Day 2: Coal Country

Today's route brought me to the heart of Appalachia in eastern Pennsylvania. While clouds and a cool breeze in the Lehigh River Valley made for a pleasant morning, the heat and humidity again returned midday as I turned westward into Pennsylvania Coal Country.

As a center of American manufacturing at the beginning of the 20th century, the Lehigh River Valley and most of Pennsylvania were criss-crossed by railroads that have now been abandoned.  Like many states, Pennsylvania has converted these railway lines to gravel bike paths.  To avoid scaling the imposing Blue Mountain, I followed a rail trail along the river through the Lehigh gap since railroad tracks follow rivers to avoid excessive gradients.

West of the Lehigh Gap lies Pennsylvania coal country. Like coal producing regions elsewhere in Appalachia, this region features rusting and graying towns. Underground mining has given way to strip mining, but the coal economy continues to deteriorate as natural gas prices have fallen sharply due to fracking.  I passed south of Centralia - a ghost town with the longest burning underground coal fire.

Coal once fed the industrial economy in the region, fueling steel mills and shipyards down the Lehigh and Delaware rivers - a Silicon Valley in its time. My destination - Sunbury - featured the first building electrified by Thomas Edison, while another hardscrabble town enroute - Mahoney City - proudly noted its history as the birthplace of cable television.

Traffic on the highways was generally steady but shoulders and riding conditions were typically decent. There may be better routes for cyclists, but the route I mapped out seems serviceable.  In West Penn, PA, I stopped by a quaint bakery serving donut pudding - bread pudding made from custard donuts.  C&J's Doghouse in Mahoney City offered a nice and cheap bite for lunch and a chance to chat with the locals.

STAGE SUMMARY:

Starting Point - Bethlehem, PA

Ending Point - Sunbury, PA
Distance - 98.7 miles
Cumulative Distance - 219.1 miles
Vertical Elevation - 6147 feet

Counties - Northampton, Lehigh, Carbon, Schuylkill, Northumberland, PA

Wind - moderate crosswind