters including Pocono Whitewater and Jim Thorpe River Adventures. The standard 12-mile full-day run descends through a gorge whose walls reach 1,200 feet above the river, past hemlock stands where bald eagles nest and through a series of named rapids. The gorge is roadless for most of its length, giving the river a wilderness character unusual for a two-hour drive from Philadelphia.

A 9-mile trail following the grade of the 1827 Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway — the first railroad in North America, originally built to haul coal from the Summit Hill mines down to the Lehigh Canal and later converted to an amusement gravity railroad that was one of the most popular tourist attractions in 19th-century America. The trail climbs above Jim Thorpe through mature oak-hickory forest on the original engineered grade, with river views from several open bluffs above the gorge. The switchback mechanism — counterweighted cars using gravity on the descent and mule power on the ascent — is explained at interpretive panels along the trail.

Three blocks of Race and Broadway streets in the former Mauch Chunk contain an extraordinary concentration of Victorian commercial architecture from the coal-boom years of 1850-1890. The Asa Packer Mansion (1861) is an Italian Renaissance Revival house built for the founder of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, preserved with its original furnishings and wallpapers and open for guided tours. Across the square, the Carbon County Courthouse is where ten Molly Maguires were hanged in 1877 after a trial whose fairness remains disputed by labor historians. St. Mark's Episcopal Church (1869) contains windows designed by Tiffany Studios that are considered among the finest ecclesiastical Tiffany glass in Pennsylvania.

A Carbon County park surrounding a 345-acre lake created in 1972 by damming Mauch Chunk Creek, with a 2-mile lakeside trail through second-growth hardwood forest, a swimming beach staffed by lifeguards in summer, and canoe and kayak rentals at the boathouse. The lake sits in a bowl of forested ridge, and the afternoon light on the water after the intensity of the morning's rafting makes the park feel like a different world — quiet, flat, and easy. Stand-up paddleboards are available from the boathouse for a late afternoon circuit of the lake.

The 26-mile Lehigh Gorge Trail follows the former Central Railroad of New Jersey grade through a 1,000-foot-deep gorge cut by the Lehigh River — widely regarded as the finest rail-to-trail conversion in Pennsylvania and among the best in the eastern United States. The trail surface is packed crushed limestone, virtually flat throughout (a 150-foot drop over 26 miles), with the Lehigh River running alongside on one side and vertical shale walls on the other. Beginners and casual cyclists ride the classic downstream shuttle from White Haven to Jim Thorpe — all downhill, 26 miles, four to five hours at a relaxed pace with stops at the waterfalls that cascade off the gorge walls every mile. Advanced cyclists do the full out-and-back from White Haven. Bike rentals and shuttle service available in Jim Thorpe.

A 16.8-acre expanse of sandstone and conglomerate boulders averaging two feet in diameter, deposited by periglacial solifluction processes during the last Ice Age approximately 20,000 years ago and designated a National Natural Landmark in 1967. The field is flat, treeless, and entirely plantless — no soil has formed in 20,000 years because the continuous freeze-thaw cycling of the seasonal frost zone prevents organic material from accumulating between the rocks. The experience of arriving at the boulder field is genuinely startling: a 1-mile trail through unremarkable second-growth forest ends without warning at the edge of a vast, open, gray expanse of rock that stretches to the tree line in every direction, with no explanation apparent from the ground. The boulders can be walked across, though the footing is irregular; the center of the field is the farthest any visitor gets from the surrounding forest.

Hickory Run's trail network includes the Sand Spring Trail, which leads through mature hemlock forest to a natural cold spring that maintains 48 degrees year-round and feeds a crystal-clear pool. Kitchen Creek, which runs through the main campground area, drops over a series of small falls accessible via a short walk from the parking area — modest compared to the boulder field but a pleasant contrast after hours on open rock. The park's 15,500 acres are quiet in the afternoon after the boulder field crowds thin out.