Welcome back to National Parks and other public lands with T!

Upper Delaware➤

The National Park Service manages the stretch of the Delaware from Hancock to Sparrowbush, NY. This runs about 73 miles and falls under the Wild and Scenic River System. The park controls the flow of the water which makes the Upper Delaware recreational, not wild.

I attended a meet-up here with the National Park Travelers Club. The NPTC has over 2000 paid members nationwide, all who share a passion for visiting the 425 NPS units.  The club arranged for a park ranger to give a tour of the bridge and the Zane Grey museum.

Roebling’s Aqueduct➤

The NPS also maintains Roebling’s Delaware Aqueduct/Bridge on the Upper Delaware. It is the oldest wire suspension bridge in the USA. John A. Roebling built it in 1847. Roebling is best known for building the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Delaware Aqueduct used the same engineering principles as the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Aqueduct was built to carry the Delaware and Hudson Canal across the Delaware River. The canal was built in 1828 to carry coal from mines in Northeastern Pennsylvania to New York City. The canal was abandoned in 1898 when the railroad became a more efficient means of transportation.

Ranger Tour➤

Our tour began at the D&H Towpath Trail on the New York side of the river. The towpath was once used by mules to help the canal boats move downstream. It now passes under the bridge and past the remnants of a half-mile stretch of the old canal.

Next we followed the ranger past the old toll house. Now is a museum, it houses displays about life on the canal.

We crossed the bridge on the southern pedestrian walk. Then we returned on the northern walk, trying to imagine what it had looked like filled with water. 

When the park purchased the bridge, they restored it to its original appearance. As an exception, they installed a concrete road bed to safely accommodate a single lane of traffic. It had already been converted from aqueduct to bridge after the end of the canal days, but with timbers. These rotted out and actually collapsed under the weight of a truck crossing the bridge.

At each display, the ranger paused to point out features like the steel cable used to suspend the bridge and the ice breakers designed to protect the structure from ice floes in the spring.

Back on the New York side of the river, the ranger pointed out some ruins across the street that were from the old canal. State highway 97 follows the path the canal once took, parallel to the Delaware River.

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Location: Lackawaxen, PA
Designation: National Scenic & Recreational River
Date designated/established: 1978
Date of my visit: July 18, 2018