Delaware Water Gap, Jim Thorpe & Hawk Mountain: Gorges, Coal Towns & Raptor Migration

Two waterfalls connected by a 0.6-mile boardwalk through hemlocks — Silverthread Falls drops 80 feet as a thin ribbon over a sheer black cliff; Dingmans Falls at the trail's end is 130 feet, the second-tallest waterfall in Pennsylvania, over a horseshoe-shaped sandstone ledge. The hemlock forest surrounding the falls is old-growth (the hemlocks were not logged because their tannic acid-rich bark was used for leather tanning, not lumber); the boardwalk's engineering protects the root systems from foot traffic. Dingmans Creek maintains a cold microclimate that keeps the waterfall grotto cool even in August.

Mount Tammany (1,527 feet) on the New Jersey side of the Delaware Water Gap — the Red Dot Trail (4.0 miles round trip) climbs steeply from the gap's floor to the summit with increasingly dramatic views of the gap, the Delaware River, and Mount Minsi opposite in Pennsylvania. The gap itself is a water gap: the Delaware River predates the Kittatinny Ridge, and as the ridge was uplifted, the river maintained its course by cutting through the rising rock. The Appalachian Trail crosses the gap at river level and climbs both ridges; the section from the gap to Sunfish Pond (7 miles north on the NJ side) is the most walked section of AT in New Jersey.

A privately operated waterfall complex in the Pocono Mountains — eight falls on Bushkill Creek within a 2-mile network of trails, with the Main Falls (100 feet over a red sandstone ledge) the largest single drop. Called the 'Niagara of Pennsylvania,' though smaller, the complex has operated as a tourist attraction since 1904 and is the most visited natural attraction in the Poconos. The trail system ranges from a 15-minute out-and-back to the Main Falls to the 2-mile Bridal Veil Falls loop that covers all eight waterfalls.

A well-regarded dinner spot near Inn at Pocono Manor.

A historic 1902 resort in the Pocono Mountains with 150 rooms, golf, and mountain trails — one of the original Pocono resort properties that drew wealthy Philadelphians to the mountains before the automobile era. The Stroudsburg area has a wider selection of accommodations and restaurants; the Innkeeper's Table at the Manor is the best on-site dining option. Tomorrow's drive to Jim Thorpe takes 45 minutes south on I-80.

A Victorian anthracite coal town built into the steep walls of the Lehigh Gorge — originally called Mauch Chunk, the town was the shipping point for the entire anthracite coal region in the 1800s and became one of the wealthiest small cities in America. The Asa Packer Mansion (1860, the coal baron who founded Lehigh University) and the Harry Packer Mansion (1874, Romanesque Revival, said to be the model for the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland) survive on Millionaire's Row above the gorge. The town renamed itself Jim Thorpe in 1954 to attract the Olympic champion's burial and tourism — Thorpe's family sold the interment rights to the town when Thorpe's home state of Oklahoma refused to build a memorial.

An 18-mile rail trail along the Lehigh River in the gorge below Jim Thorpe — converted from the Central Railroad of New Jersey's 1867 mountain division, the trail runs from White Haven in the north to Jim Thorpe through a gorge of 1,000-foot forested walls with the Lehigh River (Class II–IV whitewater in spring) running alongside. The trail surface is crushed limestone; the section from Jim Thorpe south is flat and easy. The gorge's walls are composed of Pennsylvanian-period conglomerate and shale; the exposed rock faces on the upper gorge walls show the tilted coal seams that made the region's industrial fortune.

A steep, unmaintained gorge trail following Glen Onoko Run up a series of waterfalls above Jim Thorpe — three major falls (Onoko Falls at 60 feet, the middle falls, and the headwall) connected by a scramble up wet, rooted hillsides. The trail is not an official maintained park trail and requires careful footing in wet conditions; the payoff is a dramatic waterfall gorge in the hemlock canopy above the Lehigh Gorge. The lower falls near the Lehigh River are accessible from the rail trail; the upper falls require the steeper scramble. Best in spring when the full flow is running.

A well-regarded dinner spot near The Inn at Jim Thorpe.

An 1849 hotel in Jim Thorpe's Broadway historic district — New Orleans-style iron balconies on the front facade overlook Broadway's Victorian commercial buildings. The inn's dining room serves the best food in Carbon County; the town's historic district has several other independent restaurants. Tomorrow's drive to Hawk Mountain takes 50 minutes south and west on PA-61.

The world's first sanctuary for birds of prey — established in 1934 by ornithologist Maurice Broun after he documented the wholesale shooting of migrating hawks at the lookout (gunners would wait at the ridge top for the annual migration and shoot thousands of hawks per day). The sanctuary's North Lookout (a 0.9-mile walk up the Kittatinny Ridge) is the premier hawk-watching site in the eastern United States: in September and October, the ridge concentrates migrating Broad-winged Hawks, Sharp-shinned Hawks, and Cooper's Hawks funneled along the ridge line, with counts of 20,000+ Broad-wings in a single September day during peak migration. Bald Eagles and Golden Eagles pass through in October and November. The sanctuary has recorded continuous hawk counts since 1934, making it the longest uninterrupted raptor migration dataset in North America.

The South Lookout (2.0 miles round trip from the visitor center via the Lookout Trail) gives a southward view along the Kittatinny Ridge that is the best position to watch arriving hawks coming over the ridge from the south. The trail passes through mature Appalachian oak forest in the sanctuary's 2,600 protected acres; the Appalachian Trail crosses the sanctuary's north end. The visitor center's hawk-counting training programs on busy migration days allow visitors to participate in the official count.

The sanctuary's natural history museum covers raptor biology (the 16 hawk species regularly seen at the mountain, identification, and migration physiology), the history of the conservation movement (Hawk Mountain was a founding catalyst for raptor protection in North America — the Bald Eagle was nearly extinct when the sanctuary was established), and the 90-year dataset of annual counts. The museum's raptor mounted specimen collection allows close inspection of the size differences between Sharp-shinned and Cooper's Hawks, a notoriously difficult field identification. The gift shop has the strongest natural history book selection in the region. The drive back to Philadelphia takes approximately 1.5 hours south on I-78.