The Sugared Trail ...

“Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature’s darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees …”

                ~ John Muir

                      ~ 1838-1914

The peace of a beautiful winter afternoon is palpable on a January day along the snow sugared trail of the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail) that hugs the Kittatinny Ridge at Lehigh Gap.

In the shadow of the Kittatinny Ridge, also called Blue Mountain, The Lehigh Gap in Slatington, Pennsylvania, is a crossroads where the Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s trails connect two historic trails – the Appalachian Trail and the D&L Trail.

The Appalachian Trail, a foot path, follows the ridge on both sides of the Lehigh Gap, running 1,245 miles south to Georgia and 930 miles north to Maine. Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

But Memory Is An Autumn Leaf ...

“But memory is an autumn leaf that murmurs a while in the wind and then is heard no more.”

                ~ Kahlil Gibran

                      ~ 1883-1931

Like a fleeting memory, a solitary autumn leaf briefly rests next to the cascading waters of the Bushkill Creek in this long exposure shot I captured on a beautiful late October afternoon in Henry’s Woods at Jacobsburg State Park, which spans between Wind Gap and Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

Jacobsburg offers environmental education programs from the preschool environmental awareness programs to high school level environmental problem solving programs, historical programs, teacher workshops and public interpretive programs. Once the site where the famous Henry Rifle was made, the Jacobsburg National Historic District lies almost entirely within the park. Henry’s Woods offers very scenic hikes and the rest of the center grounds have multi-use trails.

The park surrounds the Bushkill Creek.

The original land for the center was purchased by the Department of Forests and Waters from the City of Easton in 1959. In 1969, additional land was purchased using funds from Project 70. This brought the total land area of the center to its present size of 1,168 acres.

Little Parson Brown ...

“… In the meadow we can build a snowman

Then pretend that he is Parson Brown

He’ll say, are you married?

We’ll say, no man

But you can do the job

When you’re in town …”

                ~ “Winter Wonderland”

        ~ music by Felix Bernard,

              lyrics by Richard B. Smith

                             ~ 1934

“Winter Wonderland” is a winter song, popularly regarded as a Christmas song. Through the decades it has been recorded by over 200 different artists.

Just like a Little Parson Brown, this miniature snowman that I saw a little boy make sits in front of the Springhouse on one of the stone bridges at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania on November 17, 2018, two days after the season’s first snowfall. The pre-Thanksgiving snowfall blanketed the region with eight inches of snow.

This log cabin was part of Springhouse, the summer home of General Harry C. Trexler (1854-1933) an American industrialist who built a business empire in Allentown. The park is his namesake.

I presented the image in sepia to enhance the nostalgic feel.