July 27, 2008
NEPA Waterfall Tour 2008
Pack a Picnic Lunch
Kickstands up at 9:00AM
This year’s North East
Pennsylvania Waterfall Tour will include three of my favorite falls; Dingmans; Raymondskill Falls
and Childs Park. Actually, each location has
multiple waterfalls and each require some hiking to view the falls and take
advantage of the beautiful natural surroundings…. bring a camera!
The ride will encompass 101 miles
of State Highway,
County Roads, ‘back road twistys’ and some Interstate Highway motoring. All roads are paved and in good condition.
The parking lots at two of the three waterfall venues are gravel. Total time of the ride is 6 ½ hours,
inclusive of our picnic lunch stop.
We will depart Legends at 9:00 sharp – motoring on State and
County Roads up through Newton, then on to Dingmans Ferry (it’s actually a
bridge, not a ferry, but hay, I didn’t make up the name). The bridge toll is One
Dollar. Once into Pennsylvania,
we will proceed to Dingmans
Falls. Dingmans is part
of the US National Park System and is the most accessible of the three falls we
will visit today. Bathroom facilities are available. The entire trek from the
parking lot is via board walk, level and very walkable. For the more
adventurous, there is a stairway to the top of the fall for a bird’s eye view
of the main falls. A short fide from Dingmans, Ramondskill Falls
is next. There are good bathroom facilities here and we will spend about one
hour touring the two main falls. The trails to view the falls are steep and
ruff – but the views are worth the hike.
Departing Raymondskill at 12:00,
we will arrive at Childs
Park by 12:20 where we will hike, tour the
numerous waterfall in the Park and we will partake in the picnic lunch you had packed for yourself. It is important you provided for you own
lunch, there are no snack bar / food facilities at this location (or the prior
two stops). Rest Room facilities are
also located here (porta-johns). We
will depart Childs
Park at 2:00 and motor to the Delaware Water
Gap Park and Ride, arriving about 2:45
for our final stop of the day (rest rooms). From here, it’s a 35 minute blast
down Rt. 80 back to Legends…. arriving where we began the day by 3:20, or so.
This ride is appropriate for experience
riders in good enough shape to enjoy hiking on steep trails. Bring a
lunch, water or drinks (non-alcoholic) and a camera – great photo
opportunities abound at the waterfall stops. There will be no gas or food
stops on this ride. (Sportsters with peanut tanks, make sure you top-off
before departing Legends).
Your Road Captain and Ride Leader
for this run is Al Engel assisted by
Fred and Tom.
August 3, 2008
Cabela’s Tour
Sunday, August 3rd,
The Legend’s HOG Group will ride to the World Famous Outfitter Retail Store Cabela’s
in Hamburg, Pennsylvania. The Hamburg Cabela’s store is a 250,000
square foot showroom offering everything a sportsman / hunter / fisherman /
camper might ever need or want to pursue these adventures. They offer a wide
selection of clothing and accessories and they have a great restaurant on site
offering camp and exotic foods at very reasonable prices. Included at the store are museum-quality
animal displays, huge aquariums and trophy animals interacting in realistic
re-creations of their natural habitats.
Cabela’s offers shipping of your purchases so you do not have to strap
that canoe you found on sale onto you bike for the ride home.
We will depart Legends at 9:00AM sharp. We will proceed via super slabs to Schocks
Harley Davidson and Exxon in Snydersville, Pa (40 miles – 45 minutes into the
ride) for a rest break and fuel (Sportsters may want to top off here – there
are few opportunities for fuel beyond this point for the next 60 miles). From Schocks we will run Pa back roads along
the northern slope of Blue
Mountain through Wind
Gap, Kunkletown. Little Gap, Palmerton, East Penn, New Ringgold, Echville and
Port Clinton before arriving at Cabela’s by 11:30AM. We will
allow 1 ½ to 2 hours for shopping dining and checkout the displays at Cabela’s.
We will plan on departing Cabela’s at 1:30, making fuel stop, and then jumping
on I-78 east for the blast down the super slab back to Legends (2 hour trip
back home) arriving back at Legends around 3:30. Total trip mileage is
approximately 200 miles.
This is a high speed ride. While the outbound leg will use many ‘back
roads’, these roads are rural, with speed limits of 55MPH through twisty (fun)
roads that may intimidate less experienced riders. The home run is on
Interstate 78 where the speed limit is 65 and to avoid becoming ‘speed bump’,
70 – 75 MPH is sometime ‘prudent’.