Deth

It’s November and Molly had off from work. The weather was extremely mild for November with temperature in the mid-70s on a sunny day with the humidity crashing.

We’ve been wanting to check out the bridge since it opened, connecting the north and south part of the rail trail. We figured there’d be a great view, and there was. With today’s weather, We couldn’t have picked or asked for a better day with the high getting so nice and the sky being so clear. It was a shorts kind of day to be out in the sun for our walk.

We got to the parking area and saw how high the bridge was, and it’s high. I knew that, but didn’t realize just how far up it is. My quick little research says that it’s 150 feet high and 1560 feet long. It’s the third-highest trestle bridge in Pennsylvania.

When we got up to the top of the hill and on the bridge, the first thing we had to do was go across it. Even if there wasn’t a cache on the far side, we would have done that. The view from up there was outstanding. This was looking back upstream on the Conestoga River.

While I am not One of those people that’s all about patriotism all the time and waving flags for everything, I always think it’s great to see flags. They had them on the bridge and I really liked the way the sun was shining from behind and back lightning this one with the river and river hills in the background.

This was the view looking downstream from the Safe Harbor Dam which is just slightly upstream on the Susquehanna river from the mouth of the Conestoga River which is just under the trestle. What a clear day it was.

There were several benches along the rail trail, and we took some time to sit on one, just enjoying the view and the sunshine. We kept hearing Sirens over at the dam and were hoping they were going to release water, but didn’t see anything. Below us was an island in the Susquehanna River.

As always, along the river hills there were hawks and eagles soaring along the hills and above us. We caught this one sitting on top of the AMTRAK power pole.

It was fascinating to see all the cliffs along this section. They really blasted through a lot of rock when they built this line, and thy really didn’t even use it for that long after it was done when you consider the amount of effort that was put into it. Southern Lancaster County is rugged. Not the farm land like people think of when they think of the Amish tourist trap area. It’s such a great area to explore, but there are so few roads to get around down here.

There are plenty of signs of climbers using the rocks for their climbing. I can’t say I can blame them, either. I always wanted to learn to rock climb but with my vision common sense says that wouldn’t end well.