Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

About 15 minutes from Thousand Trails Timothy Lake Campgrounds is the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. This area is two hours from New York City and Philadelphia. It's a 40 mile river valley and is composed of almost 70,000 acres along the Middle Delaware River in PA and New Jersey. There are over 100 miles of trails in the park with easy boardwalk trails to challenging 1000 foot climbs, Sparky's kind of hike! (Glad the grandkids are here, says E. They are just not quite up to those kind of hikes.) :-) You are in the Pocono Mountains! The Appalachian Trail follow Kittatinny Ridge for 25 miles. There's a biking trail called the McDade Recreational Trail in PA. At the south end of the park, the river cuts an S shaped pass through the mountains, creating the Delaware Water Gap. The park has hundreds of waterfalls, and today we attempted to find two of them.

After getting some hazy directions, "it's about a mile hike" for Dingmans Ferry Falls from a park office volunteer and a map, Papa and Jeannie and the grandkids set out for the first falls' destination--Raymondskill Falls, the highest falls in Pennsylvania. It was supposed to be very close to the drive in road. We drove and drove, had to take a detour, and we never did find the small road that led back to the hike to the falls. And we didn't find it NOT because Sparky was navigating, just so you know! It was a detour that threw us off, plus no signs directing us to the falls from the detour. So, on to Dingmans Ferry Falls, our second destination. We walked and walked and came to a small set of cascades, a rushing brook, and we thought, this is it! Maybe the waterfalls have dried up over the summer.

But this wasn't Dingmans Ferry Falls...We didn't find that out until AFTER we came back from the mile hike total. We thought the falls were probably mostly dried up from the hot, dry summer Pennsylvania has had. They were, but what we saw still weren't the falls. Eldo insisted we hiked two miles today, but it was really only a mile according to a park ranger. But we won't tell the grandkids. So don't you tell! :-)

But it was still a nice little hike....Sparky got her feet wet....

We had a picnic lunch...Those kids really like to eat! We're not used to having three meals a day plus snacks, but they let us know they are! We got some better directions for some more falls for another hike tomorrow. Gotta wear these kids out so they go to bed earlier!